WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A MESSIANIC BELIEVER DIES?

By Rabbi/Brother Moshe Yoseph Koniuchowsky

Your Arms To Israel President/Founder

A Special teaching To A Movement At The Forked Road Of Crisis!

The Increasing Danger

This short overview is being written in response to many within the messianic community. In particular to those who have just about stolen all joy and hope from the child of Yahuwah regarding eternal and immediate ongoing life after his or her physical death. Fortunately we have the scriptures to straighten us out and get us back on track.

Many of us came to Messiah Yahshua for many different reasons. One of the primary reasons was the gift of eternal life and its accompanying escape from eternal death. Today with the growth of the modern messianic movement, both in Messianic Jewish and Messianic Nazarene Yisrael, doctrines have crept in unawares (Matt13:39) that steal not only our liberty from eternal death, but also our PROMISED life in heaven. Heresies such as: “the believer does not go to heaven”, “the believer will not see or go to heaven”, “the believer will never experience heaven” or the believer has no right or biblical promise of heaven since it is Yahuwah’s home”, are all fiery darts of s.a.tan, designed to steal our hope, joy, anticipation and our great reward.

Error

This study is by no means comprehensive but enough detail is being provided to make HaAdon Yahshua’s case. In our attempts to issue a “get” or a divorce from all kirch/church or kirch practices, we in the messianic movement have succumbed to traditional Jewish error, which is the denial of the afterlife in heaven with Messiah Yahshua our only Savior. Remember what happened when the early kirch fathers, ran from anything Jewish, just because a doctrine was considered too Jewish, even when the practice was based on scripture! Look where it got them! We cannot reject eternal life IN HEAVEN, just because this particular view is also held by most of apostate Christendom. In this case they happen to be right!

Where We Went Wrong

The blame lies at the very foot of the door not of the kirch system but at the door of apostate Babylonian Rabbinical Judaism, that has seduced our messianic rabbis and pastors. In our rush to embrace everything Jewish as righteous and divine, (including some types and shadows as portrayed in the ancient Jewish wedding ceremony) and toss out everything kirchy, we have seemingly tossed away our reward. And unless right here and right now we decide to walk circumspectly by reclaiming our inheritance, the very survival of the Messianic Movement is at stake. Why? Because Yahshua bled like a common thief in the greatest individual loving sacrifice this world has ever known, to take us to our wonderful reward WITH HIM in heaven. And yet you and I have allowed ourselves to be seduced by false teachings, that have overturned and in effect negated the finished work of Mt. Golgotha by rewriting the promised heavenly reward right out of our Master’s vary own will! This may sound overdramatic but it is not. This prophetic word is a sobering call from Yahuwah to get our house in order, lest we experience judgment (First Keefa 4:16) instead of peace and assurance. How can we reclaim this assurance of a pre-millennial/post physical death home in heaven, just as scripture promises, and just as Yahshua came to give us by His unconditional love? Simply by retracing the biblical steps that awaits all born again Messianic believers in Yahshua our Moshiach.

“No Life In Heaven” Teachings

Should Yahshua tarry, and should we taste physical death, what follows surely awaits all who trust in Him. The following events are straight from scripture, and are listed chronologically, so as to end all speculation, current confusion, and anachronistic recantations of varied false unscriptural life after death scenarios. Much of the problem with those who deny heaven as the believer’s pre millennial home is that they have rearranged the promised events promised to every man and woman who died in the faith. Primary among these doctrines of doom is the teaching of soul sleep, as the believer is said to go 6 feet under as he or she awaits the last day premillineal post Tribulation physical resurrection. “The loss of heaven” or “no heaven for the believer teaching”, is not a salvation issue and thus is not a reason to divide or break fellowship or anything else of that drastic nature. However if we do not reintroduce and reinstate this truth, I fear much of our promised joy (Nehemiah 8:10) will be forfeited and life will become even more difficult then it already is. Yahuwah didn’t give us His promises to make life mediocre or survivable but abundant. How do we who have been pounded by “no heavenly home” teachings, newsletters and e-mails, recover before it’s too late? We must as in all cases do 180 degree, teshuvah/repentance and turn towards to scripture.

