Romans 5:14 “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.”
Romans 6:5-7 “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also of resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.”
To be alive through the tree of knowledge is what God calls death [reigning].But this reign of death through the tree of knowledge is actually the making of a seed (word) that can be planted or buried. And once planted, that seed [that is already “dead” through the works of the tree of good and evil] dies in itself. When a seed is planted (buried}, the seed itself dies. See also Romans 6:1-7. The mind [that the seed has created] is the body of sin that might be destroyed in Romans 6:6. And once that way of thinking (tree of knowledge of good and evil) is destroyed, so it the understanding of sin that came along with it. And with that understanding of sin being destroyed, comes the freedom from sin. When your understanding of sin changes, you are no longer bound by its imprisoning law.
Romans 5:14 says that Adam is the “figure” of him that was to come. The word figure here means an example to be imitated, or the image of something else. It could mean here that the story of Adam is a story about something else or an example to be imitated.
1Co 15:44-45 “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a quickening spirit.”
Adam represents our process of living through the tree of knowledge of good and evil (death) to our new life after that seed dies. Living through the natural body is living through our soul. The Greek word here for soul is “psyche” which represents the seat of the feelings, desires, aversions, which is similar to the Hebrew word for soul “nephesh” used in Genesis 2:7 [“And the LORD God formed man the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”] The Greek word here in 1Corinthians for spirit is “pneuma” which represents a life giving spirit, or the rational with power by which a human feels, thinks, and decides, or a simple essence, devoid of all grosser matter, and possessed of the power of knowing, desiring, deciding, and acting. Both of these definitions for soul and spirit are from Strong’s Concordance. There is a difference between our soul and the spirit of God, and which one is in control of our mind. Adam’s transformation from a living soul to a quickening spirit and how that represents something else should be looked at closer.