Cremation or Burial for Christians?

I was having a conversation recently with friends about whether they were planning to be cremated. At one point, one of them said, "Christians need to think about this more."

The topic rarely comes up in preaching, so I thought I'd offer four guiding principles here.

Don't make it a gospel issue.

The first thing to say about cremation is that it is not a gospel issue. If a Christian is cremated, God is going to have no trouble raising his or her body from the dead on the last day. Christians die all kinds of ways, even ways in which their bodies are incinerated (naturally or artificially). There should be no concern that this issue determines a person's salvation or status before God.

And even though this article will invite Christians to rethink cremation, if anyone reading this has cremated a loved one, you should feel zero guilt about that. You have certainly done nothing to harm your loved one, and I'm sure that was honored and God was glorified in the process of their death. Rest in the hope of the resurrection. Cherish their memory, and take this article as an interesting topic for reflection and future decision-making.

This article is meant simply to provide an opportunity for people to think and talk about it in light of the Bible and the Christian faith.

Think about it early.

My own father passed away three years ago. I had not talked to him much about this issue, and as he came to his final days, he didn't have the wits to think through the subtlties of arguments for or against. He had previously decided with my mom that he would be cremated. Though I think Christians have a tradition that encourages burial, this is a third tier doctrinal question for me. I was definitely not interested in getting into a disagreement about a tertiary issue in these precious final days of my father's life.

Many people are afraid to discuss death, but talking about it is healthy and makes end of life issues better for everyone involved when they do inevitably arise. Instead of waiting until death is upon you, consider the biblical data and come to a conclusion way before it is even an issue.

Cremation is not explicitly encouraged or discouraged in God's word, but Christians should still think carefully about whether the Bible gives any implicit guidance on this question.

I've heard it said that cremation is biblical because of the traditional phrasing of funeral eulogies, which often contain something like this:

We therefore commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.

Doesn't "ashes to ashes" assume the body is burned? This quote is not from the Bible, though. It is from the Book of Common Prayer burial service, drawing from both Genesis and Ecclesiastes:

"...for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." - Genesis 3:19

"...and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." - Ecclesiastes

"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake..." - Daniel 12:2

These verses never mention ashes, and the presence of that phrase in the Book of Common Prayer doesn't imply cremation—since a priest would have almost certainly been reading those words while burying someone. Burial has been by far the most common custom among Christians throughout church history. But why?

Maybe the best way to answer the question, "How should we care for a Christian body after death?" is to simply answer with another question, "What happened to Jesus' body after his death?" He is our Lord and example. It is our greatest desire to be one with him in his life, death, and resurrection. It makes sense that the pattern for caring for a Christian's body should be found in our Savior's body.

Jesus’ body was wrapped and placed in a cave or rock-cut tomb. This was the practice of those Jewish people who could afford it (Jesus’ tomb was donated to him by Joseph of Arimathea, an apparently well-off man). But even poor Jewish people were buried. Burial was the practice of the patriarchs who insisted that their bones be buried in the promised land with their fathers. Notice the instructions Jacob gives about his bones:

"Do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers. Carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place." - Genesis 47:29-30

Notice that Jacob refers twice to his (future) dead bones as “me”? In a biblical worldview, our bodies are us as much as our souls are. Bodies aren’t external shells that don’t matter any more once our souls are done using them. God made us body and soul and saves us body and soul. That means what happened to their bodies expressed their hope in God's promises, and for the heavenly city in which they would have a share, which is a hope the New Testament shares (Hebrews 11:13-16). Even in the Old Testament, the Bible expects the resurrection of the body at the end of the age (Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2). Biblical saints believed that their bodies—even dead bodies, even bones—mattered.

(There is an important side note that bridges the gap between cremation and burial. When my father was cremated, the mortician informed me that the remains after a cremation are not actually ashes. They are bone fragments. So when a person is given an urn containing the remains of a loved one, whether they bury that urn or keep it, they are caring for that person’s bones in a way very similar to how the Israelites cared for Joseph's bones.)

Preach the gospel in your death.

As a pastor, I have been with three different people, praying for them, in the moment they passed from this life into glory. These were three of the most incredible pastoral experiences I've had. I've also walked with others through the dying process. Being near those who are dying, you sense that the veil between this world and the unseen world is strangely thin. Each time I am near a dying believer, the reality of the unseen world becomes clearer to me.

I have come to believe that dying is one of the most important things we will do in life. It gives courage and clarity to a dying person to say, "Your calling is to glorify God as you die. It may be painful, it may be scary, but when you are resolved that Jesus Christ has conquered death and that his eternal life lives in you, you will honor your Lord in your weakest hours. He will be pleased and greet you in glory."

If we reason through that calling—to preach the gospel in our death—then it should shape what we want to happen with our bodies after we die. Again, the example of believers in the Bible and throughout church history shows us that what we do with our bodies—our own or those of our loved ones—reflects our future hope.

In the modern world, practical concerns have seemed to dominate how we approach funerals and the question of cremation.

When a person is burned and their remains are disposed of or dispersed, it says something about what we believe is true of that person as a whole. It is a pagan view that the soul is more important and valuable than the body. It is an Eastern mystical view that the goal of human life is to become a drop in the ocean of Being, losing our individuality as we are absorbed into the Oneness of all things.

That story tells a radically different message than the Christian hope of "the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." I fear that Christians don't think enough about how wild the hope of the gospel really is. Death will be reversed! Our final hope is not that our souls will flit off into the netherworld to bounce on clouds for endless ages. We believe that our individual persons will be fully restored to glorious form to live in a renewed creation for endless ages. Our personhood is not erased in the great ocean of being. We will finally be who we were originally made to be, glorified in soul and body just like Jesus.

At the death of a believer, the wild resurrection hope of Jesus should be singing through everything we do. People with gospel hope believe different things about the life to come than people without that hope.

It is an oversimplification, but still worth considering: historically, pagans burn bodies and Christians bury them.

Historically, pagans burn bodies and Christians bury them.

Change culture by creating culture.

Christians often talk about transforming culture, but it is a real question of whether a culture can actually be transformed. Culture is the stories, beliefs, practices and artifacts that bring together a family, a community or a civilization. When a civilization changes, it is not because the Christians transformed the culture, but because the Christians created an alternate culture that was more compelling and more beautiful and more good.

We don't change the culture's artifacts. We make new ones that come from the wisdom, love, and truth of Christ.

Funerals are some of the most important cultural events we. Our culture often does not look at death, and therefore, does not appreciate the gospel of eternal life in Christ.

Like anything in life, what is good in theory has to deal with practical realities. Someone might say the cost of burial is a luxury for wealthy people, but an unnecessary burden for the poor at the time of death. So again, we should not be overly dogmatic about this, and I certainly don't want to place unrealistic burdens on anyone. But even so, don't we want the poor buried with the hope of the gospel? Will pragmatic questions override the moments that matter most in life?

It has become very important to me to bring my children to funerals. When my father died, I wanted them to see his body. It was a beautiful and moving experience. I've only been to one open casket funeral in my life. At that funeral, an incredible sermon on the resurrection of the body was preached. My wife and I were deeply moved, and the gospel became an even more sure hope to us as a result.

As the body was lowered into the ground at the graveside, the pastor told us how Christians throughout history have buried their dead facing east, so that when the Son of Man comes, they will rise to great him with praise and glory and honor.

If we want our culture to think differently about life and death and God and salvation, we must create a culture that reflects what we believe. What we do with our dead shows the world the gospel we treasure so deeply.