Note from Pastor: “Addicted to God” New Ways of Seeing and Walking Free, Part 6
“The unfolding of Your words gives life; it gives understanding to the simple.” (Psalm 119:130) The world uses only one metaphor to describe our struggle with addiction: “disease.” This is neither theologically nor medically correct. To truly “recover” from addiction, sinful addiction must be replaced with proper worship of God, for addiction is merely a perverted form of worship. Even organizations like AA confess that addiction is a “spiritual struggle that needs spiritual healing.” The Bible gives us five metaphors to describe addictive behavior: idolatry, adultery, foolishness, attacks by a wild beast, and disease. We have looked at the first four metaphors. Scripture does use illness-disease as a metaphor for our spiritual condition. “Your whole head is sick, your whole heart is afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness- only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil.” (Isaiah 1:5-7) Sin indeed has many things in common with a disease: it affects our entire being, it is painful, it is tragic, and it leads to death. But there are also ways in which sin is not like a disease: it is something we do rather than catch, we confess it rather than treat it, it is in our hearts rather than our bodies, and only the forgiveness and cleansing of the Great Physician Jesus can bring thorough healing. The world’s deceptive medical model for addiction says “sin IS disease,” but the Bible says “sin is LIKE disease.” Many maladies and addictions are misdiagnosed as physical, biological conditions but have absolutely no pathology: physical exam, blood test, x-ray, tissue biopsy, CT scans, PET scans. Now here is a crucial key: many classifications of addiction and mental illness are “diagnosed” merely by the history of thoughts, feelings, and behavior of the patient seeking help. This means these conditions have a MORAL component. Read this carefully my friends: even the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) printed by the American Psychiatric Association clearly states: “A diagnosis does not carry any necessary implications regarding the causes of the individual’s mental disorder or its associated impairments (such as addictions).” Science, biology, and medicine does not know the CAUSE of addiction and mental illness; they can only declare theories, which are then accepted as “gospel” by the public, and then “treated” with medication. Addiction and mental illness do have a physical biological component, but not in the cause. All of this proves the Bible to be true: patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavior can impact the body. For instance we are told: alcoholism is a disease caused by a chemical imbalance of serotonin in the brain synapse. But the truth is there is absolutely no scientific proof for this theory. In fact, many scientists believe that the so-called chemical imbalance is caused by the excessive alcohol harming the brain! It is a scientific fact that the neurotransmitter levels in the brain cannot be measured at the synapse. When it’s all said and done, we know that the body cannot make us sin. The body (addiction) can tempt us to sin, but it cannot MAKE us sin. Assigning an addiction label or a mental illness label to someone does two things: 1) It removes personal responsibility for any sin involved in the struggle; and 2) It removes all hope of being rescued and healed. How can we help? First of all, we must understand that because we are created in the image of God, we are bodies with souls, and the medical-biological model of addiction ignores the soul in its healing process: everything is treated with medication. But much addiction and mental illness is “of the soul,” longings, yearnings, escapes, modes of worship. Yes the body is affected, but affected only as a result of choices which the heart, mind, soul make. Remember: “The Word of God is LIVING and ACTIVE, sharper than a two-edged sword.” (Hebrews 4:12) Overcoming addiction is all about replacing sinful, self-indulgent thoughts and behavior with consistent, godly, righteous living. More next time.
