The addict’s condition speaks a hard truth: that we are all beggars before God, every one of us bent toward the grave.
Our will, what we want, what we choose, lies bound like a felled tree, ringed with years of self-made growth, but hollowed by decay. Our will gives the illusion of strength, but its roots have no purchase. Martin Luther knew this truth and carved it into the heart of theology: the will, on its own, does not choose the good. Our choices, ever bending inward like a warped beam, serve only sin: the slow rot that started with Adam and Eve’s first grasp toward their own ends. Without divine intervention, there is no room for us to grow toward life—we are prisoners, locked in the ribs of our own dying.
What the fall shows in cosmic drama, addiction speaks plainly. Addiction does not offer us the easy lies of freedom; it unmasks the iron of captivity in its raw, unyielding chains. To the addict, decisions spiral endlessly, as every choice carries the weight of destruction. It is a fierce unmaking of the self: a will bent entirely to one end, but unable to reach it without tearing itself apart. For addicts, there is no pathway out within themselves—no reshaping of the will, no inner reform. And though the world cloaks addiction in shame, Luther’s understanding of grace pierces through the veneer. Addiction is not an aberration but a magnification, a lens through which we glimpse what captivity means for all of us. We all stand bound, chained by sin’s dominion until grace intervenes.
Addiction is not an aberration but a magnification, a lens through which we glimpse what captivity means for all of us.
And yet. And yet. Into this wretched brokenness, a Word has come like fire into dry wood. Christ steps into the graveyard of the will, calling not for action but surrender: “Come forth, Lazarus.” And the dead man’s will responds—not through its own strength, but because God speaks and it is so. For Luther, salvation is no invitation; it is a decisive conquest. God takes the bound heart and rends its chains, seizes it as his own, and makes it new. Addiction is not solved by the summons of the self but by the utter capture of divine grace. As with the leper who said, "If you will, you can make me clean,” the addict must recognize a deeper truth: only the mercy of Christ can liberate the soul trapped in sin’s vice grip.
When God takes hold, it is not in abstraction but through the substance of his gifts. His grace has hands. His Word speaks into the void, and we are offered words, water, bread, and wine. The sacraments do not merely signify freedom; they enact it. Baptism is not a metaphorical washing; it is the flood that drowns the old Adam, pulling us dead to the surface to breathe God’s life. The Eucharist is the meal of the liberated, and the flesh and blood of the King whose own wounds conquered sin. Even preaching, the place where we receive a good word that unburdens our guilt, does not deliver simply human compassion but divine absolution: “I forgive you.” Each of these becomes a place where the chains of addiction—of sin—fall loose, not because we manage them but because Christ breaks them.
Addiction speaks to this need for tangibility. No addict wakes from their chains by willpower alone. Similarly, the sinner cannot escape the relentless pull of sin by looking inward or through personal resolve. Luther calls for grace with flesh, grace we can taste, touch, and hear. Without these divine interventions—without the Word that hammers the will, without the sacraments that pour mercy into the mouth—we starve. Though the sky is filled with moisture, the soul shrivels without rain. Though God’s mercy is as abundant as an endless sea, we die of thirst without being brought to the well.
Or, to put it another way, Christ is the divine gardener, bending low to touch the broken earth, sowing his love into the ash heap of the will. He makes new what is crumbled and long-dead; he causes waters to flow where deserts crack in thirst. And yet, he asks us to stretch forth our hands in helpless surrender, confessing that we cannot save ourselves. This is no passive mercy; it is divine strength clothing itself in compassion. Christ overwhelms the powers of captivity—of addiction, despair, and sin—not by our effort but by the perfection of his love. He comes not only to heal but to make every soul captive to his freedom.
The addict’s condition speaks a hard truth: that we are all beggars before God, every one of us bent toward the grave. Yet it speaks another truth: that grace does not come as a balm for the merely wounded. It comes as a burning flood, the fiery reign of God that scorches what is dead to make the soul live. If we would be free, we must be taken captive. To the addict—indeed, to every sinner—Christ brings this truth to us: without him, we remain bound to the fetters of sin, but with him, we are overtaken by the binding, burning love of God.
Freedom is not born from strength. It is granted to those who collapse into the mercy of God’s promise, who stretch forth empty hands and receive not a helping hand but a lifeline that drags them, like Peter, out of the waters. Captivity to Christ, through his Word and sacraments, is not bondage but life itself. To neglect these gifts is to thirst while the cup overflows; it is to limp while healing stands before you. All sin binds, but only Christ frees—and his freedom comes not as counsel but as conquest. Blessed are the poor in spirit, then, for their only wealth lies in being bound to a Lord who sets captives free.
Based on Chapter Two of The Impossible Prize, now available for preorder.
