Paul and Bev Lunnie of Gilman, Vermont ask, "What does the Bible have to say, if anything, about cremation?"

I suppose that there are many other children of God who have the same question. I think it is a timely question in view of the fact that cremation is becoming more and more the interment of choice.

The subject of the cremation of human remains is not dealt with directly in the Holy Scriptures. However, we do have some reference to some people being burned. In Amos 2:1, for instance, God pronounced judgement upon Moab, "Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:" It looks as if he must have done it because of the expression of contempt to desecrate and insult his enemy.

John the Baptist said of Jesus, "He will...gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (Mat 3:12) It is apparent that punishment of the wicked is implied here. He may or may not have been speaking of the dead.

The key to whether any particular type of interment is to be desired or to be considered as undesirable is more particularly a question concerning the resurrection, which is the hope of the believers. There are two passages in particular which explain what happens, or perhaps more perfectly doesn?t happen, to the body at the time of the return of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ and our resurrection from the dead. They are 2 Cor. 5:1,2 and 1 Cor. 15:35-38.

"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle (body) were dissolved, (no matter how it was dissolved, eaten of worms, animals, fish, or burned with fire) we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

"For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body."

In both of these statements Paul declared that, when this present body experiences decay, it will not be used again. Luke agreed with Paul on this point in Acts 2:26,27. He quoted a psalm of King David, "Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." Luke went on, in verses 29-31, to give us the reason that Jesus could not be allowed to experience bodily decay. He said, "Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption."

Apparently God was telling us by the prophecy in that psalm of David?s that, if Jesus? body decayed, the promise to David could not be fulfilled in Jesus. You might say, "God can do anything." The truth is that God has limited himself by his word. He will only work in the confines of that which is written. And Paul wrote the words of God in 1 Cor 15:50, "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption."

Those bodies which experience corruption will not be raised without corruption in the resurrection when our Lord returns. The believer will be raised and given a new body which is "from heaven." It will be an immortal, incorruptible body which God will bring with Jesus (1Thess. 4:14) when he returns to reward his faithful saints.

How a person?s body is dissolved is more or less irrelevant. What matters is, "Will we have walked justly and humbly with our God and have made our calling sure with Him?" (2 Pet. 1:10)

C.E.M.

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