"For God so loved the world, that

He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever

believes

in Him shall not perish, but have

eternal life (John 3: 16 NASB)."

 

Man was created as a three dementional being, body, soul, and spirit.  On the day man sinned, he died spiritually.  The sin nature, with the exception of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ (via the virgin conception), is passed down to every human being at the moment of conception.  Man receieves his soul at birth.  Until he is born again (spiriutally), he is physically alive, has a soul that will live forever in one of two eternal environments, but is  spiritually dead, and heading for Hell, and without the self-means to do anything about it.

Upon reaching the age or stage of moral accountability, he chooses to either believe or reject the Gospel Message.  Those who believe are "saved" from an eternity in what the Bible calls the lake of fire and  receives eternal life .  He is restored to the original condition of Man before the Fall.  He is once again physically alive, with a soul that is now heading for Heaven, and is spiriutally alive.  The believer can never be any more or any less saved than he is at the moment he believes the Gospel Message, once and for all.

Those who reject the Gospel Message remain in the state of spiritual death.  Spiritual death is not a state of non-existgence, but a state of existing while separated from God. Those who leave this world as unbelievers,  will eventuallly spend all of eternity in the lake of fire.

The ONLY sin that was not atoned for by the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ was the sin of disbelief.  As far as salvation is concerned, all other sins committed by the entire human race were paid for in full.  God can not and does not require re-payment of a debt that has been paid in full.  It was paid in full by the spiritual death of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ while He was phsyically alive on cross.  His work of the cross becomes applicable to the individual soul at the moment of salvation.

Post-salvation sin results in divine disicipline here on earth and the loss of specific rewards in Heaven that the same believer would have otherwise received, but the believer never loses his salvation.  False doctrines that promote the loss of salvation amount to blasphemy, as they are an attack on the character, nature, and work of God.