The Ascension

Deliberate cremation is a pagan practice. It was indicative of belief in re-incarnation, never resurrection. The ancient Greek and Roman cultures and the Eastern religions practice cremation because they believe that only one's spirit is eternal. The body. being a material thing subject to suffering and death, was regarded as being essentially evil as it was a hindrance to true spirituality. It was something to be discarded in exchange for another body in the process of reincarnation, which is an evolutionary kind or purgatorial kind of salvation. Eventually, the process of reincarnation would end when the soul had become "enlightened" enough to have no further need to reincarnate in any body. But the whole point is that the body is something one's spirit must escape in order to be saved. Don't take my word for it--look up Hindu or ancient Greek teachings on this to see for yourself what pagan belief was. Then you'll understand why the Christian view was so radically different.

In Christian culture, Burial is indicative of belief in resurrection as the body is considered the living temple of God. As Jesus said: "'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.' Then said the Jews, 'Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?' But he spake of the temple of his body'" (John 2:19-21) If the body was not worthwhile, then why would Jesus bother to resurrect his Body? Yes, he still has his resurrected body. It's the same one that had died, was risen up and is glorified. What other one would there be?

The early Christians recognized the theological differences between burial and cremation and it surprises that quite a few modern Christians do not. I suppose it shows just how pervasive pagan ideas are now becoming, supplanting the Christian view of these things.

Some Christians get entangled in this question: What to think about those bodies that have accidently or through some other trauma suffered total obliteration so as to prevent burial? The bodies that have been burned to ashes, or blown to bits, or vaporized, etc.?

Since certain people meet such an unfortunate fate, should we then jump several steps ahead and conclude that therefore it's of no consequence whether we deliberately cremate ourselves or others who die with the body intact? Why forget that God created every living thing in this universe out of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING? Can not this same God, who is that powerful, also reconstitute anyone's badly scattered atoms to recreate those bodies to be his temples?

Let God, who creates ex-nihilo, take care of those who could not be buried intact in the normal course of events. He will resurrect their bodies anyhow. As for the rest of us, we should treat the body with respect and not seek to deliberately obliterate it through cremation or allow other kinds of funerary mutilations. Some Christians think that only our spirit goes to heaven and the body remains behind as so much refuse. Again, this a pagan and/or heretical way to unnaturally divide our souls from our bodies. For when God saves, He saves the whole man, not just one part. He saves both our soul from hell and our bodies from death. Here is one reason why the body is necessary: "Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave? Or thy faithfulness in destruction?" (Ps: 88:11) No, a body held in the bounds of death cannot praise God, but a risen body, liberated by the Spirit and rejoined to its soul, will provide a sacred place for the worship of God.

Read what Jesus said to the woman at the well about where true worship will be--John 4:20-24. That passage comes after Jesus telling her "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." (John 4:14) He wasn't talking about disembodied spirits having everlasting life. The well the woman had been drawing from can be thought of as the old temple worship at Jerusalem or the "old man" of our corrupt nature, which worships God imperfectly. But after drinking of the living water He gives us (that baptism symbolizes as our death--our corruption being swallowed up in incorruption), then we, as cleansed and rebuilt temples of God's spirit, will worship Him--body and soul together--in perfect harmony-- worship that will be "in spirit and in truth.".