What is the difference between the soul and the spirit?

[Armour of God]

What is the difference between the soul and the spirit?

I don't think I fully understand it and I keep reading different opinions on it.
Are they the same thing?
Do they both live on after our death?
Do they remain together after our death?
Which one goes to heaven? Both?

I'm interested to hear/read what people have to say about this. Hopefully I can get a better understanding of it

 

[Lambano]

My understanding is that a "spirit" is a non-corporeal sentient being. A "soul" is the essence of who and what a person is. A lot of people use the terms interchangeably. I'm not sure that's correct.

 

[Lambano]

Which one goes to heaven? Both?

Neither. A person is resurrected on the New Earth under the New Heaven, where God makes His home with men. We don't "go to Heaven"; Heaven comes to us. Revelation 21:1-5.

It is sown a psuchikon body; it is raised a pneumatikon body. There is a psuchikon body, and there is a pneumatikon body. - 1 Corinthians 15:44

While the terms highlighted are usually translated "physical" and "spiritual", in his book Surprised by Hope, NT Wright points out that these terms carry the sense of "governed by the soul" (psuche) and "governed by the spirit" (pneuma). I'm not sure exactly what "governed by the soul" means (I was once accused of being too "soul-ish"), but I think it's relevant to the discussion.

 

[quietthinker]

My understanding is the soul is as Lambano has quoted (Genesis 2:7)

....and the spirit is the attitude, the consciousness in/ with which a person operates. At death both cease to be until called forth at the resurrection of which the scripture tells are there are two.