Life is that by which a created being enjoys the place in which the Creator has set it. God breathed into man's nostrils 'the breath of life; and man became a living soul.' Genesis 2:7 . Sin having come in, this life is forfeited and God claims it, saying, "surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man." Genesis 9:5 . This instituted capital punishment for murder, which law has never been rescinded or altered.
Scripture recognises a difference between 'life' in a moral sense and 'existence,' as seen in the passage, "What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?" Psalm 34:12 . Here is a man desiring life, desiring to enjoy life. This answers the objection of those who, wishing to deny eternal punishment, say that 'living for ever' is only spoken of the Christian, as in John 6:51,58 . True, but many other scriptures prove that the wicked will have an eternal existence.
Man, in his natural state, is regarded as morally dead in sins, and as needing to be quickened by the power of God; or as living in sins and needing to accept death in order to live in Christ, as in the Epistle to the Romans.