mmets said:
The person is dead only due to their trespasses - a result of their fallen nature. They are still an eternal soul, and eternally doomed, unless they meet the righteous requirements of God found in Christ for a substitutionary atonement, that they may pass from death (the death due them for their lack of glorification to God, whom has to be glorified because He is true) into life.
You are approaching from the standpoint that salvation is a future item to be received as a gift from God by a sinner based on that sinner's response, and so the why's on the first part of your post. No offense intended.
Salvation is not a future gift by God to the sinner.
It is a present possession of the sinner who is among those whom He calls His sheep and have always called His sheep.
Paul states very clearly that the gospel "brings life and immortality to light". Now how can something which is not there be brought to light ? And why does it have to be brought to light ? Because, I believe, its possessor had no idea at all he had it already.
Before the cross, salvation was possessed by His people by virtue of Christ's being the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, His blood shed from the foundation of the world.
After the cross, salvation was a reality to His people, in time, through the Blood of Calvary's Lamb. Those who are His born after His time here on earth are already redeemed, but will, by virtue of their being of the fallen race of Adam, have to be regenerated, which is a work of the third Person of the Trinity in the plan of salvation.
Only they will be regenerated, because only they have been redeemed to the Father by the Son, regardless of their geographical or chronological circumstances, and one may add, theological and credal.
Only they can perish in the sense in which Jehovah God used the word "perish" in the Scripture "my people perish for lack of knowledge", notice, lack, and not absence, or ignorance, tie up these truths and principles and you get a better understanding of Hebrews 6 which was being discussed elsewhere.
Those whom God passed by and left to their own sins never have, and never will have, spiritual life, and therefore are already dead, though they may be physically vibrant, educated, agile, and moving about.