First, God is our salvation (Ex. 15:2; Job 13:16; Psalm 27:1, 62:2; Isa. 12:2). Salvation, then, is a PERSON--not a thing, substance, or quality!
Jesus is God. Jesus is not just the salvation of God (God's way to get saved). He IS salvation. That means Jesus IS eternal life. "For as the Father hath [eternal] life in himself; so hath he given to the Son [Jesus] to have [eternal] life in [and of] himself" (John 5:26). "I am the resurrection and THE LIFE" (John 11:25). "I am the [eternal] life (John 14:6). "He that hath the Son hath [eternal] life; and he that hath not the Son [the eternal life] of God hath not life [salvation]" (I John 5:12). "When Christ who is our [salvation and eternal] life, shall appear" (Col. 3:4).
Second, salvation, eternal life, and immortality are all the same thing, because they are a person, Jesus Christ.
No life, no salvation.
No salvation, no life.
No Jesus in your heart, no salvation, no life! It's that simple!
To ask, "Are you saved?" is to ask, "Is Jesus in your heart?" And to say "I'm saved," is to say, "I'm in Jesus and Jesus is in me."
Third, we are not the life. Nor do we become immortal when we become "saved." Jesus alone is immortal (I Tim. 6:16). Remember, "Christ is... our life" (Col. 3:4). As He dwells in us, He imparts His eternal life to us progressively as we abide (continue) in Him (John 15:4-5). If we depart from Christ by not continuing in relationship with Him, or if we grieve the Spirit of Christ within through sin so that He departs, the eternal life/salvation has departed!
A Christian is like a light bulb. The light "in" the bulb is the electricity. The eternal life in a believer is Jesus. In either case, cut off the power and the light/life goes out! Only a self-worshiping "light bulb" would boast that it could "shine" even with its electricity gone. How foolish the Salvation cult is to think that when they are "OUT of fellowship with Jesus they are still eternally alive."
When Jesus is in a heart, the individual is eternally alive through Christ's immortal presence. But if a Christian leaves Jesus, the eternal life is no longer in and being imparted to the MORTAL soul.
We are not born "immortal" souls, and we do not become immortal when we "get saved." We become partakers of Christ's immortality upon salvation because the everlasting Christ has been accepted into the heart and life. A believer will become immortal only after the resurrection (I Cor. 15:52-53). The scriptures state that eternal life is imparted to the convert to Christ in three states: through initial (Romans 8:24-25, 13:11), continuing (I Cor. 15:2, Heb. 3:6, 14), and final (Rev. 12:10) salvation.
"But we had the sentence of [eternal] death IN ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so grat a death [past salvation], and doth deliver [current salvation]: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us [future salvation]." (II. Cor. 1:9-10).
The event of becoming saved, synonymous with obtaining eternal life and immortality, is not a one time deal. We don't just repent, get our eternal ticket punched, and that's it!
All people are born mortal souls. Without Christ all would end up in hell, in a state of everlasting DEATH. As II Cor. 1:9 stated, we are born with an eternal sentence of death in ourselves. No one will "live" forever in hell. Hell's prisoners will be in a state of conscious, suspended DEATH forever. The second death IS DEATH. Hell is where the torment and moment of death will never end.
This brings me to my next point: What is salvation? Salvation is not from hell, but from sin!
Christ's name was called JESUS because He would save His people from their SINS--not HELL (Matt. 1:21).
The Hebrew name Mary gave to her son was Yeshua or Joshua, which in Greek is "Jesus." Yeshua means "God is salvation."
God became flesh to save us from sin. By washing AWAY our SINS, He took away the "record of our spiritual crimes." In Christ we become justified or just-as-if-we-never-sinned. Now, we all know you don't put a person in "prison" who has no "criminal record." In like manner, an individual who has no "sins' on record "against his soul" is not a candidate for hell.
By washing away and dealing wit hour sins, God made hell a mute point for those who abide in the blood of Christ (Rev. 20:6).
This far we have come to see that salvation is Jesus because Jesus alone is immortal. Thus, a "saved" person, while a partaker of immortality (Jesus, the life), is not an immortal being. Jesus saves people from sin by empowering them to overcome it. The second death, hell, has no power over those who live their life overcoming sin (Rev. 2:11).