Cremation forbidden or encouraged within our Chrisitan cirlce?

[Classik]

Should a Christian choose cremation as a burial plan? What does the Bible say about cremation? How should a person plan for a Christian funeral? Although the Bible does not specifically speak to the subject of cremation, we do find in the Word of God that only the heathen tribes cremated people (burned their bodies with fire after death), while the Jews always buried bodies in graves in the ground, or entombed their dead in a cave or in an sepulcher, similar to our modern day mausoleums. It was basically a stone room with a stone coffin where a body lies. The word comes from the Latin sepulcrum, which means “burial place”.
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[jasonc]

its not a sin

 

[Deborah13]

, we do find in the Word of God that only the heathen tribes cremated people (burned their bodies with fire after death),

Not disagreeing, I just don't know where that is stated in the Bible. Could you give me a little guidance to find it? Thanks

 

[jasonc]

Not disagreeing, I just don't know where that is stated in the Bible. Could you give me a little guidance to find it? Thanks

the greeks did that,but against its not in the bible as far as I know. they place two coins to pay for the trip across the styx into hades when they burned the body but they also buried bodies. the greeks do have a word for grave and also had them.

 

[Deborah13]

I think it is more of a cultural question taking into account the time period. The Native Americans, did cave, tree, cremation, and I don't know what else.

 

[antipasta]

Some pagans burned their dead because their religion taught that the soul or spirit is the real person, and at death it is liberated from the body. As a now-discarded empty vessel, the body was worthless and fit only for destruction. In some pantheistic cultures it was spread and mixed with nature as part of the process of the spirit merging with the great universal whatever.

We, of course, know that the body, fallen though it may be, is still the work of the Creator and is an integral part of who we are. Someday, it will be resurrected and made new and perfect for eternity, so traditionally we show respect for the bodies of our loved ones and treat them as if they will be raised up again.

Now, the obvious question is why it matters what state the body is in prior to resurrection. Whether buried or cremated, the body ends up in the same physical state, one method just gets it there a little quicker than the other. Only speaking for myself here, but I believe that the important thing is the respect we give it and the treatment of it. One can bury the ashes of a loved one, or keep them in an urn, and the body will still be intact just as much as a decaying body in a coffin six feet down. What we don't do is scatter the ashes like the Pantheists do or act. We keep them intact because we know that this body has hope in the future, not as some impersonal part of nature, but as part of God's great creation of individual men.

Anyway, that's my take on it.

 

[jasonc]

Some pagans burned their dead because their religion taught that the soul or spirit is the real person, and at death it is liberated from the body. As a now-discarded empty vessel, the body was worthless and fit only for destruction. In some pantheistic cultures it was spread and mixed with nature as part of the process of the spirit merging with the great universal whatever.

We, of course, know that the body, fallen though it may be, is still the work of the Creator and is an integral part of who we are. Someday, it will be resurrected and made new and perfect for eternity, so traditionally we show respect for the bodies of our loved ones and treat them as if they will be raised up again.

Now, the obvious question is why it matters what state the body is in prior to resurrection. Whether buried or cremated, the body ends up in the same physical state, one method just gets it there a little quicker than the other. Only speaking for myself here, but I believe that the important thing is the respect we give it and the treatment of it. One can bury the ashes of a loved one, or keep them in an urn, and the body will still be intact just as much as a decaying body in a coffin six feet down. What we don't do is scatter the ashes like the Pantheists do or act. We keep them intact because we know that this body has hope in the future, not as some impersonal part of nature, but as part of God's great creation of individual men.

Anyway, that's my take on it.

ok, you do realize that they burn many a bodies together in the furnaces? oddly that process has no smell. lets just say when they were a burning a few I would often be under the exhaust while trying to get an electric meter read. not super hot, but ya felt it and yet no odor. odd aint it.

 

[antipasta]

Yikes! :D

 

[jasonc]

that has happened to me about three times. it was great when it was cold. I reminded me the dryer exhaust as that is about how hot it was. I might have been when they were warming up the furnace. of cooling it down. I don't know

 

[Runner]

What we don't do is scatter the ashes like the Pantheists do or act. We keep them intact because we know that this body has hope in the future, not as some impersonal part of nature, but as part of God's great creation of individual men.

Anyway, that's my take on it.

