Who is the we in verse 6 and 7? For me they're both the same group. Isn't John including himself with that word?
The problem was the Gnostics were inside the church trying to win people to their side, so the
we is his mixed congregation. But you will see they soon leave.
1 John 2:
18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but
they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.
What does "walking in" mean to you? Have you ever heard the expression - if you talk the walk, walk the talk? To me walk in means actually actively practicing/doing what one does - a way of life. So I think the word "practice" in the quote implies what I said. The evidence in some early churches indicates Christians were actually practicing sin. You did mention Gnosticism. See Corinthians for example if you need something real clear.
Walking is being super-sensitized to the voice of the Spirit that he speaks through your tender conscience. You can be presented with a temptation and immediately walk away from it, never indulging. As far as the Corinthians, they had all the gifts of the Spirit in their church; however they did not know how to handle willful sinners, so they just let them stay in the congregation raising havoc. Paul told them to excommunicate them, even giving them over to Satan so they would come to their senses and see that they were not walking the walk. Then in 2 Cor. Paul tells them to bring them back once they had repented.
Isn't the we still the same group as the other verses? Does John say we have no sin? You've talked about Rom 7 about Paul trying to say he had no war or problem with sin. I just can't buy that. Yes I understand your discussion about Semitic writing styles.
What does it mean to you that we are not under the law but under grace? Romans 6 says we are dead to the sin so how can this struggle go on in someone who is already dead to sin. The answer is those who struggle are not dead to sin yet, and do not have the Spirit which is fully in chapter 8, though it begins in this chapter. Paul's audience are those who know the law and are walking in the law, not the Spirit.
Read the verses Romans 7-
1 Or do you not know, brethren (
for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to
her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of
her husband. 3 So then if, while
her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. 4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. 6
But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
Sin’s Advantage in the Law
7 What shall we say then?
Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all
manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin
was dead. 9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. 10 And the commandment, which
was to
bring life, I found to
bring death. 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed
me. 12 Therefore the law
is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.
Law Cannot Save from Sin
13 Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.
The rest of the chapter shows the struggle to keep the law without the Spirit. Who can save them from the law and the sin it shows them? JESUS.