Ask Your Preacher - Archives
“Dust To Dust”
Categories: FAMILY, RELATIONSHIPS, SELFWhat are God's thoughts on cremation? Not your thoughts, but God's.
Sincerely,
Ashes To Ashes
Dear Ashes To Ashes,
This is a question that we are often asked at AYP because it is so important to people that they properly handle their own (and their family’s) final wishes in a godly fashion. Cremation is perfectly Biblical. Your body is a tent that is discarded at death (2 Cor 5:1-4). At death, we leave this ‘tent’ of a body behind (2 Pet 1:14,) and your body will decay and return to dust (Gen 3:19).
We have at least one account of cremation occurring in the Old Testament. Saul and his sons were cremated after they died in battle (1 Sam 31:12). The men that cremated Saul and his sons were later commended by David for their behavior (2 Sam 2:5). That same verse in 2 Samuel shows that David considered cremation a form of burial.
The Bible does not seem to place much focus on how someone is buried. God’s emphasis is upon how we live (Gal 2:20), not what is done with our body after we die.
