Desert Hesychasm treasures the Book of Revelation as apocalyptic prophecy revealing Name hallowing mysteries of glorification in the Kingdom of God, including the Spirit’s unceasing prayer of the Name that glorifies God the Holy Trinity, God’s God-centred glorification of God. The Apocalypse has never failed to attract a vast plethora of contradictory interpretations over the centuries, perhaps because glorification, not to mention purification and illumination, are not widely understood or lived out in practice. The Seer of the Apocalypse saw so far ahead of the conventions of mainstream first-century Christianity, mediaeval Christendom and modern post-christian spirituality, it has often been difficult to bring to the Book of Revelation an intelligible hermeneutic, grounded in the purifying practice of illuminating Christian wisdom. On the other hand, the Apocalypse evidently inspired many ancient liturgies and gave rise to many ancient doxologies and wisdom odes, not to mention the Cherubic Hymn itself.
Consequently, the Apocalypse was possibly the least understood Scriptural text of the whole Bible, perhaps because Name hallowing glorification was itself rarely understood or practiced. Moreover, since glorification was often regarded as the conditioned product of a long temporal process of purification and illumination, notions of temporal development were imposed that could make no sense of timeless awakening. Causal thinking saw glorification as a far-off, distant event that had nothing to do with ordinary monastic life, so the Book of Revelation was reduced to an incoherent amalgam of confused speculation, uncertain prediction, threatening thunder and shattering lightening, without intelligible context or coherent subtext. Hesychast wisdom rarely had the opportunity to realise glorification was the key to Revelation’s richly textured meanings, as it was to its manifold eschatological levels of meaning, because it was normally obliged to concentrate on elementary introductions to Hesychasm or to the Jesus Prayer, not on the profound symbolism inherent in mystical prophecy, as found in the Book of Revelation.
Glorification in the Apocalypse is the fulfilment of the Lord’s Prayer, Name-hallowing enthronement of God in his Kingdom. The seven seals, the seven trumpets and the seven bowls are all about how God’s Kingdom comes in glory by undoing the vanities that usurp God, inverting the satanic inversions that parody God, restoring all glory to God. The seals, the trumpets and the bowls all issue from the midst of the throne, as does the glory that unseats fake gods that usurp God. The Apocalyptic theophany of the throne (Rev 4:1-11) is the revelation of glory that dethrones all counterfeit parodies of glory. The seventh seal, the seventh trumpet and the seventh bowl are all God’s Kingdom come, envisioned, as on Mount Sinai, with thunderous lightening, manifesting God’s Thrice Holy Name. (Rev 4:5,8). Satanic separation and diabolic division were both extinguished when idolatrous confusion was done away by glorification from the throne.
The Chistophany of the slaughtered Lamb (Rev 5:1-14) is also glorification from the midst of the throne, a glorification of God, not of something other than God being confused with God. All mysteries of glorification in Christ are deifying throne mysteries, radically restoring glory to God. Deification in Christ purifies hearts from self-divinizing delusions and frees them from every autocratic political oppression spawned by such delusion. The slaughtered Lamb establishes God’s Kingdom on earth as it is always established in heaven. He is the glorification that restores creation anew, turning hearts to illumine them, so they can see. The Book of Revelation opens mysteries of glorification to seers who see as they are seen. It reveals God’s answer to the Lord’s Prayer, which is God himself, revealed in his Name, restoring glory to God by transfiguring all things through God. The Name reintegrates all that resists God so that all may turn, all may see, all may acknowledge God in his Name and all may dwell with God in their midst (Rev 21:3). Here, the prophetic seer transmits glorification that fulfils the prophecies of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37:27-28) and of Zechariah (Zechariah 2:10-11). God is ‘I AM’ indwelling all peoples as his people, so that as his seers, in mysteries of glorification, they are his beloved saints, blessed in his Name. To enthrone God with wisdom is to share in God’s mysterious enthronement, awakening deifying glorification. Glorification in the Apocalypse is saying: God is glory in our midst, revealing his glory in his midst, restoring glory to God in the midst, where the two are one.