Proof

In Yochanan 14:2 Yahshua the Moshiach tells us that He is returning to the Father’s House to prepare a place for us. The Father’s House cannot be on earth since whatever house on earth existed in Israel's past WAS A REPLICA OR PATTERN of the one where Abba Yahuwah really dwells. Since when has the Father ever left heaven or moved elsewhere? In order for Yahshua to sit at Abba's right hand, He (Yahshua) must also be in heaven. He said that it was that house (Abba’s) that He was preparing for us. In John 14:3 He promised to return for us, so as to put us in the house that He and Abba live in, so that “where I am, you might be also.” Where is He now? According to Hebrews 8:1 and Hebrews 9:24, Yahshua has passed into the heavens itself. So if in fact Yahshua is in heaven, and if that is where He is doing His preparations for us, that is where you and I will be after keeping our ordained appointment with physical death (Hebrews 9:27). So 2,000 years ago the preparation began and by now of course it has been finished (John 19:30). Second Corinthians 5:1 confirms this great reward for the believer by stating that when, not if but “when”, our earthly house (body) is destroyed by death, we have a building from Elohim A HOUSE (OR TABERNACLE) NOT MADE WITH HANDS EVERLASTING IN THE HEAVENS. A gift of eternal life in our new heavenly home will be an everlasting house located in the heavens (all three). In Philippians 1:21 Rav Shaul can only speak of physical death as something to “gain” or a promotion “upwards”, only if he is fully convinced that immediate and ongoing glorious life awaits him in heaven with Moshiach Yahshua. And this is exactly what he expects. He calls death a gain. What is he gaining? Philippians 1:23 cannot make things clearer. The gain he midrashes/discusses here is the gain of a departure unto Messiah or a departure that finds him with His Messiah immediately upon death. There is no gap for soul sleep or any other delayed or postponed reward. This truth is reaffirmed in Second Corinthians 5:8, where Rav Shaul is not worried about death because his confidence is full in Yahshua’s promise of John 14, that "to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Master”. Where you find the Master you will find the believer after death! Titus 1:2 confirms this definition of eternal life. First John 3:2 reminds us that we are already His children thus sharing a place in His house in heaven, but later at some point we receive a fuller aspect of our (physical) glorification at His return. Yahshua cannot be any firmer than He is in John 11:26. “AND EVERYONE THAT IS LIVING AND BELIEVING IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE AT ALL. DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?” Apparently many don’t! No believer dies spiritually or goes to sleep which is by definition a cessation of conscious life. Do you really think you reward is unconscious sleep? Is that the kind of eternal Zoe (eternal-ongoing-abundant) life Messiah gives? Does he not reward us His children with His own kind of life? Moshiach stated that all believers would never die or would never cease to exist. If the increasingly popular “no heaven theology” in Messianic circles is true, and the “lets hangout in the grave for a prolonged nap theory” is true, then Messiah Yahshua lied. For He said a true believer would always exist and never taste death and cessation of life. Hebrews 2:14 agrees and instructs us that since Yahshua defeated death, He delivered us from any kind of spiritual death introduced to the sons of men by s.a.tan. Those in deliverance ministry understand the eternal nature of true and complete biblical deliverance! It is total and complete lacking no remnant of the prior existing bondage.

Soul Sleep

A soul that supposedly sleeps does not have eternal life but interrupted life. His or her eternal life is put on hold or frozen and later supposedly received by being revived or awakened. Again this false understanding is actually spiritual sleep apnea, a cessation of life until it is later continued at Yahshua’s return. There are those who teach this and by very definition are rendering eternal life temporal and seasonal. Eternal life is not contingent upon Yahshua’s return to earth, as many in Messianism have falsely taught. Rather it is an accomplishment based fully upon His death at His first advent and begun at Golgotha and sealed by the Ruach HaKodesh on Shavout 33CE. If a believer can ever be suspended in spiritual animation or soul sleep to await the resurrection, then Yahshua lied in His promise of eternal life in heaven. Eternal life begins when you and I accept Him and thankfully it never ever ends. Now the location of the place where we will enjoy eternal life, can and will change. But not the very gift itself. This is the cardinal error of the “no heaven for the believer teachings”. They have bought into apostate Judaism’s teaching that there is no heaven for the believer but just a resurrection from the grave when Moshiach comes.

The Key To Understanding Daniel 12:1-2

The key to understanding Daniel 12:1-2 and other passages that appear to support soul sleep is this: the word sleep and physical bodily death are always almost use synonymously as seen in John 11:12-14, where Yahshua clearly corrects the error of His talmidim regarding soul sleep. They felt Lazarus was sleeping and resting, BUT Yahshua said no not at all! What he meant as Yahuwah's mouth on the subject of the sleep of the dead is that Lazarus is physically dead as He explains to them in John 11:14. So sleep and bodily death are the same ACCORDING TO MESSIAH YAHSHUA, WHO IS THE WORD AND THE FINAL WORD ON ALL SUBJECTS. These interchangeable terms are used even as the bible uses "to know" and "to have sex" as synonymous terms. These words I just gave you come from Yahshua's own mouth. It's His definition not mine.

With that background then the ones who are dead or sleep do so in the DUST OF THE EARTH. That's where the physical body goes. From dust thou art and to dust thou shall return. Thus the word DUST is a clear signal that what lies dormant is the dust, which has no memory or knows nothing. We know that dust is the result of decomposition of the body. These verses confirm that our banana peals turns to dust. Certainly in light of Yahshua's words this cannot be soul sleep. After the Great Tribulation the righteous will rise to physical resurrected life (Daniel 12:2) and the damned will rise physically to be condemned (Daniel 12:2) at the Great White Throne, then cast into the lake of fire. That's what these verses teach and they do not contradict any other bible teachings on life after death.

What Will Happen to You!

In order to settle this escalating error in all it’s various forms, let’s put a chronology on the chain of events that await all true children of Yahuwah.

