The question on the back cover of Wonderfully Made by Australian Lutheran scholar John Kleinig is both timely and practical: Why do we have bodies? As issues of identity and sexuality continue to swirl around us, and as more and more aspects of life are drawn into non-physical, virtual spaces, it sometimes seems like the body is falling out of fashion or even being explicitly rejected. With this book, Kleinig stands against the flow as he presents what he calls “a theological rhapsody on the body” (18). He portrays life in the body as something beautiful and envisions a redeemed humanity that embraces physicality instead of trying to transcend it. He invites his readers to see the body as not only good, but as an integral part of a whole human that, along with the soul, is destined for glory. 

Kleinig establishes that there is no part of human experience that does not involve the body. Even activities like perceiving or thinking which we usually associate with the mind run through our five physical senses and are processed by a physical brain. “We do not just have bodies; we are bodies” (4). That means the purpose and end for which God created us is also the purpose and end for which he created our bodies, namely that his character and glory would be seen in them (14-15). 

This positions Kleinig to explore the place of the human body in time and eternity from three points of view: creation, redemption, and eternity. The human body is first of all a creation of God; therefore, God approves of it and gives it its purpose: “The body of each person was made for theophany, for God’s human manifestation on earth, the visible disclosure of his glory in human terms” (29). The fall into sin makes a perfect representation of God in the life of the body impossible, and yet God still provides for the body, even giving enjoyment in the body.  

Nothing communicates the value God assigns to the human body more clearly than the incarnation of God’s Son. By his life and death in the body, he makes our lives holy. By his bodily resurrection, he became for us the “spiritual treasury” of all the fullness of God (70). By his bodily ascension, he makes himself accessible to many different people in different places at the same time (72). In the age of the church, he continues to interact bodily with his people. He comes to them through words that are spoken by human mouths and heard by human ears. He comes to them in physical sacraments. He engages embodied people in embodied ways to sanctify them for God and call them to serve him with their bodies. In so doing, he restores human beings with their bodies to the God-revealing purpose for which he created them. 

Unless Jesus returns first, bodily death awaits us all. However, that is not what the body was created for, and, through Christ, it is not what it is destined for, either. The future we look forward to is a fully embodied resurrection life. Already now, the Holy Spirit has begun this eternal life in our pre-resurrection bodies by faith. “By that renewal, God the master surgeon does not just give us a heart transplant but a body transplant. We become a new creation in Christ” (111). The Christian sees his or her body and the bodies of others in the light of the eternal life the Holy Spirit has worked within them.  

Kleinig borrows from John Paul II’s work, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, in making his case that “the bodies of all men and women are essentially spousal.” Kleinig roots his argument in the Scriptural teaching that believers are members of the body of Christ. Through baptism, fully embodied humans have been brought into a “one-flesh” union with Jesus the heavenly bridegroom. Whether married or not, they are the bride of Christ. He argues that, since this is the result of God’s redemption and restoration of humanity through the work of the Holy Spirit, it is also the destiny for which God created all of humanity. Therefore, the basic purpose for which God created them is the expression of “bodily self-giving love, whether it be in singleness or marriage,” and the state for which they were created is “a spousal union of self-giving love with Christ as their common bridegroom” (182). Kleinig’s ensuing discussion of married and single life, complementary gender roles, divorce, gender, fornication, and homosexuality approaches each issue with the question, “Does this practice highlight or obscure the image of God’s union with man which we – and our bodies – were created to display?”  

The conclusions Kleinig reaches on these issues are neither new nor surprising, but his approach to them takes a different route than many Confessional Lutherans might expect. Kleinig’s arguments for or against certain practices start with an appeal to natural law, an emphasis he carries over from the work of John Paul II. Lutherans tend to shy away from using natural law as a basis for morality. We have the unadulterated law of God revealed in the Word, and our understanding of natural law is affected by the fall into sin and the corruption of conscience. However, Kleinig’s argument indicates that, if we disregard natural law entirely, we are giving up too much. He shows that there is value in reflecting on the order and structure of creation, especially for Christians who desire to know and follow God’s will. This is especially true when we do so in the light of God’s Word, as Kleinig does here. The revealed law of God helps us to understand what we see in creation. 

Though he does not use the term, many of Kleinig’s most thought-provoking assertions of the body’s beauty and value flow from the doctrine of the mystic union. He handles this teaching in a thoroughly Lutheran manner, emphasizing that God unites himself to a Christian through the means of grace, and that it is a result rather than a cause of justification. He calls readers to see that, when God comes to a person in this way, he brings his salvation to the whole person, soul and body. For example, Kleinig includes sections on Jesus’ “bodily care” for us in the means of grace (76-85). Readers will do well to reflect on how well they recognize and appreciate the bodily ways that God brings his salvation to whole human beings, body and soul. We could stand to ask ourselves: Does the fact that God chooses to bring salvation to our souls through interactions with our bodies sometimes go unnoticed? Do we forget that the Jesus who serves us in Word and Sacrament lives today and forever in a glorified body? Do we slip unwittingly into a “spiritual” understanding of the real presence in Communion, rather than looking for the crucified-and-risen body and blood that Christ promises to give us? 

There are also very useful sections in this book that are situated at the end of chapters two through four and are titled “How This Is Done.” In these sections, Kleinig gives suggestions for how Christians can not only say that physical, bodily existence is beautiful and good, but also live in a way that puts that fact on full display. He calls Christians to value and defend the lives and bodies of others, take care of their own bodies, and find joy and satisfaction in using their bodies for God’s glory. He urges us to double down on the physicality of Christian practice – meeting in person for worship, celebrating Holy Communion, emphasizing that our access to God is through a still-incarnate Savior. He exhorts us to adopt a way of talking about salvation and eternity – every day, but especially at funerals – as physical realities patterned after Jesus’ own resurrection. If we are going to stand against the tides of culture that devalue the body, and if we are going to put forth a kind of bodily living that is attractive to those around us, these and his other suggestions are good ways to take action. 

This book is full of applicable insights, and before anything else it is an exposition of Scripture. For those reasons I would recommend it for pastors and lay members alike. I would hesitate, however, to point laypeople to it as a first step into the theology of the body, as Kleinig’s “rhapsodic” style sometimes prioritizes beauty over simplicity and clarity. There were many times that I had to double back and reread a section, and I imagine someone coming in cold could easily get lost or frustrated. It would be better to suggest this to someone who has already laid some theological groundwork. For them, this work will serve to highlight the beauty of the embodied life God gives us and the ways God blesses us in and through it.