Q: What is the Sinaite view on what happens to us after we die?

Image from Kalilayan Founders Center, University of the Cordilleras, designed by Christian Bumatay

[First posted November 2016 on the occasion of All Saints Day. This is another excerpt from a long article that began as an eulogy for a dearly departed Sinaite but went on to explaining the Sinaite’s view of what happens after death. For the original post, please go to this link: “And just like that, he is no longer alive”.

Christianity’s Holy Week culminated on Resurrection Sunday with a promise of resurrection for all believers in Jesus Christ. Well, what happens to non-believers in the Christian Savior, the non-Christian population, do they resurrect at all? The Christian teaching is: a resurrection for judgment where their ultimate destiny is hell. What is the Sinaite’s stand on “life beyond the grave”?—Admin1]

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From the time of our breakaway from Christ-centered faith, there have been unspoken speculations— (we’re merely guessing, knowing how we used to think as former Christians)—- that the deaths among our very small core community are indicators of Divine Judgment upon the ‘already-saved’ who turn their backs on the Savior. Actually a worse fate than those who never “converted” according to these few selected NT exhortations:

1 Timothy 4:1-5 (ESV)

Some Will Depart from the Faith

4 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, ²through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared . . . .

Colossians 2:8-1 (ESV)

⁸See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits^[a] of the world, and not according to Christ.

Hebrews 6:4-6 (NIV)

⁴It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age ⁶and who have fallen^[a]away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

Hebrews 10:26-31

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Shiver. Now think about it:

would the God of Righteousness, Justice and Mercy
really ‘punish by death’
those whom He did not choose (like the Israelites),
but who chose Him as LORD (like Sinaites),
no matter how late we showed our recognition of YHWH as the One True God
in our non-stop quest to ‘Know God’,
a pilgrimage that has taken a lifetime,
holding on to Divine declarations in—-Deuteronomy 4:29 [EF]

But when you seek YHWH your God

from there you will find (him),

if you search for him with all your heart

and all your being.

and Jeremiah 29:14 [AS] :

“You will seek Me and you will find [Me],

if you search for Me with all your hearts;

I will make Myself available to you,

the word of HASHEM [YHWH].

The character of the God of Israel whom Sinaites have come to know is defined through His actions as well as His Self-declarations recorded in the Torah, His Book of Life:

6 And YHWH passed before his face

and called out:

“YHWH YHWH God,

showing-mercy, showing-favor,

long-suffering in anger,

abundant in loyalty and faithfulness,

7 keeping loyalty to the thousandth (generation),

bearing iniquity, rebellion and sin,

yet not clearing, clearing (the guilty),

calling-to-account the iniquity of the fathers

upon the sons and upon sons’ sons,

to the third and fourth (generation)!

So what has YHWH declared about the destiny of the likes of us or, for that matter, the likes of all—Jew, Gentile, Christian, non-Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, clueless non-religious humanity?

Here is the developing Sinaite’s view on ‘after-life’ lingering questions. The reason for bringing this up now is because we have been constantly asked: “What do Sinaites believe happens after death?” Specifically, where does one go if he does not embrace the Christian Savior?

Sinaites can only go by what is on record as “the very words of God”; we do not and dare not speculate beyond what is revealed . We have explained in many posts what we consider as “Divine Revelation” and that is limited to the Torah which is not word-for-word attributed to the God of Israel, but a book that contains or records the words of the God of Israel. . . and His instructions for living, for Jew and Gentile.

Image from QuoteAddicts.com

That oft-repeated question of “what next” after “this life”? Death is the inevitable destiny everyone alive faces, ready or not. Some religions are quite preoccupied with the subject, particularly those that claim specific revelation about what lies beyond. Myths and legends abound regarding ghosts and spirits that linger; some advocate that the dead believer is ‘instantly’ with their ‘Lord’ and that non-believers are condemned for eternal suffering in the fires of hell.

Sinaites have struggled with explaining our view of what happens in the “afterlife.” If we don’t believe in the devil and a place called hell where non-believers in the Christian Savior are supposedly destined to go, then where is the non-Christian’s ‘eternal destination’?

