So the biggest biblical idea about sin, expressed in a riot of images and terms, is that sin is an anomaly, an intruder, a notorious gate-crasher. Sin does not belong in God’s world, but somehow it has gotten in. In fact, sin has dug in, and, like a tick, burrows deeper when we try to remove it. 133 This stubborn and persistent feature of human sin can make it look as if it has a life of its own, as if it were an independent power or even a kind of person. Indeed, St. Paul uses language that suggests as much, as when he says that sin “exercised dominion in death” (Rom. 5: 21), that “sin deceived me and ... killed me” (7: 11), that “if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me” (7: