The Absolute Standard: No Christian Sins
Stewart seized on the phrase “No one born of God commits sin” and insisted on its literal surface truth. This created an unprecedented and terrifying standard for the fellowship:
- Sinlessness as Proof: He declared that if anyone ever sins, they “do not know God” and “are not a Christian at all.” The previous decades of fellowship life—marked by confession, relapse, and striving—were invalidated.
- The Impossible Demand: Stewart insisted he could and must lead a “totally sinless life,” which was not an impossible ideal because the key lay in death. He connected this to Romans 6:7 (“He who has died is freed from sin”), stating that the New Birth is achieved when the believer’s old self is dead to sin now.
- The Great Spiritual Lie: Every member who testified to still sinning—which was everyone—was effectively testifying against themselves, proving that they were merely “sheep” and not true “disciples” or Christians. Stewart himself claimed he was only a “sheep” for 25 years and would have gone to Hell if he had died six months prior.Stewart’s Self-Correction and Self-Justification
Stewart uses his past error to underscore the veracity of his new revelation.
- Justification: His 25 years of “not being a Christian” is presented as proof of the difficulty of finding the truth and evidence of God’s grace in rescuing him. He frames his former life as “low-level sin,” but still damnable.
- New Resolve: He claims that the revelation is so profound that he is now acting with “the fire of God,” having “no need of repentance” because he has genuinely repented. He resolves to be an example of a sinless life to prove the doctrine works, but promises to “bear with the failings of the weak” (the sheep) while opposing the “liars” (those who argue for sin’s continuation to justify the flesh).
The second session pivots from confessing a fundamental error (lack of grace) to introducing a radical, perfectionist doctrine (absolute sinlessness for true Christians) that imposes a new, arguably more extreme standard of works b