Chapter 5: The Sexual Body
When reading this chapter, or beginning any conversation about sexuality, we should all begin as Kleinig begins this chapter, “As long as I am blind to my own sexual sins against God and my own wife (and other women!) [or husband and other men], I will not be able to assess the sexual behavior of others as truthfully and compassionately as Christ does.” Thus, Kleinig’s main goal in this chapter “is both to teach God’s law in order to show his good and gracious will for us in sexual matters, so that we all repent of our sexual sinfulness, and to proclaim his gospel, by which he provides cleansing from the taint of sin and justification for sexual sinners like me” (pp. 148-149). Because the Law is impartial to whom it condemns, both liberals and conservatives alike will be offended by what follows. And because the Gospel is likewise impartial to whom it delivers the forgiveness of sins, forgiveness of any sexual sin is available in Christ Jesus our Lord.
On that note of God’s impartial Law, Kleinig begins right away with biblical truth that will offend liberal-minded people—that the words we use to describe sex (and gender) cannot undo God’s order of creation:
Like magicians, the advocates of reconstructed sexuality fancy that they can change people sexually by getting them to use the words that match their sexual fantasies. While these ways of speaking may describe certain kinds of sexual behavior, they misconstrue our actual, God-given sexuality… [W]e cannot use words to remake our selves according to the image that we, as women and men, have of ourselves or that others have of us. Nor can we deconstruct what God has built into the very nature of our biological bodies and imprinted on them genetically by some linguistic sleight of hand with talk about alternate sexes, different sexual orientations, gender spectrum, or self-chosen identity. God has made us in his image and wishes to remake us in his image, and speak the truth about the devastation of our sexual bodies by the fall and their damaged condition since then.
p. 151
One aspect of that damaged condition of our sexual bodies is the perverted orientation toward same-sex attraction and the delusion that your gender is something other than what God has given you at birth. We don’t get to define what our sexual identity is, even in our vain efforts to do so with words (e.g., preferred pronouns that don’t match your biological sex, “non-binary,” “gender fluid,” “gender variant,” etc.). Kleinig uses Genesis 2 to make this point when Adam gave names to the animals and his wife (i.e., he used words):
After God had made Adam’s wife, Adam first describes her generically as a “woman” in contrast with himself as a “man” (Gen 2:23), and then names her with her proper name as “Eve,” the mother of all living people (Gen 3:20). Yet by naming the animals and his wife, Adam does not make them, nor does he remake them. He identifies what they are and how they differ from each other and him. Most significantly, Adam does not name himself. The Lord God does that for him… So, if we Christians wish to speak truthfully about our sexuality and portray its beauty, we must speak about it as God does, no matter how hard that may be in a world in which people fancy that they can remake themselves and reconstruct their bodies as they please.
p. 152
Speaking truthfully on how God speaks about sexuality as Christians, Kleinig begins with chastity, which is sexual purity that “has to do with sexual reservation for spousal intimacy and fidelity in marriage” (p. 152). This means chastity will look different depending on your vocation and, therefore, is not to be equated with physical virginity as we normally think of it. For example, a chaste single person will abstain from sex before marriage. A chaste married person will hold sexual fidelity to his or her spouse alone.
To this, someone may ask, “I’m not married yet. So, what if I’ve already lost my virginity?” First of all, “lost” is a bad descriptor. You didn’t lose it; you gave it away. (This, of course, excludes rape, which robs the victim not just of their virginity and purity but also their innocence and security, among other things.) Once you give your virginity away, you cannot get it back. On the other hand, as Kleinig says, “sexual chastity, when forfeited, can be regained and then even extended from mere physical purity to mental and spiritual purity” (p. 153). This happens via Confession & Absolution, which we’ll get to a little later.
Kleinig spends the next few pages delineating chastity according to biblical purviews that are worth reading on your own. I wish to turn to Kleinig’s coverage speaking about human sexuality through the poetical lens of the Song of Solomon. Earlier in the chapter, Kleinig notes that we have three usual erroneous ways of talking about sex. The first is “the shocking discourse of crude vulgarity that barely disguises its disgust at sex by giving an ugly account of it” (i.e., prudery), the second is “the technical, anatomical language of medical discourse,” and the third is “the graphic depiction of sexual activity in pornography” (p. 150).
The correct way to talk about sex, Kleinig argues, “is done with the lyrical poetry of the Song of Songs” (p. 150). He expertly explains this inspired Word of God as follows:
Most amazingly, the garden of love is the body of the wife rather than a place apart from her (4:12-15). Yet the lover, her husband, is not its gardener. Even though it is his garden and he is a king, he does not own it (4:16; 5:1; 6:2). Like a locked house, she holds the key that gives him access to it (4:12). He visits it as the guest of his beloved bride, and only at her invitation (4:16b; cf. 5:2-5). [This notion will probably upset conservatives who say the husband owns his wife’s body rather than her giving her body to him freely.]
