Hi Julian, Your question is worthy of whole books, but for two cents I would contribute the following: 1. The reference to walking as Jesus walked is referring to his relationship to the Holy Spirit. He walked according to the Spirit, he was led by the Spirit, he obeyed the Spirit, he communed with the Spirit, he was filled with the Spirit---all aspects of his manhood, and aspects we should follow. It's certainly not calling us to follow the 600-plus Old Covenant laws. 2. I don't know if you are quoting 3:4 from a certain translation, but sin in this passage is not "breaking the law" per se. It's actually "lawlessness" (anomia), which is an attitude of ignoring or despising whatever law of God that one is aware of. In the New Covenant we are made aware of the "law of Christ" or the "law of love". The true believer loves His law (cf. Psalm 1 & 119). 1 John is continually contrasting the true believer with the pagan or false believer. The true believer cannot practice sin (that is, continue in it without breaks of repentance). The unregenerate are "lawless", even if they try or appear to be "moral". A relative note: Even though we now have the Law of Christ, and as believers we love it, it's critical to understand that we are not "under" it, in the sense that we curry favor with God by our following it, or are sanctified by it. That's a subtle form of legalism. We are sanctified as we walk in grace, reckoning ourselves to be to sin and alive to God. Legalism of any kind does two things: 1) It inflames the sin, and 2) It quenches the Holy Spirit. It's in that state that we "do the things we don't want to do, and don't do the things that we want to do". We agree with the law (of course), but we sin because we have inflamed the sin and quenched the Holy Spirit. We then need to back up and understand that we are not under law, but under grace. That's why we are no longer slaves to sin. The more we understand that, and walk accordingly, ironically we will walk according to the Spirit. It's very freeing to understand that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make Him love us less. Walking in His Radical New Covenant Grace, Terry Rayburn --- j.kennedy403@... wrote: > Am reading 1 John and came across 2:6 where we are to > walk as Jesus walked and 3:4 where we are told > transgression is breaking the law-can we really prove > a)that we are not to keep Torah as Jesus did to the > letter and b) whether John was not really meaning Torah > when he spoke of the law.In other words here we have NT > teaching that seems to place us under the law. > Julian > > Sincerly, Julian > website:http://geocities.com/J_J_K52 > > > > -- > To unsubscribe, send ANY message to > <soundofgrace-unsubscribe@...> > > To view our online archive go to our web page at > http://www.associate.com/groups/soundofgrace > > > ===== ======================== Visit "Grace For Life" An Oasis of Rest For the People of God http://www.graceforlife.com ======================== __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com