Christian View

THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF CREMATION

1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom

you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with

your body.”

One of the great Bible doctrines is the sanctity or holiness of the Christian’s body. It is clearly taught in this

scripture as in other places that our bodies are not our own to do with as we please. They belong to God

because of creation and because of redemption.

They are HOLY because they are cleansed and sanctified by the blood of Christ. They are also temples of

the Holy Spirit and members of the body of Christ. Thus I would begin tonight by reaffirming the truth of

divine ownership and sanctity of the Christian’s body.

In dealing with cremation, we must not ignore the positive statements of Scripture if we would sincerely seek

the Christian position on this issue.

According to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, the word “cremation” is from the Latin “crematio”, from

“cremo”, which means “to burn - burning, particularly the burning of the dead according to the customs of

many ancient nations.”

The Encyclopedia Britannica states that “cremation is the burning of human corpus which was the general

practice of the ancient world, with the important exceptions of Egypt, where bodies were embalmed; Judea (or

Ancient Israel) where they were buried in sepulchres, and China, where they were buried in the earth.

Cremation is still practiced over a great part of Asia and America, but not always in the same form. Thus the

ashes may be stored in urns, or buried in the earth, or thrown to the wind, or, as among the Digger Indians,

smeared with gum on the heads of the mourners.”

Basically in the process of cremation the body is reduced to ashes in a white heat of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit

in a few hours or less. When cooled the ashes are put into an urn. The remains of a body of 140 pounds would

be no...