Does the Bible forbid Cremation?

DOES GENESIS 3:19 CONVEY BIBLICAL AUTHORITY ON CHRISTIAN BURIAL? DOES IT SPEAK AGAINST CREMATION OF BELIEVERS?

By Ezekiel Kimosop

I received a message from someone who claimed that scripture contemplates that Believers should be buried and that cremation is unbiblical.

Really?

3:19 says
"In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return."

My view is that this scripture speaks of the origin of the physical or material nature of the human body and its earthly rather than heavenly destiny. It is a statement of context that conveys God's mind during the judgement of Adam. It speaks of the mortality of Adam.

Following Adam's Fall, the human body continues to bear the consequences of the curse of Adam! Remember that the Bible teaches that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God!

What is the passage context of Genesis 3:19?

The context lies in Genesis 3:1-24 which is dedicated to the Fall and judgement of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

It speaks about the origin of the Fall through the disobedience of the woman and the man in Genesis 3:1-7 and the divine consequence that followed in Genesis 3:8-24.

When we read Genesis 3:19 in its contextual sense, it is definitely not an authority on Christian burials.

A believer who dies in Christ awaits the resurrection of the Dead in Christ. It matters little how his body was disposed of.

Even if he is cremated or perishes in the sea or is completely annihilated and dissolved in sulphuric acid as happened during Hitler's Third Reich, this will never affect his resurrection!

I am therefore hesitant to teach that Genesis 3:19 speaks against cremation or that it is an authority on Christian burial as the sole method for disposal of human bodies.

Revelation 20:13 says "The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works."

Who buried those who died in the sea?

The truth is that while burial is a decent and environmentally healthy method of disposing of human bodies, the Bible does not expressly teach or imply that a believer must be buried in the ground.

Burial is the subject of human culture and traditions. Period.