Burial or Cremation: Does It Matter?

by Hexon J. Maldonado

Photo by Diogo Palhais

I recently completed preaching through 1 Corinthians. After walking through 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul spends an enormous amount of space dealing with the reality and importance of the future bodily resurrection for all believers, many questions were raised among some of our church members regarding those who do not have a body. What about those who have been blown to smithereens from some massive explosion? Not only that, but what about the simple fact that the human body decomposes so that the only thing left are bones? What body is to be resurrected on the last day? Paul’s answer is that God is able to give each person a body as he has chosen (v.38), and that body will be a glorified body—a body that is similar to this body in some ways and dissimilar in other ways. With regards to our resurrected bodies, there is both continuity and discontinuity.

However, all of this raises the question: if God does not need a body to start with in order to raise us from the dead, then does it matter whether we bury our dead or cremate them? Afterall, cremation is much less expensive and complicated. What to do with the jar can be much less confusing than where to purchase a burial plot? One can take the jar home and set it on the mantle or scatter the ashes at sea. When grandma or grandpa dies, his or her jar of ashes can be brought home and set on the mantle next to the other one. With cremation, one does not run the risk of buying a burial plot, only to move to another state ten years later due to unforeseen circumstances.

Very likely, all these reasons are what has contributed to the rise in the percentage of Americans choosing to cremate their loved ones rather than bury them. In 1975, 5.69% of Americans chose to cremate their loved ones. As of last year (2023), 60.5% of Americans chose to cremate their loved ones rather than bury them. At this current trend, by 2045, 81.4% of Americans will be cremating their loved ones.[i] But are finances and convenience the only reasons more Americans—and more Christians—are choosing cremation for themselves and their loved ones over burial? And does it really matter? Does God care whether we have ourselves cremated or buried? Afterall, God does not need a body in order to give us a body in the resurrection.

Old Testament Practice

Throughout the Old Testament, we consistently see the patriarchs and prophets practicing burial as opposed to cremation. When God speaks to Abraham about his future, he says to him “you shall be buried in a good old age” (Gen. 15:15).[ii] God is very specific as to what will happen to Abrham once he dies—he will be buried. When Sarah dies (Gen. 23), Abraham immediately asks the locals for a place to bury her. The thought of cremating her never crossed his mind. It is not as though Abraham would not have known about cremation as a way of putting the dead out of sight (Gen. 22:4). The Pre-Canaanites practiced cremation for the dead as early as 2500 BC,[iii] and the Greeks introduced the practice to the Western world as early as 1000 BC.[iv] Yet, consistently, we see the patriarchs in the Old Testament seeking to bury their dead and not burn them. We see this with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, Sarah, Rachel, Rebekah, and Leah (Gen. 25:9; 35:19, 29; 49:31; 50:14, 26).

We also see God specifically commanding that when someone is put to death for a crime and hung on a tree, their body is not to be left hanging, rather the people “shall bury him the same day” (Deut. 21:23). If God commands that a criminal be given a burial, how much more those who are not criminals? God does not tell the people of Israel to do what they want with the criminal’s body, and he certainly does not grant them permission to burn the body. Instead, he commands the Israelites to bury him. For this reason, many first century rabbis believed God had clearly commanded burial over cremation.[v] Jews still follow this practice today.

What is worth noting is that God does command certain individuals be burned and not buried. Burning someone’s body instead of burying them was reserved for those guilty of committing some of the most heinous sins (Lev. 20:14; 21:9; Josh. 7:15, 25). For this reason, not having one’s body buried was considered by the Israelites to be the height of humiliation. Thus, David goes and takes down the bodies of Saul and Jonathan, whom the Philistines had left hanging in the open for days, and buried their remains (2 Sam. 21:10-14). The Psalmist, writing after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, laments the fact that many in Jerusalem have been slaughtered and “there was no one to bury them” (Ps. 79:3, cf.; Jer. 8:1-2; 16:4, 6). Not being buried was a horrible thought in the mind of Old Testament saints.

New Testament Practice

Throughout the New Testament, we continue to consistently see the practice of burying those who die. In the Gospel of Matthew, a man who desires to follow Jesus, says to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father” (8:21). After John the Baptist is beheaded, we read that “his disciples came and took the body and buried it” (Matt. 14:12). When Jesus tells the story of Lazarus and the rich man, he tells us that the “rich man also died and was buried” (Lk. 16:22). Lazarus, whom Jesus rose from the dead was buried (good thing, too). Stephen was buried (Acts 8:2). Even Ananias and Saphira were given a decent burial (Acts 5).

Throughout both the Old and the New Testaments there seems to be this “biblical insistence upon proper burial, as well as its general opposition to cremation,” which bears “testimony to the continuing significance of the human body after death.”[vi] The saints in both the Old Testament and the New Testament understood that the human body had value, not just during life on earth, but even after death. The human body has inherent value. We burn things that have no value. We carefully store things that have value, even if they are no longer useful.

