David Pawson was really the first Christian writer I encountered who had a deep commitment to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. However his proposal for a Word and Spirit approach was not without complications. In otherwords David’s sacramental and Pentecostal commitments dominated his evangelical commitments. In other words, His understanding of Spirit baptism and water baptism cause his soteriology to move away from evangelicalism. David believes in a four stage initiation, Repentance towards God, Faith in the Lord Jesus for justification, water baptism for cleansing of sin, and recieving the Spirit followed by tongues as the completing if the initiation process. The outworking of this view is that it is strangely contradictary i.e you can be justified but not have your sins washed away. You can be forgiven but you have not recieved the Spirit!

You can be a quarter, a half, or three quarter Christian!

For a period of time I followed Pawsons line of thinking, since it semed to do more justice to an exegesis of Acts than most current evangelicals did. Also his emphasis on repentance and baptism was also refreshing, however the view was just too inconsistant and unfaithful to evangelical doctrine which is clearly to be seen in the scriptures. And so the journey continued!

http://revivalfire-johnsblog.blogspot.com/