The Romans sometimes compelled a captive to be joined face-to-face with a dead body, and to bear it about until the horrible emanating smell destroyed the life of the living victim. Virgil describes this cruel punishment:
’The living and the dead at his command
Were coupled face to face, and hand to hand;
Till choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,
The lingering wretches pined away and died.
Without Christ, we are shackled to a dead corpse -- our sinfulness. Eph 2:1 says we are dead in pour transgressions and sins. Only repentance and faith frees us from certain death, for life and death coexist indefinitely. God has the power to raise you from your unbelief and give you a resurrection life. Gives you real hope in this life and the one to come.