It is my understanding that the historical "taboo" against cremation on the part of many Christians did relate to the future resurrection of the body. Although I can understand someone in 563 A.D. thinking this way, it does strike me as a bizarre notion that the Creator of the entire universe needs a body or even a tidy collection of ashes to accomplish a resurrection. On a planet with 7+ billion people, cremation makes so much more sense than embalming and interment that there scarcely seems any room for debate. Never mind that embalming is about the most disgusting procedure on earth and that the owners of mortuaries are, as a group, the most shameless hucksters this side of used Yugo salesman and will stop at almost nothing to talk the bereaved into a $10,000 casket. When my beloved wife of 33 years died, I told the "funeral director" that "We are having a cardboard-box cremation, and don't even think about trying to talk me into something more grand and glorious." This was after he had tried (unsuccessfully) to talk me into a $4,000 casket for my sister-in-law's cremation, seeing nothing incongruous in me paying $4K for a box that would be consumed by flames in 12 seconds. I see nothing un-Christian or un-Biblical about cremation or about scattering the ashes wherever the deceased wanted them scattered.

 

[AirDancer]

Cremation is just fine.

Genesis 3:19 NASB: "By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”

My kids know I'm to be cremated when I leave this mortal life; they also know where to scatter my ashes. :shades

 

[Edward]

When my sister passed she instructed me to have her cremated and scatter her ashes in the mountains here. I did that, but it did provoke me to consider the spiritual ramifications if any. I couldn't come up with anything that would indicate that cremation is taboo. Nothing is impossible for God and it says that everyone will be raised, no exceptions noted lol. So I feel good about it and in this economy I figured don't leave a burden for the family. Cremation is the cheapest form of service when someone dies so I told my kids cremate me and scatter my in the mountains or where ever is convenient.

I think asking a family to look after an urn of ashes for countless years would be a burden too, so scatter me somewhere and be done with it.

 

[Edward]

Whoops, wrong smiley, lol.

 

[Classik]

Not disagreeing, I just don't know where that is stated in the Bible. Could you give me a little guidance to find it? Thanks

I doubt if there are precise verses on it; however, there are verses that clearly state how Burials were carried out among the People of God (other than the burning thing) - the principle, permit me to call it.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I doubt if there are precise verses on it; however, there are verses that clearly state how Burials were carried out among the People of God (other than the burning thing) - the principle, permit me to call it.

Right. If you believed God without a shadow of a doubt about inheriting the Promised Land would you have your body burned? No, of course not. You'd preserve the body in faithful expectation of what God had promised:

"24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." 25 And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place." 26 So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt." (Genesis 50:24-26 NIV)

Of course, this side of the cross we have more knowledge and insight into the matter which, IMO, makes cremation permissible. As long as you're not doing it in recognition of some pagan belief.

I told my son that he can just set me out for the trash man when I die. Even as cheap as they are, don't waste money on my cremation.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I think asking a family to look after an urn of ashes for countless years would be a burden too, so scatter me somewhere and be done with it.

Lol, this is true. We kept re-finding grandpa's ashes for years after he died and was cremated in 1967. Last I heard my brother found them in my now deceased mom and dad's shed in Florida. He has some of my mom's ashes in an urn inside the house. The rest were scattered on her memorial garden in the yard (he lives in the house they had when they died).

When I was young I found grandpa's urn in the basement of our house. I just remember finding a bag with a drawstring on it inside a box, and which was full of gray powder and white chips (bones chips I realized years later). Truthfully, the experience leaves me convinced you should not leave your ashes behind for your family. Scattering them in a designated place seems to have more meaning to me.

 

[jasonc]

Right. If you believed God without a shadow of a doubt about inheriting the Promised Land would you have your body burned? No, of course not. You'd preserve the body in faithful expectation of what God had promised:

"24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." 25 And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place." 26 So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt." (Genesis 50:24-26 NIV)

Of course, this side of the cross we have more knowledge and insight into the matter which, IMO, makes cremation permissible. As long as you're not doing it in recognition of some pagan belief.

I told my son that he can just set me out for the trash man when I die. Even as cheap as they are, don't waste money on my cremation.

We could burn you real cheap.incenirated for power

 

[Jethro Bodine]

We could burn you real cheap.incenirated for power

You might be able to light a firefly with this sack of flesh and bones.

 

[Malachi]

Cremation is just fine.

Genesis 3:19 NASB: "By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”

My kids know I'm to be cremated when I leave this mortal life; they also know where to scatter my ashes. :shades

There's a big difference between dust and ashes. No cremation is NOT JUST FINE for Christians. It is a pagan ritual with pagan connotations.

 

[jasonc]

There's a big difference between dust and ashes. No cremation is NOT JUST FINE for Christians. It is a pagan ritual with pagan connotations.

So when we creameated German pows we had government involved on a pagan practice?