Cremation or Burial

Deuteronomy 34:6  and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-Peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day. 

Discussions among Christians about cremation or burial are nothing new. There have long been discussions about these things floating around. But I saw a Gospel Coalition article on this yesterday that argued for “Christian burial”, not as a command, but as a preferred practice. You can read the case made in the post here if you like. I have never been fully convinced by these arguments.

First, let’s start with what we all agree to be true. Indeed, a true point that is often quickly overlooked as the definitive point that I think it might be. Namely, burial is nowhere commanded in scripture. There simply is no command nor instruction for burial to be the preferred method of bodily disposal. Whatever else we make of that, we have to accept there is no biblical instruction here so we are not dealing with a sin issue regarding whether we bury or cremate.

One might argue against that, in the face of no specific command, we still want to look to God’s original design. Something akin to what Jesus does with the Pharisees concerning his teaching on divorce. But we can’t do this in relation to burial and cremation because God’s original design did not include death. We can’t go back to the original blueprint in that way to determine what God would have us do in the world in which we now live. The practice of burial or cremation is a necessary consequence of God’s design being broken.

Some would then argue, in the face of no expressed command and no original design to guide us, we can look to biblical example. Here we might have more joy; it is certainly true that the prevailing practice in scripture is burial. However, when we look at the reason for the first burial in scripture, it has nothing to do with the rightness or appropriateness of burial itself. Interestingly, death occurs and is specifically mentioned a number of times prior to the first burial but there is no mention between Adam and Abraham concerning how those particular bodies were disposed. We’re just told people died.

The first burial we read about comes in Genesis 23 when Abraham buries his wife Sarah. But the particular concern of the passage isn’t primarily to do with the importance of burial. It is to do with Abraham gaining and owning a stake in the land for him and his descendants. It is interesting (though in no way conclusive) that burial simply is not mentioned before this point and in this particular case is very much linked to issues to do with inheritance in the land itself. The later instances of burial in Genesis are similarly concerned with this same issue.

If that is true in Genesis, it may well make more sense to view later comments about burial in the same vein. So, for example, in Numbers 20:1 in which Miriam is buried in the wilderness of Zin, the point seems less concerned about the mode of bodily disposal as the geographical location in which she was buried. The point seems to be less that Miriam was buried as part of a repeated example-cum-instruction for God’s people and more to do with the fact that the wilderness generation have no stake in the land. They not only fail to enter it, but fail to even be buried in it like their forefathers. The same is true of Moses in Deuteronomy 34:6

This point is even more pronounced and clear in Joshua 23:32, in which Joseph’s bones – which were already buried in Egypt – are moved to Israel. The concern is not the means of disposal and very particularly about where the body is laid to rest. The emphasis is on being buried in the land and being associated with the Patriarchs and the land God had given them, even to the point of moving already buried people. This is precisely the point made of David’s burial in 1 Kings 2:10 where the emphasis is on being buried “with his ancestors… in the City of David.” The only break from this apparent pattern is the burial of Elisha in 2 Kings 13. Nothing is particularly said about it other than ‘he died and was buried’ but the purpose for its inclusion becomes clear in the next couple of verses that describe a miraculous event surrounding the body of Elisha. The burial itself is not deemed significant and is only mentioned because of the miracle that followed.

If that contention is correct and burial was to do with association with the land itself – and I think that is clear in most the examples we read and explicitly clear when Joseph’s post-interment body is moved from Egypt to Israel for this reason – we surely have to question the assumption that this is a pattern for Christian burial rather than a pattern concerning the land of Israel and its people. To put it another way, if my contention about burial and the land is correct, does that make any difference to us when we consider the New Covenant people of God who are from every tribe, tongue and nation and not connected to the physical land of Israel in the same way? I would argue that it does and there is a typological point that matters a little here.

Indeed, if there is a typological element, we might see something of it in Romans 6:3-4. Paul says our death and burial is into Christ and represented through baptism. I think this is particularly powerful if the Old Covenant people were specifically concerned with being buried in the land. They were buried in Israel just as we are buried into Christ, the true Israel. This is the same point Paul makes in Colossians 2:12. The burial of the saints in Israel seems to correspond to the burial of the saints into Christ in baptism. There is a case to be made here that a typological understanding of the burial of Old Covenant believers in Israel is best understood as pointing less to a pattern of burial for New Covenant believers and more to a pattern of burial in Christ through baptism in the New Covenant. That would make some sense of the fact that there is no command in the New Testament to bury the dead nor any evident pattern for the churches to follow. Our connection with the land is typological, not physical. The burials of Old Covenant believers were specifically concerned with burial in Israel and that seems to correspond with our baptismal burial into Christ, the true Israel.

So then we come to the remaining key argument for burial being preferred: it corresponds more closely to what Christians believe about the body. Specifically things – which are genuinely biblical matters – such as the goodness of creation, the goodness of our bodies, that a person is both body and soul, etc. But it bears asking two questions. First, and most importantly, does the Bible itself draw the comparison between any of these things and burial? Second, does cremation necessarily undercut any of these Christian understandings of the body?

