Your remains are not necessary for a future resurrection

[justsurfin12]

I'm a bit surprised by this OP... and why someone even thought it necessary. But... I guess people get hung up on all kinds of things.

The chemical process of decay that the human body goes through in cremation is basically just a faster version of the SAME chemical process the human body (or any other carbon based item) goes through with natural decay (rot). If a body is buried (as has happened for 1000's of years now), unless there is some other chemical/physical process going on (extreme dryness that causes mummification,etc) then that body will break down into it's basic chemical components and be absorbed into the ground in which it is buried. If you try to dig up that body hundreds of years later, you often won't even find bones... or if you do, just parts of them.

Burning/burying... it really doesn't make any difference in the long run.

 

[TheBarrd]

Burning is quicker and cleaner.

 

[Crowns&Laurels]

The entire point of burial and consecration was to preserve the body for reincarnation. It was meant for the body to rise again as a more perfect and sanctified vessel.

It's just a simple truth of the Bible. Nonetheless, I doubt God would abandon us over something as simple as our vessels being ravaged.

 

[DamianWarS]

The Jews have always believed that their deceased bones needed to be gathered and put in a special place in order for them to be physically resurrected on the last day. Today they do not gather each one's bones. but bury their dead in wooden caskets.

Christians have been pressed very hard to believe that their physical body is necessary for a future resurrection. We have the best water-proof containers (caskets) in the history of mankind. If that is not enough, we pump the body full of embalming fluid.

Where past Christian teachers went off track to cause these insane practices of today, is not studying two Koine Greek words and what group was being addressed with which word.

When Jesus and later, Peter and Paul preached to the Jews concerning a future resurrection, they used the Koine Greek word ANISTEMI which meant to physically become upright, or, stand up. When later, Paul went to preach to the Gentiles, he used the Koine Greek word EGEIRO which meant to arouse from the sleep of death, to awaken. An example of this word is found in 1Sam. chapter 28 where King Saul had the witch of En-Dor conjure up the dead prophet Samuel. Since Saul could not see Samuel, the terrified witch certainly did and Saul asked her to describe him. Samuel asked Saul why he disturbed (awakened) him in raising him up from his sleep. The Apostle Paul deviated from this word usage in Athens Greece. When with every other Gentile audience he used the word EGEIRO, here on Mars Hill in Athens Greece he used the word ANISTEMI (Acts 17:31) The reception was somewhat disappointing: (Acts 17:32).

Many Christians wondered throughout their lives what would happen at the resurrection if their bodies happened to be totally destroyed before then through explosion, etc.,etc. Why God would have to re-create their body! There is nothing in scripture that indicates this. So they were left to wander.

Jesus was ANISTEMI for the Jews. After that, there was no need to prove that every believer was going to need their body in order to be well taken care of after their body expired. They (their spirit/soul) would go directly to Paradise (Heaven).

I believe this obsession of preserving the body is rooted in pagan values starting with influence from the Egyptians. The Egyptians, of course, were experts at preserving the dead and believed in preserving the body for the after life. I imaging this is where the value of it came into with the Jews. The first mention of caring for the dead and preserving the body in the bible starts with Joseph when he died. We all know Joseph was so well blended into his surrounding culture that he not only spoke the language but also was unrecognizable to his own brothers and I suspect Joseph picked up some Egyptians values.

I see no reason to continue this value today as God and the resurrection are not limited to what parts of us are remaining.

 

[Hawkins]

I think that people may get it wrong that the soul is the 'master' while the body is rather the 'replica'. If any information need to be retrieved, they will be in the soul, not the body nor the ashes of it.

 

[Archivist]

I have not yet made burial plans but cremation is a possibility.

For those who say a body is required for resurrection, what about those Christian martyrs who were fed to the lions?

 

[ewq1938]

No body is needed for resurrection. Resurrection of the dead righteous is about receiving a new glorious body. The living righteous have their vile bodies changed into same new body. Only the dead wicked enter back into their former vile bodies which are judged then destroyed. It would make no sense to raise the wicked into immortal bodies, judge them then destroy the immortal body.

 

[pshun2404]

So all of the sincerely faithful, totally blown to smitherines at 911 will not be resurrected? How about those burned at the stake or cremated by evil murderers? Where does it say God needs anything other than the elements to make a body?

 

[ViaCrucis]

No body is needed for resurrection. Resurrection of the dead righteous is about receiving a new glorious body. The living righteous have their vile bodies changed into same new body. Only the dead wicked enter back into their former vile bodies which are judged then destroyed. It would make no sense to raise the wicked into immortal bodies, judge them then destroy the immortal body.

Except that the resurrection of the body is just that, the resurrection of the body. We don't receive "new bodies"--that is something completely unconnected with the present body. The body is raised up, glorified, made new. That's what resurrection is.

That doesn't mean a person can't be raised if their body is fully decayed or burned or whatever--God can do whatever God will do. But to suggest that the resurrection of the body has nothing to do with this present mortal body being made immortal, the transformation from corruptible to incorruptible is simply not reading Scripture rightly.

Christians, since the beginning, have believed that the body is raised up. Not merely resuscitated, but transformed. That's what St. Paul says in Romans 8:11, it's the entire point of 1 Corinthians ch. 15, and so on and so forth.

The body is transformed in the resurrection, "this mortal must put on immortality" etc.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ewq1938]

We don't receive "new bodies"--that is something completely unconnected with the present body. The body is raised up, glorified, made new. That's what resurrection is.

Yet the righteous will indeed have new bodies when they are resurrected:

2Co 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Here house and building are metaphors for bodies. The righteous will have a new body that is eternal in the heavens. That means their old bodies aren't resurrected and reunited with them as is the case for the unsaved when they are resurrected to damnation.

But to suggest that the resurrection of the body has nothing to do with this present mortal body being made immortal, the transformation from corruptible to incorruptible is simply not reading Scripture rightly.

Or to think that is the case for all who are resurrected is simply not reading the scriptures rightly, and not reading all that pertain to the issue.

Christians, since the beginning, have believed that the body is raised up.

Argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that something is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe it, it must be true."

Not merely resuscitated, but transformed.

Paul wrote of such a transformation for those who were alive when Christ returned.

The body is transformed in the resurrection, "this mortal must put on immortality" etc.

Not according to Paul in 2Co 5:1 therefore he must be speaking of living mortal bodies putting on immortality as he speaks of here:

1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

1Co 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
1Co 15:53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1Co 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Here in both passages we see Paul speaking of two different groups. One that are dead, and one who are alive when Christ returns whom he refers to as "we" assumably because he believed he would be alive when Christ returned. It is the living that are "changed" as well as raptured but this is not so for the dead in Christ. They are resurrected and then return with Christ so their resurrections happen before they and Christ ever arrive here:

1Th 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
1Th 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

If they return bodiless with Christ, and their dead bodies are raptured up to the clouds then that makes two raptures which isn't written of and it also contradicts what Paul wrote in 2Co 5:1 about a new and different body awaiting the righteous dead as opposed to their old body being transformed.