Dr. Mike Jones

Will those who have been cremated be Rapture?

[Part Four]

Q: Dr. Mike, will those who have been cremated be Rapture?

A: That’s a good question! A dear minister friend of mine called me the other day, after attending a “Homegoing Service” of a dear friend of ours. He mentioned to me that a Believer asked him if cremation was biblical, and he stated to the person, “No! That we should all be properly buried, if we fall asleep before Christ’s return for His church!” Then he asked me if he was right in telling the brother that cremation was wrong!

He’s a friend, and I knew that I could be honest and up front with him: I relayed to him, that Scripture doesn’t say anything about a required method of burial, for either Believers or non-believers, even though burial was the norm amongst the Israelites in the Old Testament and Christians in the New.

We know from Scripture that there were some exceptions: for example, in 1 Samuel 31: 8-13, the people decided to cremate Saul and Jonathan and then bury their ashes because their bodies had been mutilated by the Philistines. Then, we see in Joshua 7:25 another example of where Achan and his family were cremated after being executed for sinning against the nation of Israel.

In conclusion: We know from science, that any buried body will eventually decompose. Therefore, cremation isn’t a necessarily a wrong practice – but what it does is to accelerate the natural process of oxidation. So, we don’t  make an issue to focus on the disposal of the old body, but rejoice because every Believer will one day receive a new glorified body, like that of our Lord after His resurrection, as so clearly stated in 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4.