You say that sin was not in the world until Adam's transgression, and the serpent deceiving Eve was not a sin until God reprimanded the serpent for it. Are you not defining the act (the serpent sinning) by the consequence (God reprimanding the serpent)? An act is not defined by it's consequence because an act could have many different consequences. The consequence is evidence of the act. God reprimanding the serpent is evidence of the serpent's sin. A sin that took place before Adam's disobedience.
It seems you are saying that the law is what causes death, not the sin. I would agree in that if you break the law, there is a consequence, but that consequence isn't an automatic effect of the law, but God's enforcement of the law. 'For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed where there is no law' This is stating that there are no legal repercussions where there is no law, not that there is no death where there is no law. This is evident by the next verse that tells us death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had no law to break.
Death reigned because a command was broken with Adam. Adam breaking the command didn't bring about an automatic effect of death, but the punishment (wages) of death (spiritual death). This is a death that all man has inherited. How else would death reign without any law? This death that all man has inherited is what leads us all into sin.
You say there is not such thing as spiritual death. Then what was the death that God said would take place in the day they at from the tree? If there is no such thing as spiritual death, then how did Eve know she had been deceived?
It is clear in scripture that we consist of three facets, body, soul, and spirit. The body (flesh) is fairly self explanatory. The soul is what animates the body. It is through the soul that we are aware of our own existence. Then there is the spirit. This is our connection to the divine (God). God is spirit and to carry out a relationship with God would require that we too have a spirit through which this relationship can exist.
At the end of Gen 3:22 God makes it clear that should Adam and Eve eat also from the tree of life, they would live forever. This would not be possible if sin eventually leads to physical death. That is a contradiction. God's statement only makes sense if physical death is a normal part of human existence. That rules out physical death being what God warned Adam of. The death of the soul would be indistinguishable from the death of the body since the soul is what animates the body. So that rules out the soul. Leaving the spirit to be the only place death could have taken place.
Also, when the serpent deceived Eve, he assured her of two things: that she wouldn't die, and that she would become like God in knowing good and evil. Knowing good and evil is confirmed by God in Gen 3:22. When the serpent said she wouldn't die, she would have understood this to be physical death since physical death was a normal part of existence. Spiritual death would have been unknowable until they had experienced it. So her not dying, as the serpent said, by her perspective was also true. So how did she come to realize she had been deceived? The only possible answer would be that she experienced spiritual death. Something deep within her had died. Where did these new emotions of guilt, shame, and fear arise from if nothing within her had changed?
Just as the trinity is never specifically mentioned in scripture, we are able to ascertain this through the evidence found in scripture. The same holds true for spiritual death.
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