Cremation or Burial
Cremations are growing in popularity.
In 1900, there were only 2,414 people (.003 %) cremated in the entire United States.
By 1960, this number rose to 60,987 cremations (3.56%).
By 2010, the cremation rate in the United States rose to 40.62 % and continues to rise.
What does the Bible say?
Is it God pleasing to cremate the dead?
2 Timothy 3:16,17
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
Therefore, we Christians should study the bible to gain insight into questions such as this.
Adam came from the earth...
therefore, we all must go back to the earth.
Since this curse of death, people everywhere had to answer the question:
What should we do with this dead decaying body?
It was only natural that people would place the body into the earth since that is how Adam came to receive life. They were, in a sense, putting the soil back in with the soil.
When God created Adam, He formed him out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life.
Eventually Adam and Eve sinned against God and received the punishment of death.
Genesis 3:19
"In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."
The Jews never practiced cremation, but instead placed the bodies into the earth.
When Sarah died, Abraham buried her.
Genesis 23:19,20
“And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. So the field and the cave that is in it were deeded to Abraham by the sons of Heth as property for a burial place.”
Abraham was eventually buried in this same cave along with his sons and their wives.
The Israelites, hundreds of years later, even took such pains as to carefully carry Joseph's body out of Egypt, to be buried in this cave.
It would have been far easier to burn his body back in Egypt, but they didn't. They followed Joseph's instructions.
God Himself buried Moses.
Deuteronomy 34:5,6
“So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He [God] buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day.”
The Jews consistently, only ever buried their dead. The Jews followed this precedent for hundreds of years. Even into the New Testament, the Jews buried their dead.
Matthew 14:10-12
“So he sent and had John beheaded in prison. And his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. Then his disciples came and took away the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus.”
Jesus was buried not burned.
Luke 23:52,53 “This man [Joseph of Arimathea] went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before.”
Jesus being buried, only added to the Christian conviction that bodies were to be buried.
The early church practiced burials and taught against cremations.
The first Christian Martyr
Acts 8:2 “And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.”
Early church father, Tertullian A.D. 155 - 220, (the man who coined the word trinity), believed cremation to be a symbol of the fires of hell.
In A.D. 195, Caecilius angrily spoke to his Roman countrymen saying that Christians “execrate our funeral pyres and condemn cremation.”
At this time the Romans would often leave the criminal, widow, or poor in the open countryside to be eaten by dogs and birds, while burning others to ash. They, like most pagan societies, cared very little for the bodies of the dead.
Cremation is part of pagan culture
and their religious practices.
Many ancient cultures from around the world practiced cremation for thousands of years.
Everyone from the ancient Greeks
to the Romans
to the Celts
to the Scandinavian Vikings
and many Native American tribes.
Even today, many Easten peoples including the Buddhists and Hindus practice cremation.
The Hindus practice what is called Antyesti, which is translated as "last sacrifice". A fitting name since it looks like a human sacrifice.
Some even wonder if the idea of cremation has its origin in human sacrifices, but that might be difficult to prove.
What isn't difficult to prove
is that cremations are certainly linked with ancestral worship, where the urns of the dead are placed on their home altars.
Many cultures believe this to be a great honor but burning a body and crushing the bones is more destructive and irreverent than an Iraqi dragging one of our soldiers behind his vehicle.
Christianity teaches that we are to honor the body by taking care of it, even after death.
Matthew 26:10-12
“But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial.”
Mark 16:1-6
"Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him."
Acts 9:36,37
“At Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did. But it happened in those days that she became sick and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room.”
Christianity teaches that we are to honor the body as a living temple.
1 Corinthians 3:16,17
“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”
1 Corinthians 6:19,20
“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
This stands in sharp contrast to what a cremation looks like.
Cremations are an incredibly violent and grotesque method for disposing of the body. The body is treated like a thing rather than a human being. It is treated like refuse rather than the flesh that God created to house a unique soul, fashioned in God's image.
It is burnt by extreme heat. It cracks, pops, and rips open.
The body becomes unrecognizable.
Eventually, even the bones begin to break down.
The bones that do not burn up are separated from the rest of the ash. The ash is swept away and placed in a bucket that has held thousands of other bodies.
Those bones are then pulverized into small particles and mixed with a white powder for aesthetic reasons and then added to the ash bucket.
