Christ unveils the heart of regenerative prophecy to the desert by giving glory to God in the midst of death, opening the seal of prophetic witness to glorification, which is radical, doxological prayer in the heart. Radix means root, hence, the prayer of the Spirit in the heart is radical because it uproots what is not of God, to root us in God. This revelation of self-emptying glorification has universal scope, being revelation of the uncreated light of glory to every tribe, language, people and nation (Rev 5:8). Martyred desert prophecy opens glorification within every tradition, culture, religion and wisdom, whilst radical prayer unveils the Spirit’s priestly intercession for all as God’s reign of glory. Glorified saints reign with God through God’s glorification of God, inspired by regenerative prophecy lived as radical prayer in awakened hearts. Blessing ascribes wisdom and glory to God, dethroning the ruling powers of fallen worlds, bearing radical witness to right-glorification of God, which is the ineffable wisdom of Holy Orthodoxy. Undegenerate angels and saints are not subjected by ruling powers of oppression, fame and money, any more than genuine apostles and prophets are subjected to ruling ideologies of corrupted conformism and dissipating consumerism. Shallow religion, however, sees only the external surfaces and literal expressions, whilst narrow religion idolises the literal externals which usurp the glorification of God. These degenerations of sacred tradition fall far short of the glory of holy glorification, retaining religion’s outer form whilst betraying the heart of right-glorification. Regenerative prophecy diagnoses these degenerations so that radical prayer of the Spirit in the heart may penetrate the roots of degeneration with the radical insight of glory, regenerating the roots of degeneration with the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Prophecy withdrew elders and saints into a desert wilderness when the Emperor Constantine adopted the Cross as Rome’s imperial insignia, sustaining the catalytic witness of red martyrdom with the white martyrdom of desert saints, refusing to compromise with the idolatries of power, fame and money which dominate imperial, ruling powers. Prophecy in desert solitude kept faith with the radical traditions of Old Covenant prophecy by refining it in the invisible furnaces of radical prayer. Although the shallows generally stifle prophecy and the narrows asphyxiate spiritual prayer, the desert bears unbroken witness in the Spirit to Christ the slaughtered Lamb. When the Church gives its ‘Amen’ to the witness of angels and saints, it retains an unbroken link with the cruciform witness of the slaughtered Lamb, but when it persecutes Hesychasts and oppresses saints, it makes manifest to the whole world that it has lost touch with Christ’s mysteries of the Cross, mysteries hallowing the heart. Desert elders call out to the world to turn and see, imparting wisdom that glorifies God. When the Church canonises saints, it indicates that at heart it has not forgotten the wisdom and glory of the slaughtered Lamb, doxological rectitude or the paradoxical glory of white martyrdom. Shepherds of wisdom gather a ‘foolish’ few in the desert to represent a numberless multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language, bearing witness to an invisible reign of cruciform glory, hidden with Christ in God but revealed to wisdom that turns and sees. It bears witness that salvation belongs to the glorified Name, that the mysteries of enthronement and crowning are intrinsic to glorification, that blessing derives from the wisdom and glory of Name-hallowing. The ‘Amen’ that acknowledges the power and the glory of Orthodox right-glorification, recognises and glorifies God when the deifying cruciformly of God’s Son is remembered through his Name, as in the Jesus Prayer.
Great tribulation repeats itself again and again in generation after generation, but the prophecy and prayer of the saints glorify God night and day, grounded in the martyred witness of the slaughtered Lamb, who shepherds his slaughtered lambs safely into his fold. Christ opens wisdom springs of life-giving water in the midst, transfiguring tears of tribulation into tears of heart-piercing joy. Rainbow light crowns those whom glory enthrones, opening neglected scrolls of forgotten prophecy, renewing glorification of God that restores prayer of the heart by which God glorifies his saints. Christ is the measure of his incommensurate mysteries, inviting seers to come and see as God sees them, to love as God loves them. When elders witness Christ opening his scrolls of desert prophecy, they themselves are subsumed by the prophecy that they consume, imparting regenerative prophecy and radical prayer to his saints. Bitter to the taste of shallow, narrow opinion, the words of the Word are sweet as honey to the hearts of saints. Christ measures the temple of the awakened heart of saints, calling them to arise with him into the light of his ineffable glory. The powers rage but are overthrown as the reign of God is revealed, vindicating regenerative prophecy and confirming radical prayer. When heavens open, the throne of glory is revealed and saints are crowned, revealed by Christ in his glorification. Wisdom clothed in uncreated light reveals her crown of twelve stars, unveiling her radiant glory (Rev 12:1). She gives birth in the Spirit to Christ’s martyred prophets, priests and kings in light of glory, uniting angels in heaven with saints on earth in an earthly heaven conjoined with a heavenly earth.
