Cemeteries scared me when I was a kid. Merely walking or driving past rows and rows of tombstones in gathering darkness was enough to send shivers up my spine.
As I grew up and learned from Larry the Cucumber that God is bigger than the Boogey Man and from Kevin McAllister that the scary sounds in your basement are just your furnace kicking in, my fears subsided. But I still dreaded the thought of growing older, seeing people die, and having to endure the discomfort of funerals, burials, and cemeteries. So, the idea of cremation intrigued me.
Something about burning human remains into a small box of ashes seemed less creepy than burying a box of bones six feet under. Cremation was also cheaper. And it seemed like less of a hassle. Why not cremate?
I set out to answer the question, “Does God care if we burn or bury the dead?” I learned that He does.
In this article, I will argue for burial as a better option than cremation for people who desire to give testimony to the fact that Christ is Lord over all. I will survey the biblical witness on the importance and meaning of burial and physical resurrection, provide some brief historical notes, address a couple key objections, and then offer a final exhortation.
Old Testament Survey Says: Burial is a Display of Faith
The Bible teaches that people are made up of two distinct parts, body and soul/spirit.[1] All of God’s creation is good (Genesis 1), which necessarily includes the human body. While people are made up of two parts, Scripture’s emphasis is on the unity of the human person. Genesis 2:7 says that God formed man out of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a “living soul.” Louis Berkhof says rightly that “every act of man is seen as an act of the whole man. It is not the soul but man that sins; it is not the body but man that dies; and it is not merely the soul, but man, body and soul, that is redeemed in Christ.”[2]
1. Some Christians argue for a trichotomist view of the human person that further separates soul and spirit into distinct elements. However, the overwhelming evidence of the Bible is for a dichotomist view that puts everything in the category of material and non-material, with a greater emphasis on the unity of the two to form one being (Gen. 2:7; Luke 1:46-47; 1 Pet. 3:19; Heb. 12:23; Rev. 6:9, 20:4; “body and soul”—Matt. 6:25, 10:28 “body and spirit”—1 Cor. 5:3, 5).
2. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), 4th revised and enlarged edition, 1993, 192.
As people, we act as embodied souls or ensouled bodies, bearing responsibility before our Creator for everything we do, including how we treat our body in death.
Burial in the Lives of the Patriarchs
Throughout Genesis, there is a consistent emphasis on both the burial of the patriarchs and the value the patriarchs put on burial—even at a time when cremation was possible.
- Genesis 23 records Abraham’s purchase of property for the burial of his wife Sarah within the land God promised Him (Gen. 23:4, 19). As a sojourner from a foreign country, Abraham did not yet own any property in the land so his focus on finding a place for burial heightens the text’s emphasis on the subject.
- When Jacob was about to die in the land of Egypt, he exhorted his sons to bury him in the land given to Abraham (Gen. 49:29-31).
- Joseph expressed a similar desire to his brothers, making them take an oath to also bury him in this promised land (Gen. 50:25).[3]
3. The author of Joshua tells us that Joseph’s bones did eventually reach that destination (Josh. 24:32)—quite a remarkable feat considering his burial followed Israel undergoing 400 years of slavery and forty years in the wilderness!
Why did Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph give such attention to what happened to their bones? It would have been far simpler to burn them, or in Joseph’s case to leave them where they originally lay. Hebrews 11 says that Abraham’s trust in God’s promises is reflected through the belief that though he would pass into the ground, one day God would raise him to life in a better country (Heb. 11:16). Indeed, Abraham willingly offered Isaac as a sacrifice, believing that God was able to raise his son of promise from the dead (Heb. 11:19).
Hebrews 11 also says Jacob and Joseph acted in faith; Jacob by blessing his sons (Heb. 11:21) and Joseph by giving directions concerning his bones (Heb. 11:22). These men thus viewed care for their bodies in death not as a merely practical decision, but one that expressed faith. Daniel 12:2 confirms that God’s people in the Old Testament believed in life beyond the grave, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
Absence of Burial: A Mark of Divine Judgment
In contrast, in the Old Testament an absence of burial at death, including the burning of a body by fire, is a mark of judgment:
- During the prophetic ministry of Jeremiah, judgment against God’s people is born out through their dead bodies being food for the birds of the air (Jer. 7:30-8:3).
- During the reign of the evil king Manasseh in Judah, the king burned his son as an offering to false gods (2 Kings 21:6). Josiah took the bones of the priests who led Israel into evil and burned them on the altars as a mark of judgment (2 Kings 23:16–20).
- Who could forget the iconic judgment against Ahab and Jezebel in 1 Kings 21:23–24? “‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel.’ Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the heavens shall eat.” Indeed, not one bone of Jezebel’s body ever graced a grave.
The Old Testament witness connects cremation with either judgment or idol worship, contrasted with burial’s pronouncement of faith in God’s promises. The care and effort it takes to bury someone was well worth the effort to God’s people at that time.
New Testament Survey Says: Bodily Resurrection is Foundational to Christian Hope
The New Testament provides several examples of burial as the standard practice of God’s people as well. And as God’s plan of redemption progresses into the New Covenant era, faith in future hope crystalizes in confidence in future bodily resurrection modeled after Christ.