The contents of the bucket are stirred together and dumped into a prebought beautiful urn. Eventually, the urn is placed on a nice clean table for viewing purposes.
But no one wants to think about the process by which it got in that fancy urn. Nor do they want to think about the likelihood that some of the ashes are from other people mixed in with the ashes of their loved one, or if it even is their loved one.
Burning bones was only ever done as an extreme punishment.
Genesis 19:24
“Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens.”
Leviticus 10:1,2
“Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.”
Leviticus 20:14
“If a man marries a woman and her mother, it is wickedness. They shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no wickedness among you.”
Leviticus 21:9
“The daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the harlot, she profanes her father. She shall be burned with fire.”
Numbers 11:1-3
"Now when the people complained, it displeased the Lord; for the Lord heard it, and His anger was aroused. So the fire of the Lord burned among them, and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the Lord had burned among them."
Numbers 16:35
“And a fire came out from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense.”
Joshua 7:15-25 (Sin of Achan)
“Then it shall be that he who is taken with the accursed thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has done a disgraceful thing in Israel…”
“And Joshua said, “Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day.” So all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones.”
2 Kings 1:9, 10
“Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty with his fifty men. So he went up to him; and there he was, sitting on the top of a hill. And he spoke to him: “Man of God, the king has said, ‘Come down!’ ” So Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.
2 Kings 23:16-20
“As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were there on the mountain. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, and defiled it according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. Then he said, “What gravestone is this that I see?” So the men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel.”
Continued from above:
And he said, “Let him alone; let no one move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria. Now Josiah also took away all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger; and he did to them according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel. He executed all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned men’s bones on them; and he returned to Jerusalem.”
The Book of Amos tells us that the king of Moab sinned by burning the body of the king of Edom.
Amos 2:1,2
“Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime. But I will send a fire upon Moab, And it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; Moab shall die with tumult, With shouting and trumpet sound.”
Time and time again we can see that the burning of the bodies was something that was done only to the wicked but was not to be done to the believer.
Fire symbolizes God's Judgment.
Matthew 13:49, 50
"This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Mark 9:43
"If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out."
Jude 1:7
"In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire."
Revelation 19:20
"But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur."
Death is a type of sleep.
John 11:11-15
“These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”
Mark 5:38-42
“Then He [Jesus] came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and saw a tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly. When He came in, He said to them, “Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.”
Continued from above.
"And they ridiculed Him. But when He had put them all outside, He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying. Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” Immediately the girl arose and walked…”
It is easy to see the similarities between death and sleep. Even in death a person looks as if they might wake up, walk around, and speak with us.
When the body is burned and the bones are pulverized, it loses the metaphor and image of sleep. It no longer looks like a person who has fallen asleep waiting for the last day.
The early church understood this well, for at their time, the Romans would bury some of the wealthier families in the earth. What is interesting is the name that they would use for such places. They called these graveyards “necropolis”.
Christians on the other hand, coined a new word to describe such burial sites. They instead used the Latin word "coemeterium" which means “a temporary sleeping place”. This is where we get the English word cemetery.
The early Christians believed so strongly in the care of the dead body and in the resurrection that they not only buried their own dead, but they would gather the dead bodies of strangers, criminals, and the poor who were left out in the countryside and bury them as well.
Pagan Romans converted to Christianity, in part because they witnessed the love that Christians had for these dead bodies and their unwillingness to accept cremations.
Jesus was the firstfruits of those who had risen from sleep and He is the one who will wake the world from their slumber.
1 Corinthians 15:20-22
“But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
“But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep."
Continued from above.
"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
Daniel prophesied concerning this miraculous event.
Daniel 12:2
“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, Some to everlasting life, Some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
In summary, we Christians should not cremate our dead because Adam came from the earth and therefore, we should be put back in the earth. The Jews never practiced cremation. Jesus was not cremated. The early church was against cremation. Pagans practiced cremation within their cultures and religions. It is a horribly violent and grotesque practice that does not honor the body as the Lord's Temple. Cremating someone's bones was only ever done as a punishment, because it symbolized God's fiery Judgment. Lastly, it destroys the image and metaphor of a sleeping person waiting to be woken by the last trumpet.
John 5:28,29
“Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”
