A Theology of Life, Addiction and Idols

Over the last two years, God has broken me down through the power of addiction and through the healing he has provided as I have recovered from addiction.

In that process, I have developed a biblical theology of life, addiction and idols - one that provides a more complete picture than I have heard elsewhere. I would like to share it here both for your benefit and to solicit feedback and additional insight...

Background - Romans 1-5

This theology is founded on Romans 6-7 - particularly the around the discussion of "the flesh" and the "body of death", but it requires some other foundational discussion before I can get there, thus I will do a  review of what Paul is saying in Romans leading up to chapter 6:

• Romans 2 - all are under the law: 
• The law can only declare right (justify) those who obey the law (2:13)
• Those who don't have the biblical law (Gentiles) have a law in their heart (vs 14-15), and that is what they are judged by. (In other words, they are judged by their adherence to what they, themselves know to be right and wrong.)
• Those who have biblical law (Jews) are judged by how they follow God's law, which they do know
• Romans 3-4 - Law vs. Faith
• No one can live up to the law - all are judged under sin (2:9)
• Following the law does not make us right - no one is justified under the law (v 20)
• The effect of the law is to reveal sin (v 20 - "through the Law comes the knowledge of sin")
• It is not law that sets us right, but faith (v28 - "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.")

Before I continue, I need to have a discussion of the law. Many of us are familiar with folks who are legalistic - where they judge all people (often themselves included) against a rigid set of beliefs. This is the modern incarnation of the Pharisees - those that Jesus had extremely harsh words for ("brood of vipers" Mat 23:33, "you strain gnats and swallow camels" Mat 23:34, "They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger." Mat 23:4). This type of legalism is typically quite visible - at least to the outside viewer. Frankly, those outside the church are 100% correct in condemning this bold-faced hypocrisy...

However, there is another way that many Christians today live under the slavery of law - it is the law of "try harder", and this is an insidious version of the law still practiced today in many churches, and deep inside many Christians' hearts. This version of the law says "you were saved and forgiven - now go live a better life". It is often accompanied by a lot of "tips and techniques" given in a well-meaning attempt to help make it easier for people to stay on "the path". Fundamentally, this is a failed approach - no matter how "easy" or "minimal" the law is, we, as humans, will be unable to live up to it perfectly. The ultimate demonstration of this is in the garden - Adam and Eve had only one rule to follow, and it wasn't even that difficult - they had many trees to choose the fruit from, and it would benefit them - there was only one tree to avoid. Just like us, they couldn't follow the simplest of rules. This "try harder" is the subtlest form of the law - and it is incredibly easy to fall into... 

Let me demonstrate this with my personal struggle with pornography and sexual addiction. When I first recognized that I had a problem, I went and sought out others who (at least seemed to) have success, and then tried to imitate their methods. I worked hard to "bounce my eyes" when I saw a woman that tempted me. I put lots of things in between myself and pornography (internet filters, etc). I got other guys to keep me "accountable" (in other words, "I won't do this because I'd be ashamed to have to confess it to someone."). I avoided streets with signs that bothered me. I avoided all media with some sort of adult scenes. And then it failed. And I would re-analyze, and try over, again and again. Read more books. Find more techniques. Install better technology. Each time I would feel more and more shame. I would focus on what I "should have" done differently last time, and what I would do different next time. Ultimately, it left me feeling like a hopeless failure, because I couldn't seem to "get it right" no matter how hard I tried...

This brings us right to where Paul is in Romans - our sin and our sinfulness has been revealed by the law. No matter how hard we try, we can't live up to the law. And even a single law (e.g. the story of Adam and Eve in the garden) is enough to reveal this. How much more the entire weight of the Old Testament law?

And now we come to the great modern misunderstanding - that Christianity is primarily about salvation. "Your slate is wiped clean" - "now go live a better life"... I would love to expand on this further, but once again it takes much more space than I can supply here, and others have done a better job than I (see The Cure  - from TrueFaced).

• Romans 5 - We are made right with God through Christ's sacrifice
• The grace of God came through one man
• The law came to make sin increase (5:20)
• A provocative statement, but quite in-line with the discussion above. Essentially the law is provided to help us see that we can't maintain perfect adherence to any rule. But it would take too long (individually) to recognize that truth with a single law - thus God (in his grace) gave us a plethora of rules to drive home the understanding that we can't do it...
• "grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (v. 21)
• Note that grace is to "reign through righteousness" "through Jesus Christ" - not through our actions but through Christ's...

