Questions and Answers: What Does the Bible Say About Cremation?

Question: I have heard some say that Christians should not be cremated when they die. Does the Bible say anything about cremation, one way or the other?

Answer: The biblical record shows that Abraham and his descendants normally buried their dead, without embalming, in either tombs or graves. This was the practice at the time of Jesus Christ, and these burials were simple compared to today’s common practices. Scripture shows that the Jews’ custom was merely to wrap and bury or entomb those who died. Christ was buried in that manner: “Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury” (John 19:40).

However, the Bible also shows that the manner of a person’s burial is not of great importance. When Jacob died, “Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. Forty days were required for him, for such are the days required for those who are embalmed; and the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days” (Genesis 50:2–3). Although Jacob was embalmed according to Egyptian custom rather than that of his father and grandfather, we know that he will be with Abraham and Isaac in the Kingdom of God. As Jesus said, “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11).

The book of Hebrews, listing martyrs who received no burial, describes them as faithful to God and promised to be in His Kingdom: “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us” (Hebrews 11:39–40). History, too, shows that many Christians considered faithful martyrs were burned at the stake.

The manner of our death, or the disposition of our body after death, is never shown or implied to determine our eternal life. When we die, we do not retain any consciousness: “Don’t put your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish” (Psalm 146:3–4, World English Bible). Death is likened to sleep, and the resurrection is compared to the experience of waking up again: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2).

Jesus Christ made it clear that God will preserve us to be raised up later, regardless of the condition of our physical remains—even if our bodies have been destroyed by fire. He said that it would “be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment” than it would be for those who did not repent after hearing Christ speak during His earthly ministry—showing that those who were essentially cremated by fire from heaven will one day be resurrected (Matthew 10:15).

The Apostle Paul likened death, burial, and resurrection to the process a seed undergoes when it is planted, writing that “what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain.… So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:37, 42–44).

Whether it is through burial or cremation that our bodies return to the dust from which they came (Genesis 3:19), God’s word promises that “there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust” (Acts 24:15). Indeed, even those whose bodies have been lost at sea, neither buried nor burned, are given the same promise of resurrection (Revelation 20:12–13).

You can learn far more about the biblical truth of the future resurrections—all three of them—by ordering a free copy of What Happens When You Die? from the Regional Office closest to you, or read it online right here at Tomorrow’s World.