It is clear that the death to which Jesus was referring has nothing to do with physical death.  On the contrary, it was the word which he used – and it was the strongest word he could find – to describe the state of a human being who does not share God’s life because he does not have that living personal relationship with him which is eternal life, whether here or hereafter.

The absence of such a relationship is marked by the dominance of one’s lower self with its well-known manifestations against which St Paul has warned us: impurity, foul talk, troublemaking, covetousness, lying, anger, enmity, hatred, malice and slander (see Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5-9).

And eternal life cannot begin until one’s lower self, and all those evil things which stream out of it, have been given the death blow by a repentance that really means business; that is, the positive action of turning away from those things by deliberately turning to God.

And the fruit of that new life, of that new relationship, is altogether different: “…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” (RSV Catholic edition, Galatians 5:22).