Our Identity - Romans 6

In Romans 6 Paul introduces us to a new concept - we are not our sin. In fact, we have "died" to it (6:2). Through baptism in Christ, we were baptized "into his death" (vs. 3) so that "we might walk in the newness of life" (vs. 4). Romans 6:6 states "for he who has died is freed from sin". We are to "consider ourselves dead to sin but alive to Christ" (vs. 11). There is so much richness in these verses - unfortunately I don't have time to dwell on these here (it deserves a book, as opposed to a blog entry). Suffice it to note that somehow through Christ's death we have been freed from sin, we are now dead to sin.

If you are like me, your personal reality doesn't feel like this is true - a naive reading seems to suggest that sin is "gone" - and we can all attest that isn't true... Stick with me - we will come back to this point later...

Paul follows this with instructions - "do not let sin reign in your mortal body" (vs. 12) and "do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin" (vs. 13), but he follows them with some curious statements - "sin shall not be master over you, for you are under law not grace" (vs. 14) and "having been freed from sin, you became slaves to righteousness" (vs. 18). It seems that Paul is not commanding us to "try harder" (in verses 12-13), but telling us that we now have a freedom that we did not have before - a new identity that allows us to "become slaves to righteousness". Paul expands on this in the next few verses, saying that we "were slaves of sin" (vs. 20) but that we have now been "enslaved to God" (vs. 22).

Once again, at first glance, this doesn't jive with my personal experience - I came to Christ over 25 years ago, and yet, despite my best efforts, I could not shake the power of addiction. Instead the power of addiction seemed to grow - my personal experience suggested that I was still a "slave to sin" and not that I was "enslaved to God". I thought I was making the choice of God when I choose to try harder (year after year) - but the fruit was just the opposite - falling deeper into the slavery to sin we call addiction. As we will see in chapter 7, Paul understands this and is saying something deeper...

The Boundaries of Law - Romans 7 Part I

Paul begins here to show some of the limits of the law, and what that means to us:

• The law only has authority over the living (7:1-3)
• We have died in Christ's death so that we would be separated from the law and connected to Christ (vs. 4-6)
• The purpose of the law is to make sin sinful. Sin gained its power to rise up from the law (vs. 7-11)
•  The law is good. The law did not bring death, but sin used the law to bring death (vs. 12-13)

Two Natures - Romans 7 Part II

This is the point we start to get to the key of the discussion... Paul in this section better defines our situation - and the unclear parts of chapter 6 start to come into focus...

In vs. 14, Paul states: "...I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin" and then in vs. 17 "...no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me..." and then in vs. 18 "I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh" and then in vs. 18 "I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me" (note: some translations use the terms "sinful nature" or "old nature" instead of "the flesh"). Paul continues in vs. 19: "For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want."

So what is Paul telling us? He is telling us that we have two natures in us - one called "the flesh" and one whom Paul refers to as "I" - as himself. The two are in conflict - and that conflict is deep - Paul still experiences it himself ("wretched man that I am" - vs. 24). Paul indicates that "nothing good dwells" in the flesh - that the flesh is godless. And yet, something good does dwell in him, for there is part of him that wants to do good, a part of him that is "under the law of grace", a part of him that has been "freed from sin".

Prior to this chapter he did not clearly distinguish between the two - but when we look back at the previous chapters we can see where they fit in:

• The flesh:
• Is under the law, and the flesh can not live up to the law (Rom 3)
• The law made sin increase in the flesh (Rom 5)
• Died with Christ - it was crucified (Rom 6:6)
• Is a slave to sin (Rom 6:17, 7:14)
• It is still hanging around, even though it is dead (Rom 7:23)
• Bore fruit for death (Rom 7:5)
• Serves the law of sin (Rom 7:25)
• The "I" (later called "the spirit" in contrast to "the flesh"):
• Lives through our death in Christ (Rom 6:9)
• Is not mastered by sin  (Rom 6:11)
• Is not under the law but grace (Rom 6:14)
• Is a slave to righteousness (Rom 6:18) - slave = δουλόω - "bond-slave"
• Wants to do good (Rom 7:22)
• Joyfully agrees with the law of God (Rom 7:23)

It is safe to say at this point that addictions and idolatry reside in the flesh, while the true "us" resides in the spirit.

