Dr. John W. Kleinig
Professor Emeritus, Luther Campus
Adelaide, Australia
Elm Grove Lutheran Church– Elm Grove, Wisconsin
September 8, 2018
Dr. John W. Kleinig, Professor Emeritus at Luther Campus, Adelaide, Australia is renowned the world over as a scholar, pastor, and an engaging and inspiring Bible teacher. His many published works include two Bible Commentaries in the Concordia Commentary Series, Leviticus (2003) and Hebrews (2017). His acclaimed book Grace Upon Grace (2008), equips people for confident, joy-filled Christian living.
At the seminar, Dr. Kleinig will preview some of the themes from his forthcoming book: Wonderfully Made: Seeing Our Bodies as God Sees Them. His book, expected sometime later this year, will present a Lutheran theology of the body, extolling the biblical view of the human body under the following chapter headings:
- The Created Body: Personal Embodiment
- Our Makeover: The Redemption of the Body
- The Spiritual Body: Dying and Rising with Christ
- Sexual Embodiment: Sex with a Good Conscience
The Purpose of this Seminar:
With the legal redefinition of marriage, the confusion regarding gender, and rapidly changing sexual mores in society, biblical singles, couples, and parents are looking for guidance in articulating and promoting a positive view of the Christian vision for marriage and sexuality. Our goal is to equip people with the tools to speak constructively and to live confidently amid the current confusion.
PDF NOTES:
1. Dr. John W. Kleinig
John Kleinig opens the 2018 Doxology Insight event “Male and Female He Made Them” by grounding Christian sexuality in creation and redemption. He argues from Genesis 1-2 that God assigns sex and gender, not the individual, and that marriage was instituted before the fall for companionship and one-flesh union. The second half traces Christ’s incarnation from conception through ascension as the redemption of bodily life, with baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper as the means by which Christ’s body physically sanctifies the Christian body, drawing on Luther’s teaching on the embodied Word. Watch the lecture and read the transcript →
2. The Great Mystery – The Marriage Bed Undefiled
John Kleinig lectures from Hebrews 13:4, 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Timothy 4, and Ephesians 5, arguing that holy matrimony is not traditional marriage but a state sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. He defines the biblical category of porneia in its Old and New Testament senses, distinguishing it from moral self-improvement and tracing its root in pornographic desire, then shows that sexual purity comes through Word and Sacrament. The final section reads Ephesians 5’s nuptial typology, Christ cleansing and presenting the church as his bride, as the ground for baptismal sanctification of the body, with thanksgiving as the proper fruit. Watch the lecture and read the transcript →
3. Living Sexually as Lights in a Dark World
John Kleinig surveys the wreckage of the post-1960s sexual revolution and argues that Christian marriages and celibate singles serve as visible counter-witnesses in a disordered society. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 6, Philippians 2, the Large Catechism, and the early church historian Kyle Harper, he locates chastity not in physical virginity but in purity of heart, showing how the blood of Christ restores the sexually defiled and how bodily holiness anticipates the resurrection. Watch the lecture and read the transcript →
4. Dialogue and Applications
Dr. John Kleinig takes questions from participants following his lecture series on Christian marriage at Doxology’s 2018 Insight event. He addresses cohabitation through Walter Trobisch’s Genesis 2 framework of leaving, cleaving, and one-fleshing; pastoral options after Obergefell regarding state marriage licensure; celibate friendship and singleness in the church; arranged marriage; and pornography’s damage to marital sexuality. The session closes on 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul frames sexual sin as desecration of the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Watch the lecture and read the transcript →