Where do we think that intangible immaterial part of us —

we might call “soul” or “spirit”
that leaves our physical body
. . . goes . . .
when the inevitable separation
of our essence from the body it inhabits
happens at the crucial ‘end of life’?

Our simple and candid answer? We do not know. We do not ‘worry’ about that particular ‘unknown’. Why not?

If the Revelator on Sinai emphasized LIFE in all His declarations, then who is man to speculate and imagine what happens beyond the boundaries of what is divinely revealed, and dare venture into the unknown? YHWH the Creator of LIFE is LIFE-focused, emphasizing what each human can do during his life span which is about the only time he can exercise his God-given free will, to choose–

how to live his life,
to do or not to do . . .
his will or God’s Will . . .
to be the ‘I’ in the Idol
or the ‘I’ in God’s Image.

The Revelator’s mouthpiece, Moses, urges “choose life” —

to the second generation
issuing from the original mixed multitude who were freed from bondage to Egypt 40 years before;
born in the wilderness,
children of freemen,
who were all still alive and breathing
as they were about to enter the Land of promise.

What does “choose life” mean to generations who are still alive? We have articles explaining “choose life” so we won’t go into that here, please check out these links:

Not so strangely, the Torah is silent about what happens beyond life on this earth. Except for some debatable and vague phrases about how each of Israel’s patriarchs “went the way of his fathers”, the generational narratives just keep moving on.

Why so?

We can only know the Mind and Will of God according to what He chooses to reveal, right? So we figure that YHWH, Creator of humanity, Revelator on Sinai, Source of life and breath, the God Who revealed Himself and His Way to Israel, chooses to emphasize in His Manual for Living, His TORAH—

what each individual can do
while he has breath
for each moment-by-moment
constantly time-passing ‘present’
—-the PRESENT —- which is the only real-time one has or actually possesses; which is ever fleeting second per second,
to choose to do or not to do,
to act or not act,
in accordance with one’s own inclination
whether knowingly
or ignorantly (uneducated by Divine Revelation)
or in accordance with God’s revealed and known Will, all contained in the Torah.

In short, if God doesn’t say so, neither do we. Leave that part to the Lord of LIFE!

We do know the consequence for ‘choose life’ and that is ‘blessing’. Can we leave it at that? And we might also find comfort in the words of wisdom from the author of the book of Ecclesiastes 12:5-7, (presumably, King Solomon):

Remember Your Creator in Your Youth
…6 Remember Him

before the silver cord is broken

and the golden bowl is crushed,

the pitcher by the well is shattered

and the wheel at the cistern is crushed;

7 then the dust will return to the earth as it was,

and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

8 “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!”…

Ponder this opening line in the last chapter titled “Memory”—THE GRAMMAR OF GOD by Jewess author Aviya Kushner:

“And just like that,

my grandfather is no longer alive.

I write no longer alive,

not dead,

not gone,

because neither of those

has really been true.”

IN MEMORIAM,

all our dearly beloved,

who are “no longer alive”,

Source: Exodus/Shemoth 24 – "the sight of the Glory of YHVH (was) like a consuming fire" -- We gentiles living in this 21st century are able to experience that climactic moment [God appearing on Sinai] by reading and studying this portion of the TORAH. Indeed, we see YHWH not quite as dramatically as the mixed multitude did, but perhaps even better through these accounts recorded in Exodus. There is a saying that hindsight is 20/20 vision, i.e., we begin to see and understand the question marks in our past only later in our lives, as we mature and hopefully become wiser and more introspective about the meaning or seeming meaninglessness of happenings in history, whether personal, national, or universal. Søren Kierkegaard adds a twist to this: “Only 20:20 vision is hindsight. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” As we endeavor to understand each portion in the TORAH of YHWH, much of it will seem irrelevant to our current situation but if we see beyond the time-bound cultural and religious situations and begin to understand what truly has not change—human nature and the Great Revelator who designed the perfect blueprint for living in peace, happily and contentedly with family, community, country and the nations, the unquestionable conclusion is: TORAH is relevant to ALL humankind, not just to Israel, to this very day.

Q: What is the Sinaite view on what happens to us after we die?

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