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.

5407. 'And let us live and not die' means spiritual life. This is clear from the meaning of 'living and not dying' as spiritual life, for nothing else than this is meant in the internal sense by 'living and not dying'. In the next life 'life' generally means heaven, but specifically it means eternal happiness, while 'death' generally means hell, but specifically eternal unhappiness there, as is also evident from many places in the Word. The reason why heaven generally and eternal happiness specifically are called 'life' is that wisdom, which essentially is good, and intelligence, which essentially is truth, are present in heaven, and the life of such wisdom and intelligence is received from the Lord, the Source of the whole of life. But because the contrary of this exists in hell - that is to say, evil exists instead of good, and falsity instead of truth, so that spiritual life has been snuffed out there - what exists there, compared with that existing in heaven, is death. For spiritual death consists in evil and falsity, and it exists with man as the desire for what is evil and a consequent thinking what is false. Evil genii and spirits refuse to listen when it is said that they have no life or that they are dead. For they say that they do have life since they have the power of will and the power of thought. But they are told that since life resides in what is good and true it cannot possibly do so in what is evil and false, because the two are contraries.