…The Song of Songs also focuses on the place of the five physical senses in its view of nuptial love. It begins with the longing of the bride to be kissed by her love (1:2) and ends with his desire to hear her voice (8:13)… Nuptial love engages the ears of a married couple in an ongoing, intimate conversation that is both physical and mental, emotional and personal (2:8-15; 8:13). It engages the eyes in seeing and being seen, in visual intimacy and visual enjoyment (4:1-7; 5:10-16). It engages the hands in embracing and being embraced, caressing and being caressed (2:6; 8:3). It engages the nose with the enjoyable aroma of each other’s bodies and the sweet fragrance of their desire (1:12-14; 4:10; 7:8). It engages the lips and the tongue in kissing and being kissed (1:3), tasting and being tasted (4:11; 5:1; 7:6-10)… Thus, while nuptial love is intensely physical, it is, or at least should be, also equally emotional and personal.
pp. 158-160
In the pages that follow, Kleinig continues his discussion on the beauty of sexual expression in marriage, but I want to jump to his conversation on sexual desire. As a pastor—and especially as a campus pastor—young college students will talk to me about their struggles with sexual attraction. While these conversations seldom include same-sex attraction, they more often have to do with the concept of simple sexual desire for the opposite sex. They often wonder, “Am I sinning when I have a sexual desire for my boyfriend/girlfriend?” The quick and resounding answer I give them is no.
As Kleinig also argues, I tell them just as sexual intercourse in marriage is a good gift from God, so sexual desire—a.k.a., sexual attraction—generally speaking, is a good gift from God. God created sex and He also created sexual desire. As Philip Melanchthon wrote in the Apology to the Augsburg Confession, “the natural desire of one sex for the other sex is an ordinance of God in nature. For this reason it is right; otherwise why would both sexes have been created” (Ap XXIII, 12)? In other words, sexual desire for the opposite sex is normal and natural; it’s built into God’s natural order of creation. Consider Adam’s immediate reaction to Eve; he was immediately attracted to her and absolutely enthralled by her beauty and unique distinction from him.
However, sexual desire must be distinguished from lust, which came as a result of the Fall of Man. “Lust is a disordered, possessive desire, the self-centered desire for personal sexual gratification at the expense of another person. In the long run, lust actually diminishes and damages sexual desire, which, by its very nature, can be fleeting and is often wayward” (p. 168). Both men and women can equally suffer with lust, but with men it’s usually the women who are blamed for the man’s lust, which is an absolutely atrocious perspective. Rather, “The source of lust is not the sexual attractiveness of a woman or a man. It does not come from the look of a person, but from the heart of an onlooker who surveys another person as a sexual object” (pp. 168-169).
Therefore, before the bad behaviour can be stopped, the heart first needs to change, which is nothing other than repentance, as we’ll see in a moment. “Jesus dramatizes the severity of the problem by describing that change as a kind of amputation” (p. 169). The eye needs to be plucked out, or the hand cut off. This is, of course, hyperbolic pedagogy rather than literal suggestions. Jesus uses such hyperbole to convey the urgency of completely removing the sin from your life. Yet, as Kleinig aptly notes, “Self-discipline cannot perform the required surgery on the heart and mind. Only Christ can do that. He alone can create a new heart and renew a right spirit in us (Ps 51:10)” (p. 169). How does Christ go about surgically removing this sin from our lives? As we consider living by example rather than by argument, I can surmise three things from the end of the chapter.
The first is the same as discussed in the previous chapter: daily baptism, which is done through daily prayer and repentance. “We do so by daily confession of sin and daily prayer for the Holy Spirit. By daily contrition and repentance, the old self with its wrong sexual misdeeds and evil sexual desires must be drowned off, so that the Holy Spirit can raise up a new self to live before God in righteousness and purity, a new self with good sexual desires and right sexual behavior” (p. 170). Again, see Luther’s morning and evening prayers your Small Catechism to pray every single day as this daily baptism/repentance.
There is a secondary part to this as well, which Kleinig once again suggests is regularly attending the Divine Service and doing daily devotions:
In fact, public worship provides the best kind of sexual therapy for us as God’s children, since by our participation in it we gain a good conscience that prevents guilt from impairing the proper enjoyment of sexual intercourse in marriage or destroying our contentment with our unmarried state. The baptismal therapy of our daily devotions, in which we confess our sins and receive the assurance of forgiveness from God’s word, builds on what we receive in worship.
p. 170
The second way to live by example is not only by completely shunning pornography and “pornographic fantasies,” among other sexual sins, but also seeking good pastoral care. “Pastors must offer private confession and absolution to cleanse the guilty conscience from the stain of pornography” and other sexual sins (p. 174).
The last thing is, if you’re married, sexual admiration of your spouse, especially as it is expressed verbally. Kleinig returns to the Song of Solomon to develop this third way of living by example. In this poem, “both the husband and wife address their spouse with words of admiration and praise,” particularly in two separate poems within the book (p. 174). These can be observed first from the husband’s admiration of his wife’s body in 4:1-5 and 7:1-5, and then the wife’s admiration of her husband’s body in 5:10-16. “These poems help a husband and wife use their imagination to appreciate each other sexually and to show their appreciation with outspoken admiration” (p. 175).
So, for those of you who are spouses, tell your husband/wife how much you love their body! Tell them they look beautiful or handsome! Flirt with each other! Show your appreciation for their body in how you touch each other! Write poetry! (I do that all the time for my wife.) Tell them what you like about their body! For example, “I love your soft skin as smooth as velvet.” “Looking into your starry eyes is like looking out into the galaxies of the universe.” “I love the taste of your lips,” and so on.
As this chapter ends on sexual admiration of your spouse’s body, it sets the stage for the second to last chapter: the spousal body.
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