Bliss, ecstasy and joy are supposed to mark our new and renewing life in Jesus. Some call it the joy revolution but because I’m such a miserable so-and-so most of the time, it’s an emphasis I have struggled with it. Coming under the Lordship of Jesus, however, has to mean more than just a ‘new obedience’ as Moltmann refers to it.

The danger Moltmann sees in only emphasising the lordship of Jesus when thinking of the resurrection is that we will have a one sided view of him, partly based on our misconceptions about the word ‘lord’ and its dominating connotations. But there is a life-giving aspect to the resurrected Jesus that we must also emphasise because in his transfiguration he became the ‘Lord of Glory’. Our new life in him as Lord cannot just be seen as a ‘new obedience’ therefore, and we must be careful that we do not slip under a new form of legalism with this one-sided view. Moltmann says, ‘These aesthetic categories [joy, ecstasy] of the resurrection are part of the new life; without them the imitation of Christ and the new obedience would become a joyless legalistic task.’ (109)

While many have struggled with what people like Dave Vaughn and Justin Abraham have been up to, maybe we need to give them a little more credit for they seem to have uncorked some of that bliss in Cymru.

This post forms part of a series on Jurgen Moltmann theology of the church based on his volume ‘The Church in the Power of the Spirit’.