Should a Christian be Cremated?

hi today's devotional topic is on cremation and whether or not a Christian should pursue a cremation for their own body or for the body of a loved one who's passed away cremation has become very popular very popular alternative in the last 50 to 60 years according to the National Funeral Directors Association in 1960 just under 4 percent of all funerals involved a cremation by 2013 that number has jumped up to over 43 percent and so I suspect now in 2015 we're closer to 50 percent and that is the kind of statistics I have seen in my own experience here at Rock Valley Chapel about 50 percent of the people pursue cremation so the question is is this something that is right and why are people pursuing cremation and such higher numbers I think there are at least three main reasons there are probably several but one is the cost the cost of cremation is about a third less on average than a full body interment a second is it doesn't use up as much land naturally in some cases people will bury their urn in some people in some cases they won't bury their urn at all I'll just have the urn at home that houses three to four pounds of ashes that come from cremation and a third possibility probably fairly likely is that people like the idea of being able to spread out some of these ashes and a place of sentimentality so a special tree or a piece of land that was special to them we have read recently about a satellite that's heading up to Pluto and one of the elements that the satellite is carrying is a little vial of ashes from the man who founded Pluto 85 years ago and so that kind of ties it at that sentimentality piece there are plenty of people who ever think that cremation is not the best that we should continue to pursue full-body internment for example Roman Catholic Church used to prohibit cremation up until Vatican 2 in the mid-60s they still discourage cremation but will allow for it Eastern Orthodox traditions continue to prohibit cremation and will not bury any body that's been cremated and so there are some that continue to kind of stick to the traditional line and I think most of those traditional lines are based off the the predominance of biblical evidence that suggests that body and tournament is what God intended we see that in Deuteronomy 34 6 when Moses his body was clearly buried we see that with Paul and first Corinthians 15 as he talks about the body serving as a seed for our spiritual bodies of course we see that in the burial of Jesus the Messiah himself buried bodily in the tomb most instances of bodies being burned in sort of a cremated way within the body within within the Bible Bible excuse me are usually negative somebody that's sinned against God egregiously and is being punished through this sort of cremation activity or it's a reflection of pagan practices that are found in the Bible so they're mostly negative when people ask me when I was jest and I get asked this fairly frequently I encourage them to pursue a full-body internment because I think what the body does first of all I think it's most biblical I think most of the biblical ideas seem to indicate a preference for bodily in tournament even in the context of the Bible because in the context of the bottle plenty of bodies were being cremated for the reasons that I've articulated earlier so it was a practice and so the Bible does seem to lean towards full bodily internment but I also think that when the body is presented in his final state we do get a sense of the resurrection we are reminded of a full-body resurrection which is what the Bible speaks to and so we see that body which was created as good and we know that there's something even better God's glorious body it is not a sin to pursue cremation but God will continue to reconstitute our bodies and whatever state they are in to our glorious bodies for those who have trusted Jesus but in my view God is most glorified when we allow the body to be in turn fully there are a few events in our lives that people will witness that we want to do well to maximize the glory of God the birth of a child our baptisms marriage and our funerals are another one it's not a time to think about finances as the primary reason for the activities we do and in all those instances we want to maximize glory for God and I think a full body interment maximizes that reminder that our bodies are going to be raised into their glorious state through faith in Christ thank you god bless you

Channel: Rock Valley Chapel

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Id: N0fqIt0lT9o

Length: 5min 3sec (303 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 15 2015