When a believer dies physically, his or her physical body AND SOUL goes to the grave or Sheoul. It deteriorates. The banana peel goes to the dust (Genesis 3:19). Period. The spirit of man, the life-giving gift of Yahuwah, returns to Yahuwah, since He is the Father of all spirits, especially or specifically of just men made right (Hebrews 12:23). Ecclesiastes/Qoheleth 12:3. His spirit that was on loan to you in your earthly sojourn is His and thus returns to Him. THAT IS WHAT LIVES AND THRIVES IN ETERNALLY IN HEAVEN. HIS RUACH LOANED TO YOU AS A HUMAN SPIRIT FOR THIS EARTHLY SOUJOURN. Since He gave it and since He redeemed it, He takes it back. That spirit is what all the writers of Brit Chadashah meant when they taught that to be absent from the physical body is to be with Yahuwah. Your/HIS REDEEMED human spirit will live forever. Your body and the accompanying emotionl soulish realm directly attached to the body, like that of the lost goes, to the grave. No difference. The lost unredeemed human spirit/soul/AND BODY however will be cast into the lake of fire and cease to exist (Ezekiel 18:4) because Yahuwah will not allow that unclean spark of life back into his presence in a still defiled and unclean and earthly rebellious state.
The spirit not soul of a redeemed person takes part in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and (Rev 19:7) is marked as the official kala/bride of Yahshua and returns with Messiah to earth AFTER THE GREAT TRIBULATION (Zech 14:4-5). All the set apart-married folks leave heaven and the cheder (consummation room) and return to earth. But what do they return to?
At the end of the Great Tribulation where living saints are supernaturally protected, the departed in the faith saints and those surviving the Great Tribulation, will all receive their new glorified PHYSICAL resurrected bodies. Those redeemed spirits in heaven returning to earth will be introduced to their new physical/soulish/spiritual body like unto His glorious physical/spiritual/soulish/ body (Phil 3: 21). Those who survive the Great Tribulation (left behind) as the wicked are taken away will be caught up in the air to get changed into their new glorified physical/ spiritual body. After all, have you ever gotten changed lying down? Did you ever put your pants on lying on your back? Or have you put your shoes on while lying face down on your stomach? Of course not! Then those alive will need to BE CAUGHT UP TO GET CLOTHED WITH IMMORTALITY, since they will not be clothed with immortality while remaining in any kind of standing or prone position. This is the so-called catching away. Yahuwah catches up living believers at the end of the Greet Tribulation, so they can get changed in to the same clothing of immortality that Yahshua now carries. The apostate kirch system calls this atmospheric (not heavenly) dressing room “a rapture to heaven.” As they say in New York. Poppycock & Horseradish!
Before the millenium He calls the bodies of the departed trusting redeemed kedoshim/saints out of the grave, then changes living believers instantly into immortal glorified beings. He gives those departed saved and righteouss spirits that had supped with and married in heaven and who have returned with Him, a new physical glorified body and soul like He has, and like those who had been caught up for the instant change into immortality have received. The change takes place in two parts. This is the first and ONLY blessed pre-millennial resurrection, taking place in two parts, not two comings 7 years apart! All this takes place before the millennial commences. So as we enter the millennial reign, all believers will have been resurrected or changed, so as to put on Messiah, (His glorified physical/spiritual body) as all believers enter the millennial with their King. So while the righteous dead will be resurrected, the spirits are with Yahuwah in heaven and will accompany Yahshua for the pre-millennial reunification of their righteous spirit with a new millennial physical body. Of course those killed during the Great Tribulation will be part of those who marry the Lamb in heaven and return to earth as well.
Following the completion of the millennium, (1,000 years of Moshiach’s reign ON EARTH) where all believers rule and reign with Moshiach on earth as Melkezedekian priests, the Heavenly Jerusalem descends and hovers over the earth. She is said to be the heavenly city, the mother of all believers. She will rest on top of the earthly re-cleansed Jerusalem, as Yahuwah takes the two Jerusalems and makes them one single entity, (like Israel) as an enlarged physical/spiritual city! He will do to the two Jerusalems, (His bride’s permanent home) what He has done to both houses of Israel, as well as what he will do to the saved righteous, where He will combine the spirit and the body and soul into one. He will make her one, and she will once again be the faithful central city, (geographically and spiritually) full of justice and mercy (Isaiah 1:21). The eternal Jerusalem is both heavenly and earthly as they are connected physically and spiritually and will house all born again believers, (physical/spiritual members of Israel’s Commonwealth) who have had their righteous eternal spirits reunited with new physical glorified bodies. In this Jerusalem, the order of the day is the biblical principal of “combining” or “oneness renewal”. He will take the earthly sun and combine it with the eternal Son, and there will be no need of the earthly SUN (Rev 22:5) and the physical moon, as He combines it with the Lamb's blood, as the moon has been tuned dark by the Lamb’s blood (Acts 2:20), as the moon is no more. Yahshua then becomes kingdom light in both the day and night. Then Yahuwah combines day and night until they also are no more and all that is left is the Father Yahuwah and His blessed Son ruling in their kingdom with their children. That’s how Yahuwah winds down the atid lavoh/millenium and commence with eternity in the olam habah, world to come! This key principle of "combining or oneness renewal” helps to understand what awaits the child of Yahuwah after death. The goals are to take the spirit and reunite it with a new physical body. That glorified physical/spiritual body will live forever in the New Jerusalem, as all things are restored. (Ephesians 2:7)
Then at the end of the millennium, the Son hands the kingdom to His Father, who remains greater and like us His brethren, becomes subjected afresh to His Father for all ages (First Cor. 15:27-28). The unsaved cease to exist and the saved live on and on and on and on, worlds without ends. Therefore the key to understanding the believer’s true reward is that while we all await the coming of Messiah, and the promised premillenial post Tribulation first blessed set apart resurrection, our human spirits NOT SOULS return to Abba Yahuwah for consummation in the cheder or heavenly consummation chamber. Those same spirits are brought back to earth, to be placed in our eternal bodies at the first pre millennial resurrection of the righteous blood washed and redeemed remnant dead.

An Anchor

By following these plain but exciting truths, you and I will have restored all things in these last days (Acts3: 21), by putting off the yoke of a doctrine emanating from Rabbinical Judaism, and by embracing the true hope that is a sure foundation and anchor to all of Yahuwah’s children. As of this day, let us do as Yahshua, did and put hope, the hope of heaven, back into the messianic equation. For while life in heaven after death may not be inherently an accepted modern Jewish concept, it is Yahwistic at the core dating back to Israel’s biblical days.

With the full hope of our reward fully restored, we can then enjoy life and that more abundantly for all ages/eons to come. Nothing should continue to shake us or disturb us, in His entire entire set apart mountain (Isaiah 26:3-4).