I think if we’re honest, we have to say the answer is ‘no’ to both of those questions. The Bible nowhere specifies burial speaks to the goodness of our bodies, to the fact that our bodies matter or the fact that we are body and soul. The Bible itself simply doesn’t draw those comparisons or link those thoughts. Similarly, does cremation undercut any of these teachings? Again, there is no biblical reason to think it does. The Bible does not say cremation implies hatred of the body. Nor are there many cultural reasons to assume this either. Would anybody actually cremate anyone else if they really believed it showed contempt for that person and their body? Just as people (rightly) understand desecration of graves to be contemptuous of a deceased person most consider the failure to give a grieving family the ashes of their loved one as a similarly egregious and contemptuous matter. There have been plenty of cases where crematoriums have given generic ashes to people and this was (rightly) viewed as contempt for the body. Neither burial nor cremation shows more care inherently for the person nor are viewed as having more innate care for the body in our culture more broadly.

Even if we are not convinced and maintain that burial more closely correlates with a Christian view of the body, we have to contend with the fact that such a position is entirely extra-biblical and doesn’t, therefore, have much explanatory power as far as Christian principles and practices go. It is hard to make a case that burial must be the preferred Christian way when, to make it, we land so hard on corresponding messages that are not drawn from scripture but read in by us. It similarly doesn’t get us very far when it comes to demanding Christian practice or preferred means because it only takes someone else arguing that cremation corresponds to a Christian view of the body to reach an extra-biblical stalemate.

For example, this TGC article lands on 1 Corinthians 15 and the image Paul gives of sowing seeds and argues that ‘Burying the body is like sowing a seed.’ But one could just as easily (and on this point, more convincingly in my opinion) mount a case that scattering ashes on the ground is far more like sowing seed than burial. Of course, that argument ought not to be particularly compelling because it is an entirely extra-biblical one and these sorts of correspondences are entirely in the eye of the beholder. To be fair to the TGC article, it readily admits this by stating ‘These aren’t so much proof texts that command us to bury our dead as they are imaginative pointers to the natural fitness between resurrection as a Christian belief and burial as a Christian practice.’ But my response to that is it doesn’t get us very far when we all have vivid imaginations and may imagine whatever we will. More to the point, this is not how conservative evangelicals are usually taught to read the Bible nor the basis on which they form their practices. Using those same imaginations, think what our response would be if somebody employed this approach to any other area of church life or Christian practice? It’s not too far away from the free word association that many call ‘words from the Lord’ that conservative evangelicals often hold in contempt. I don’t see how it becomes acceptable just because it is used to support a practice we wish to maintain or mandate.

My case here is not that cremation is a preferred or better means. I am simply arguing that I see no biblical reason that bears scrutiny – there is neither command nor instruction and the examples we have are all clearly linked to a place rather than the means – to insist burial is the biblically demanded, preferred or even appropriate means of bodily disposal. I would argue in the absence of any command or instruction, and in light of the examples we have being less about our post-mortem bodies so much as typological pointers, we have total freedom in these matters to do as we see fit.

The one consideration (and it is only a consideration) that might impact what we do is how these respective things are viewed culturally. It is my contention, in modern Western British culture, neither burial nor cremation is viewed as particularly more honouring than the other. I don’t think many people have deeply unhelpful views surrounding the means, I suspect most haven’t really thought about the matter all that deeply at all. There seems little reason to choose one over the other culturally in Britain.

However, I can see there may be cultures where cremation itself is tied up with specific practices and beliefs. I can imagine in a predominantly Hindu society we may wish to convey something starkly different about our views that pushes us towards burial for entirely cultural reasons. Similarly, I can imagine cases where burial is tied up with particularly unhelpful views and I think that is increasingly going to be the case in post-Christian Western cultures. I can see a good cultural case for cremating as a believer in a strongly Catholic area where there are all manner of interesting often folk-Catholic inspired views about the dead. Again, for entirely cultural reasons, we may prefer to cremate under such circumstances.

Biblically, I think we have absolute freedom to do this. My main concern would be what I communicate culturally by whichever means I opt to use. In many places, frankly, the choice will be culturally moot. I am persuaded, whatever we do, the Lord is bigger than our choice. In the end, the bottom line here is this: if the Lord was especially concerned about this I am confident he would have given us a clear and definite instruction somewhere in his Word. That he hasn’t tells me we are likely to be making a bigger deal out of the means than God does, which rarely seems like a good idea to me.

by Steve Kneale / Building Jerusalem - January 2024

Image Credit

Another Chance

The leaves of autumn

Long since fallen

Dry and brown

Across the ground

Are now alight

With something new—The frozen work of last night’s dew

Outlining all their patterned ribs

And in the morning light it gives

These fallen leaves another chance

To shine

By : Sethlewis.ie

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11