"Because Adam wickedly became a sinner, and brought himself into a state of alienation from God, the doom was pronounced upon him, “Thou shall surely die.”
Could this mean that he should suffer the punishment of eternal 
death? If so, Adam never could have been ‘released therefrom. But he is to be released from the death incurred by his transgression; for “in Christ,” the Scriptures assure us, all shall again “be made alive.”
These two installments, then, “death spiritual” and “death eternal,” utterly fail when brought to the test of the language in which the sentence is expressed:
one is not reasonable,
and the other not possible.
Temporal death, then, alone remains to be considered; but the interpretation which is given to this completely nullifies the penalty, and makes Satan to have been correct when he said, “Thou shall not surely die.”
--Temporal death is interpreted to mean the separation of the soul from the body; the body alone to die, but the soul, which is called the real, responsible man, to enter upon an enlarged and higher life, which is to continue forever. In this case, there is no death; and the sentence should have read, In the day thou eats thereof, thou shall be freed from the clog of this mortal body, and enter upon a new and eternal life.
So said Satan, “You shall not surely die but you shall be as gods;” and true to this assertion from the father of lies, the heathen have all along deified their dead men, and worshiped their departed heroes.
--- If ever the skill of a deceiver, and the gullibility of a victim, were manifested in an unaccountable degree, it is in this fact. That right in the face and eyes of the pale throng that daily passes down through the gate of death, the Devil can make men believe that after all his first lie was true, and there is no such thing as death.
From these considerations, it is evident that nothing will meet the demands of the sentence but the cessation of the life of the whole man." Uriah Smith
