Claim. Scripture uses life and death in two distinct senses: a physical sense (the body’s physiological state) and a spiritual sense (whether the person dwells within God’s love-dominion or under Satan’s dominion). The two are independent — a physically-living person can be spiritually dead, and a physically-deceased person can be spiritually alive.
Elaboration. Per 1.1. The Biblical Concepts of Life and Death: when Jesus told a disciple “leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Matt 8:22), he applied “the dead” to people whose bodies were active — meaning they were “far removed from the love of God and were dwelling in the realm of Satan’s dominion.” Similarly 1: “you have the name of being alive, and you are dead.” Conversely, John 11:25-26: “he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live… whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” — meaning the believer’s spirit enjoys life in God’s dominion even after the body returns to soil.
The spiritual-life concept anchors Jesus’s paradoxical sayings: “whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Matt 16:25). Those who transgress God’s Will to preserve flesh are physically alive but spiritually dead; those who sacrifice flesh for God’s Will live forever as spirits in His love.
This distinction is the load-bearing premise for the rest of Ch 5. The two concepts must be kept separate before the death caused by the Fall can be identified, before resurrection can be defined, and before physical death’s status as original design can be argued.
See also. dp-heaven-or-hell-self-determined-by-capacity-for-gods-love