John, good question and I have wondered about this myself. Here is my take.

When a person accepts Christ, they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. At this point they will err, but will nevertheless be guided by this Spirit. If they perservere, they will be a part of the First Resurrection and achieve eternal life.

They can, however, reject the Spirit and abandon their salvation. If so, that sin is unforgivable and they will end up in the Lake of Fire.

I know this hits on the business of "once saved always saved" which I subscribe to. In another words, minor errors are not going to take away anyone's salvation. Even a major screw up that someone repents for will be forgiven. Only a deliberate rejection of the Holy Spirit will cause them to commit this unforgivable sin.

As I said, there is more than one way to look at this and we have had some long discussions on the OSAS thing.

Glenn