In Reply to: Re: Are you skirting the issue? posted by Thinker on February 04, 2010 at 14:27:12:
Thinker:
Perhaps I can. I am not Pastor Don; of course. Isn't he an Assembly of God pastor/teacher; though? They historically do NOT teach "once saved, always saved" (or "come to Jesus and live like HELL, and STILL expect heaven", as others call it!)
At the Vineyards around the world (still supposedly a "movement", and not yet a "denomication"--though that can be a real hair-splitting distinction, and open to debate) one does not have to believe or NOT believe in the soteriology we all learned in TF; OSAS.
Personally, I believe that Calvinism BEGAN irrefutably in the early 1500s, and I am NOT a Calvinist. I left TF BECAUSE I believe that is what God first spoke to my heart, about the gravity and filthiness of Berg's sin, which I was already allowing to overtake my heart, like in 2 Peter 2.
BECAUSE I believed that to stay would be like a dog eating its own vomit, spiritually, I left the cult the next day. It took ONE NIGHt, OVERNIGHT, of revelation, to convince me to leave.
I have heard some Baptists say that "the ground at the foot of the cross is LEVEL"; trying to indicate the idea that all sin is the same. Scripture indicates that that is NOT true--Jesus Himself spoke of "worse punishment" due the Pharisees, than for earlier rejectors of God in the Old Testaament.
Pastor Don's emphasis is that ALMOST ALL sin can be forgiven--that would also indicate at least TWO CATEGORIES. Also the cross was on a HILL--bad choice of metaphors, I think.
That's my two cents on a non-rhetorical question: all sin is decidedly NOT the same, there is regular sin, iniquity (different definition, abominations, and so on. They have different results, different consequences, and different punishments. Some harden the heart to t he point of reprobation (ROmans 1, 2 Thes 2, and Pharoaoh's heart-hardening--9 chances till GOD hardened it permanently and irrevocably).
Hope that helps.
OT2