The very fact that you are concerned about the presence of sin and that you fight against it is only possible because you have been released from the dominion of sin and have been brought into the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If I’m united to Christ, why do I still sin? Let me come at the answer in two ways by reflecting back on the fact that this is the case for us as Christians. And maybe the easiest and best place to do that is by thinking about what Paul teaches from let’s say Romans 5:12–7:25. In Romans 5:12–21, he is saying, Christians have been brought out of their union with Adam and the flesh, and they’ve been brought into union with Christ. And then he explains that in Romans 6 by saying, one of the things this means is that you have died to the dominion of sin, and it no longer reigns over you. But then he makes clear already Romans 6, but I think very obviously in Romans 7, the fact that sin no longer reigns over you because you’re united to Christ does not mean that sin’s presence has been destroyed.

So, Christians are set free from the reign of sin, but they’re not yet set free from the influence of sin. We’re still in the same bodies; still of the same minds. We actually still have the same memories of sin, and sometimes they haunt us.

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