Gospels: In Matthew 14:12, the disciples of John the Baptist buried him and let Jesus know they had done so. Jesus tells Lazarus to walk out of his tomb and he does, demonstrating he was buried, not cremated (John 11). Most significantly, Jesus Himself was buried following His death: Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus made sure of this (John 19:38-42).
Jesus taught that resurrection would follow burial, with some resurrecting to life and others to judgment (John 5:28–29). Jesus declared that He is the resurrection and the life and that whoever believes in Him will live forever, even though he dies (John 11:25). Matthew tells us that when Jesus rose bodily from the dead, many bodies of the saints rose as well (Matt. 27:52).
Acts/Epistles: After Stephen was martyred, devout men buried him (Acts 8:2). Paul extends hope to those facing such martyrdom for their faith in Corinth by noting that the life of Jesus will be manifested in their flesh (2 Cor. 4:11). Romans 8:11 says that the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, “will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Cf. 1 Cor. 6:14).
1 Corinthians 15 provides the most extended teaching in the Bible on the importance of burial and its connection to the doctrine of bodily resurrection:
- Paul says that Christ’s burial and physical resurrection from the grave are matters of “first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3–4).
- If Christ has not been raised, Christian preaching is in vain and our faith as well (1 Cor. 15:14).
- If the dead are not raised, then Christ was not raised and if Christ was not raised then sin and death are still victorious (1 Cor. 15:56). The nail marks visible on Jesus’ post-resurrection body show that it was the same one that hung on the cross.
1 Corinthians 15 teaches that Christ’s resurrection is the prototype and forerunner of hope for God’s people in life after death, a hope that will not disappoint (Rom 5:5).
The witness of the Old and New Testaments agrees: those who place hope in God’s promises hold to a confident expectation of life after death. Cremation communicates death is the end of the line, while burial expresses confidence that though God’s people die they will live again in bodily form just as Christ does.
Culture’s Influence on Burial and Cremation
Cremation is not a modern innovation. This postmortem practice was typical among Indo-European people and in North America prior to the arrival of Christianity. Ancient Greeks and Romans often practiced cremation.[4] Hindus and Buddhists have burned their dead for centuries. Hindus cremate because of their belief in reincarnation, the idea that when a person dies their soul is liberated from their body and reborn as a different form.
4. Donald Howard, Burial or Cremation: Does it Matter? (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2001) reprinted 2021, 12.
In contrast, when Christianity has historically taken root in a culture, so has the practice of burial. Francis Schaeffer says that the spread of Christianity across Europe can be established by studying its cemeteries: the Romans burned their dead; Christians buried theirs.[5] Timothy George agrees, “As the catacombs in Rome attest, the early Christians insisted on burying their dead. Christian gravesites were called coemeteria (cemeteries), which literally means ‘sleeping places,’ reflecting belief in a future resurrection.”[6]
5. Howard, Burial or Cremation, 13, citing Francis Schaeffer in How Should We Then Live? (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1983).
6. Timothy George, “Cremation Confusion,” from Christianity Today’s Good Question series, 2002.
Addressing Objections
The early church, New Testament saints, and Old Testament patriarchs valued burial. But they might wonder whether the practice is important today. I will address this and other objections below.
God can raise ashes, right? One might object that if God is powerful enough to raise the dead, surely, He can raise ashes just as well as bones. This is certainly the case. Cremating the remains of a loved one will not prevent God from uniting their souls to their bodies at death, just as the mutilation of a loved one’s body from a grenade will not prevent it either.
While this objection has merit, it does not impact the argument for burial as a better testimony to resurrection life than cremation. The question at hand is not can God raise a cremated body back to life, but does God care about what we do with the body after death? The comparison of burial v. burning throughout Scripture strongly suggest He does.
Burial not commanded: A discerning reader might also object that Scripture does not prescribe the practice of burial nor does it explicitly prohibit cremation. This is true. In fact, in one instance, the men of Jabesh Gilead were commended for their bravery in recovering and burning the bodies of King Saul and his sons to prevent further desecration of them by the Philistines (1 Sam 31:11-12).[7]
7. It is wise to note that this is a unique circumstance and even in this isolated instance of burning, burial also took place. 1 Samuel 31:13 says the men of Jabesh Gilead took their bones and buried them and 2 Samuel 21 says David later recovered the bones of Saul and his sons and buried them in the land of Benjamin.
To say that one must practice burial to honor God in death would extend beyond Scripture’s parameters as it contains no command to that effect. But when one considers the Bible’s teaching that 1) the human person is an embodied soul, 2) burial is an expression of belief in the bodily resurrection, and 3) the nearly universal example in Scripture is burial of the dead—these reasons cumulatively point to the superiority of the practice over cremation for those who profess faith in Christ.
Conclusion
A preacher once concluded the memorial service of a beloved saint and directed the funeral attendees to the burial site. Men and women, old and young alike, gathered around the grave in groups, seeking comfort. With the pallbearers ready to lower the body, the minister said to the expectant witnesses, “you are standing on resurrection ground.”[8]
8. Charles R. Swindoll, Growing Deep in the Christian Life: Essential Truths for Becoming Strong in the Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 317.
Within the Christian faith, the grave is just a sleeping place. Death is only temporary. We place our hope in a risen Savior. And burial best gives testimony to that hope.