Wisdom bears witness to the glory of the Name among white martyrs from every tribe, people, language and nation, taking demonic captivity captive as she goes. She speaks in the language of each culture, renewing prophecy in different imaginal realms, awakening prayer of the heart in every nation. Glorification is timeless in its purifying illumination for those who awaken to timeless wisdom, but presents a temporal progression to those who are still viewing timeless glory from the standpoint of chronological time. Timeless wisdom beholds an Eternal Gospel (Rev 14:6), whereas temporal ways and means see only a temporal gospel, although both bear witness to wisdom and glory in every nation, tribe, language and people. Parochial trends in the desert have not always risen to the timeless wisdom and universal scope of the Book of Revelation, but desert saints have always prayed for the whole world, inspired by the Spirit’s ineffable witness and by the universal embrace of Christ the slaughtered Lamb. Glorification is experience of judgment in the timeless presence of glory, so when ‘future’ judgment is recognised to be timelessly present, it is already discerned and assimilated in the presence of God through wisdom’s deifying awareness. The hour of judgment is deifying glorification, which exposes the time-bound deceptions of delusion and the space-bound desolations of division, unveiling God’s timeless God-centred glorification of God that regenerates vain-glorious degeneration.
Wisdom sings of wondrous liberation springing from glorification of God’s Name. Desert elders repair broken souls and shattered worlds with glorification, curing vainglory with a cloud of blessed unknowing. The cloud and the glory are two paradoxical expressions of one mystery but appear separate until the eye of the heart awakens. Glory appears obscured by a cloud of unknowing but wisdom through light of glory dissolves the cloud from every last trace of obscuration, transforming glory, from cloud of glory, into glory. Delusion occurs but has no substance whilst deception lures but is vacuous in its vanity. Confusion intrudes but cannot separate what communion conjoins. Division exhausts itself, transforming into union. Judgment sorts through what confusion distorts, releasing wisdom into glory. The Great ‘Amen’ releases profanity into the beauty of holiness, for the marriage of the Lamb blesses self-emptying poverty with ineffable mysteries of glory. The martyred testimony of prophecy is sustained by the martyred Spirit of pure prayer, both of which are trustworthy and true, like the Word of God, severing confusion from communion. False prophecy is prophecy deceived by ruling, worldly powers, whereas the true spirit of prophecy disempowers prevailing deceptions in the flame of radical prayer. The throne of mercy is founded on a rock of glory, whose wisdom-springs release seven demonic hells into seven angelic heavens, empowering purification of hells, illumination in hallowing heavens and deifying glorification.
The Name is burning cruciformity, uncreated, purifying fire, uncreated light of dazzling illumination and uncreated glory restoring glory to God with God’s glorifying glorification of God. The Name saves by raising the dead from deadly death into eternal life, renewing heaven on earth and earth in heaven. The Spirit indwells hearts in the midst, hallowing the Name, curing death by subjecting death to the hallowing death of Christ, rising in glory with Christ into his glorious resurrection. Desert wisdom renews regenerative prophecy to root the heart in radical prayer, uprooting deception to plant deep roots in the Spirit’s prayer of the heart. Curses lift as blessing descends, communicating the Beatitudes. Spiritual poverty is blessed with a reign of glory. Spiritual mourning is blessed by a comforting Paraclete. Spiritual gentleness is blessed with a hallowed earth. Spiritual rectitude is blessed with completeness. Spiritual mercy is blessed with ineffable mercy and spiritual purity of heart is blessed with the vision of God. Peace-making partakes, by the grace of filiation, in the ineffable peace of God, peace that deifies angels and glorifies saints. Persecuted martyrs are blessed by the glory that their death’s unveil, bearing witness by their suffering to the reign of wisdom and glory (Mt 5:3-12).
Prophecy was persecuted under the Old Covenant and is also persecuted under the New, which is far ‘older’ than the old, being the timeless Covenant of wisdom and glory. The wisdom of regenerative prophecy enlightens all worlds with ageless glory, glory that transfigures radical prayer in the ineffable depths of its ageless roots. Timeless blessing descends, as glory, to wed ascending wisdom in the heart, the hallowed place of grace that gives wisdom her blessed dwelling-place. Regenerative prophecy weds radical prayer here in this place of grace, renewing the degenerate imagination in the uncreated ground of all imaginal realms. Radical prayer puts down ineffable roots here, opening intercession, through the Spirit’s witness, to God’s glorification of God, the glorification of the Father by the Son. This radical, doxological prayer renews all worlds and ages, being the prayer of God’s own glorification of God through God in Holy Trinity. Nothing can separate the deified heart from this radical mystery and nothing can insinuate confusion into the heart of uncreated glory to cause separation. For this is God’s holy sanctuary, his Holy of Holies, his Bridal Chamber and Holiest of all hallowing holy places. Of course, temptations can penetrate the fallen, human heart seeking temporal ways and means to a future union with God, but not the ineffable, timeless heart of Christ, ever-present in God’s midst. Regenerative prophecy re-orientates imaginal realms so that radical prayer can put down deeper roots, renewing ageless wisdom amidst the strains and stresses of each passing age, restoring in age after age the glory of wisdom’s timeless witness to mysteries of deifying glorification.