There is no personal relationship to God apart from the historical ground of the covenant with Abraham fulfilled in Christ. The perverse underside of the law draws us in through imagining we can gain righteousness through agonistic struggle or through intensified personal effort or emotion – through an intensified “personal” disembodied relationship. This leads to the fruits of the law.

The problem Paul struggles with is how to avoid the trap of perversion, that is, of a Law that generates its transgression. Paul presents a sinful perspective on the law which generates transgression (and transgressive desire), but he presents no way out of this bind other than through re-founding subjectivity in Christ.

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Music: Bensound