9008. 'Shall surely die' means damnation. This is clear from the meaning of 'surely dying' as damnation, dealt with in 5407, 6119, 7494. The reason why 'death' means damnation is that with those who have been damned the truths of faith and forms of the good of charity have been wiped out. These are what constitute the most real kind of life a person has, for they are received from the Lord, who is the one and only source of life. When they have been wiped out their place is then taken by falsities and evils; and these, being the opposites of truths and forms of good which are the constituents of life, are therefore the constituents of death - spiritual death, which is damnation, hell, and eternal unhappiness. The reason why those immersed in evils and falsities, that is, those who are in hell, continue to be alive is that they were born human beings and consequently have the ability to receive life from the Lord. And they do receive life from the Lord, as much life as will enable them to think, reason, and speak, to make their evil look like good and their falsity like truth, and so to give the appearance of life.

7494. People therefore who either pervert, annihilate, or reject the good of love and the truth of faith residing with them do not have life within themselves. For life received from the Divine consists in willing what is good and believing what is true. But those who do not will what is good, only what is evil, and do not believe what is true, only what is false, possess the opposite of life. This opposite of life is hell and is called death; and those people are called the dead. The fact that the life of love and faith is called life and also eternal life, and those who possess it within themselves are called living persons; and the fact that the opposite of life is called death, and also eternal death, and those [who possess the opposite of life within themselves] are called dead persons, is clear from a large number of places in the Word, such as Matthew 4:16; 8:21-22; 18:8-9; 19:16-17, 29; John 3:15-16, 36; 5:24-25; 6:33, 35, 47-48, 50-51, 53, 57-58, 67; John 8-21, John 24, John 51; 10:10; 11:15, 26; 14:6, 19; 17:7; 20:31; and elsewhere.