Extrabiblical Literature

According to Tacitus, the first century Roman historian and senator, the Jews were a very peculiar people in that, contrary to the practice of the Greeks and Romans, they would “bury rather than burn [their] dead bodies.”[vii] This is particularly telling when we consider that the region in and around Jerusalem was very rocky, it would have made much more sense to burn dead bodies rather than bust rock to dig a hole or cave, but burial was the only thing that made sense in light of their belief that men and women are made in God’s image (Gen. 1:27), and their belief in a future bodily resurrection (Matt. 22:23-32; Acts 23:6). Whereas the Greeks believed our bodies are a prison that traps our soul, the Jews believed that our body is part of what it means to be made in God’s image.

So also, within the early church we see theologians like Tertulian and Augustine making the argument that while cremation is nowhere explicitly forbidden by Holy Scripture, being buried in the earth is to be preferred and practiced by Christians.[viii] The early church believed and understood that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), and rightly understood from Scripture that Christians who stop breathing are not dead but are only asleep. This is the biblical language that is consistently used in the New Testament to talk about Christians who have died. The New Testament uses “fell asleep” or “fallen asleep” eleven times, and in each instance refers to believers whose souls have departed. When speaking about unbelievers who have died, the New Testament uses other language, such as “struck down” (e.g., Herod in Acts 12) or “breathed his last” (e.g., Ananias and Saphira). It is for this reason the early church would bury their dead next to church buildings and would call these places coemeteria (Latin for cemetery), which literally means “resting place.”[ix] The saints are not dead; they are merely asleep and waiting for the Lord to wake them upon his second coming. Thus, in the mind of the early church, it seemed cruel to burn someone who was merely sleeping, and it also appeared to be a practical denial of the bodily resurrection.

For these reasons, the early church (as late as the 4th century) would celebrate the death of the saints by wearing white robes and singing praise songs as they carried the body of their loved one to their final “resting place.” However, by the 8th century, the church was being influenced by her secular surroundings and began wearing black to funerals and taking a more somber and mournful approach.[x] Since the 8th century the church has continued to come under the influence of secularism more and more. This is reflected in both our society’s and the church’s increasing acceptance of cremation as opposed to burial. The more we devalue the God of creation the more we devalue this body that is made in the image of our Creator.

In the Image of God

When God created man in his image and likeness (Gen. 1:27), it means more than just being made a spiritual being. We know this because God does not make man a spiritual being and then create for him a body. Rather, we see that “God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and [then] the man became a living creature” (2:7). That is, to be made in the image of God is to be made both body and spirit. In other words, being made in the image and likeness of God means that the “physical design of man was not chosen at random by God, but in some way is representational of the characteristics of God. But this point must not be pressed too far. Suffice it to say that the phrase, ‘Let us make man as our image, after our likeness’, is to say that God made man as a representative that in some say is also representational.”[xi] It is for this reason there must be a future bodily resurrection. Jesus did not come into the world simply so save our soul, but to save our body and soul—to save the whole of who we are. It is also for this reason that unbelievers will be cast into hell in both body and soul (Rev. 20:12-13).

It is not just our spirit that makes us who we are. A common misconception is that the real us, who we really are, is our spirit, and our body is simply the case that houses the real us. Our bodies are as much a part of who we are as our spirit. Our body and spirit go together, they belong together, and together they fully make us who we are. Thus, viewing the body as insignificant once our spirit departs from it, simply because we no longer have a use for it in this world, is like taking your great-grandmother’s wedding dress that she made and formed with her own hands and was married in back in 1925, and burning it simply because there is no longer a use for it. It’s outdated. It’s old. No one is ever going to wear this dress again, so let’s just get rid of it by burning it. No one in their right mind would do that. Even though this one-hundred-year-old wedding dress is no longer useful, is worn and frayed and a bit tattered along the edges, most would carefully and respectfully store it because it still has value. It has value because it was carefully made by someone you love dearly and respect greatly. David understood this when he wrote: “For you [O God] formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:13-14). God did not just speak you into existence like the birds and the fish, he carefully knit your body together, making you a unique work of art that is extremely valuable to him, that is a reflection of himself. And even when this body is worn and frayed and a bit tattered along the edges, even when we are done with this body and no longer have a use for it, it should still have value to us and to our loved ones because of our great love and respect for the one who made it—the one who “knitted me together in my mother's womb.”

[i] “Cremation Rate in the United States from 1975 to 2023, with a Forecast for 2027 and 2045,” Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/251702/cremation-rate-in-the-united-states/.

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotes are from the English Standard Version of the Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Publishing, 2008).

[iii] William Devlin, “Cremation: Custom of Burning the Bodies of the Dead,” Catholic Answers, https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/cremation.

[iv] “Cremation: Funeral Custom,” Brittanica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/cremation.

[v] G.A. Turner, “Cremation,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), p. 813).

[vi] J.B. Payne, “Burial,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), p. 560).

[vii] Ibid., p.556.

[viii] R.A. Peterson, “Burial, Christian,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1984), p.195.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Hexon J. Maldonado, “The Image of God in Man,” https://www.hjmaldonado.com/articles/the-image-of-god-in-man.