The Body of Death - Romans 7 part III

Near the end of chapter 7, Paul makes a critical comment - particularly in relation to addiction:

"Who will set me free from the body of this death?" Rom 7:24

Being attached to a "body of ... death" is a reference to a form of capital punishment used in Roman times. Less than 100 years prior to Paul's time, Virgil wrote these words in the Aeneid:

The living and the dead at his command,
Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand,
Till, chokʼd with stench, in loathʼd embraces tied,
The lingʼring wretches pinʼd away and died

These outline a form of punishment reserved for the worst of crimes - the equivalent of our "1st degree murder" convictions today. Those convicted of this punishment would be tied - face to face and hand to hand - to a dead man. They had to carry that dead man around until the decay and infection from the dead man passed on to the living, and they too died. Paul was a classically educated man (and a Roman citizen), and would, no doubt, be familiar with the Aeneid (as would be the intended audience of this letter - Rome) - thus it seems logical to assume that this is his intended allusion.

Being tied hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot to "a body of death" is an incredibly apt picture of our addictions and idols. The true us - the one resurrected in Christ - "joyfully concurs with the law of God". The true us is not mastered by sin, but, by choice, chooses to be a bond-servant to Christ. This is the new us, the one who gained life through Christ's resurrection. However, this true us is tied to the dead man - to our flesh. And our flesh is a "slave to sin" - and the infection of that sin is constantly attached to us - constantly going with us wherever we go, slowly, subtly (and sometimes boldly) corrupting what we touch and what we do. Even though it is dead, the dead man still has influence.

John Eldridge (Wild At Heart) has the following to say about the flesh:

What the Scriptures call the flesh, the old man, or the sinful nature, is that part of fallen Adam in every man that always wants the easiest way out.

And:

To put it bluntly, your flesh is a weasel, a poser, and a selfish pig. And your flesh is not you. Did you know that? Your flesh is not the real you.

And a bit later:

Yes, there is a war within us, but it is a civil war. The battle is not between us and God, no, there is a traitor within who wars against our true heart fighting alongside the Spirit of God in us.

 This is a critical understanding - and an understanding that those in the secular 12-step movement completely miss - We are not our addictions. I am not my addiction. I am not an addict - my flesh is. Despite being tied to my flesh, it is not me!

Let me state that again:
You are not your addiction. 

Your addiction is not even part of your "truest self" - your new self - your new creation. Look again over the list of traits above of your new self - those are true of you. That list of things that is part of the flesh? Well, those characteristics - they are not you!

In my time in a 12-step support group, there were many things that were beneficial. One of them was step 4, which states:

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

That step is brutal - digging up both your past failures and (past and present) character faults. This step is particularly difficult if you believe that those actions define you (either in the past or present). The truth is: those traits, those failings, those actions - they don't define you. They define your addict - and your addict is part of your flesh. It is not part of your true self, your new self!

Remember - your failings, your character weaknesses, none of that is you!

Before leaving Paul's allusion here - I wanted to make a few other observations:

• The dead man is tied hand-and-foot to the living man. In the same way the addict in our flesh may stay with us as long as we are on this earth - but it never defines us.
• Our new man has the ability to make choices. The new man can choose to listen to and follow the flesh, or it can choose to listen to and follow the Holy Spirit. We are responsible for these choices, and they continue to have huge impacts on our lives. Oftentimes (particularly in addiction) we don't recognize the points that we make these choices - we say "I had no choice but to pick up the bottle" or "I couldn't help clicking on that website" - but ultimately we did have a choice somewhere back down the line (e.g. it may have been too late to stop at the point I clicked on the link, but I did have a choice after the argument with my wife to either seek something beneficial (like talking to someone) or to do something risky (like go to a website I had problems with before)). I find great wisdom in the serenity prayer on this subject:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

 Freedom - Towards Romans 8

I would be remiss if I left this discussion without moving, at least briefly, towards Romans 8. Again, there is much more to mine, but I don't have the space here to mine it.

Paul closes up Chapter 7 with the following:
"Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (7:24b - 25a)

Ultimately, God will set us free - God will break this bondage. Paul doesn't provide a timeline, and, personally, I am convinced that this is a lifelong process. Parts of the bondage will break away sooner, and others will never be 100% free of this side of heaven. I can't say what the truth of this will look like in your life - but I can see the truth and freedom of this in my own. I can't say that I know that 100% of the bonds of Sexual Addiction are gone from my life - but I can say that the power of those bonds has decreased drastically over the last several years (and not in that striving "by my strength" way). Likewise, I can say that the influence and power of those character defects I identified with so long is so much smaller than it was - and when they do arise, I am more free to address them, because - though they may continue to stay with me, they are not me.