Since the earliest recorded history of the church, God’s people have buried their dead in certain and faithful expectation of the resurrection from the grave. Very recently, however, some Christians have opted to have their own bodies incinerated rather than buried.
There are various reasons for this; the discussion of what to do with human remains is probably not high on the pastor’s list of sermon topics, even as incineration of the dead certainly has become more culturally acceptable in recent years and Christians have been influenced by the culture. But because the church has largely been silent on this issue, many Christians have defaulted to the cultural view regarding human remains.
Another reason for the increasing popularity of incinerating the dead is probably the cost. According to CNBC, citing data from the National Funeral Directors Association, the median funeral cost was about $8,300 in 2023 compared to cremation, which was less than $6,300.1
But the choice of whether to incinerate the dead or bury them is not a matter of indifference or preference. Where there is a choice, it is an important one and an expression of faith in God’s word. Christians need to be informed on the significance of this decision and that until very recently, Christians rejected incineration of the dead.
Some Qualifications
First, our God is so big, so strong, and so mighty, there is nothing our God cannot do except violate his word. In arguing against the incineration of the dead, I am not suggesting that if a person’s corpse is incinerated, eaten by animals, or hit by artillery that God is unable to resurrect him or her.
Second, I do not condemn those who have chosen to cremate their loved ones. My hope is to convince Christians to think seriously about the bodies of our deceased loved ones well in advance of having to make those decisions. Some of my own beloved family members were incinerated after their death. The decision to do so saddened me, but I do not believe the tense moments after a loved one’s death is the time to argue about cremation.
The time to reflect on whether to cremate or to bury is not in the immediate aftermath of a loved one’s death. The time to study these issues is in the years leading up to death.
Third, in some jurisdictions (e.g., Japan, Hong Kong), there is no legal option except to incinerate human remains, which makes a burial next to impossible.
God is unable to break his word; what God has vowed or purposed, he will fulfill. So his promises of resurrection life and resurrection bodies to all those in Christ (cf. 1 Cor 15) cannot be hindered by the destruction of a saint’s bodily remains. The way we treat the remains of our loved ones, however, is nonetheless a matter of faith.
The Biblical Testimony Against Incineration
Pagan cultures around Israel—and beyond—incinerated their dead as a sign of honor. By contrast, throughout the Scripture a lack of burial and particularly the burning of the dead is regarded as a sign of contempt.
One of the first examples of this comes from Leviticus 20:14 in which those who commit incest are to be burned. This, however, may be primarily referring to the mode of execution. Likewise in Joshua 7, Achen is stoned and then he and all his possessions are incinerated, but then “a great heap of stones” was raised over him. Similarly, Saul’s corpse—after the men of Jabesh-Gilead recovered it from being dishonored by the Philistines—was burned, but then buried (1 Sam 31).
More decisive is what good King Josiah did to the bones interred at Bethel, that site of false worship established in the Northern Kingdom by Jeroboam I:
And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the LORD that the man of God proclaimed, who had predicted these things. Then he said, “What is that monument that I see?” And the men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel.” And he said, “Let him be; let no man move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria. And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the LORD to anger. He did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel. And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem. (2 Kgs 23:16–20)
Josiah desecrated the false altars by desecrating the bones and corpses of the false priests who promoted false worship in the old covenant church. Throughout the Old Testament, the burning of human remains is a sign of judgment, defilement, and contempt.
Biblical Testimony in Favor of Burial
God’s people have always shown respect and dignity to the body, because of their comfortable and confident hope in the resurrection of the dead, the bodily resurrection of the dead.
One of the earliest is Job’s testimony, made all the more famous by the aria in Handel’s oratorio,
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! (Job 19:25–27)
Job understood the body—though acutely and chronically subject to decay and frustration—was not insignificant. He looked forward to the day when his body would be restored, perhaps even made glorious—to behold his redeemer.
The book of Genesis is noteworthy for its treatment of human remains, not least because the book begins in a beautiful garden (Gen 3) but ends in a coffin (Gen 50:26). Genesis shows the dreadful result of sin upon our race but holds out hope that our bodies will be raised up in a land free from death and decay according to the promises of God.
Abraham, a sojourner in the land, believes God’s promise that his offspring will inherit the earth, and yet the only plot of land he owned was enough to bury his beloved Sarah. Given his bedouin lifestyle, it would be perfectly understandable for Abraham to either incinerate his wife’s remains—to keep her with him—or to bury Sarah at any random spot of ground. But Abraham showed dignity to his wife’s body by purchasing a burial ground and placing her there in faith (cf. Gen 23).
For generations, the patriarchs would be buried in that tomb in expectation; their bodies would wait until the promise of God was fulfilled. Likewise, Joseph’s body was embalmed and his bones placed in a coffin in Egypt, but his bones were carried up from Egypt when the church left her Egyptian bondage to take possession of the promised land (Exod 13:19).
Psalm 16 offers a clear vision of the grave being plundered of its power:
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:9–11)
We know from Paul’s own exposition of this text that this psalm is referring firstly to Christ whose body was buried yet suffered no corruption and rose in triumph over the grave on the third day, the Lord’s Day (cf. Acts 13:35ff).
But as they sang this psalm, the Hebrew church was looking forward to the day when One would come and rescue their own bodies from the grave’s clutches. This hope—as with all other promises—is fulfilled in Christ.
The apostle Paul instructed the Corinthian church that there is a correspondence between our body and our resurrected, glorious body:
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Cor 15:42–44)
Burial As an Act of Faith and Defiance
As such, a Christian burial is not merely a pragmatic act of disposal, but an expression of hope and expectation not only that the body is valuable, but also that God has promised to raise up our mortal bodies and “change our humble bodies and make them like his own glorious bodies” on the last day (Phil 3:21).
Through the millennia, God’s people have placed their loved ones in the ground confident Christ will not leave them there, because of the union he has with his people in body and soul.
The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves until the resurrection. (Westminster Shorter Catechism [WSC] 37)
I recently saw video on social media from a graveside service: there was a tent, a pine box, dozens of mourners. But they sang Psalm 16, mixed with grief but seasoned with confident joy. In singing Psalm 16, the worshipers rejected death’s victory, confident death’s sting has been drawn because Christ has won the victory.
When Christians bury their dead, they are testifying to the world of their faith that Christ who no longer has need of his borrowed grave, will return and on that day none of his people will have need of their graves any longer.
Christian burial is an act of faith. Let us not yield to the pressures of culture or financial expediency. Rather, let us as Christ’s people testify that our bodies—the temple of his Holy Spirit—are placed into the ground even as our souls go to be with the Lord until the day when this mortal shall put on incorruptible.
Practical Considerations
Christians ought to show charity toward one another on this issue; this is not an issue about which Christians ought to condemn those who disagree. My goal is to encourage Christians to think about how God’s people have treated the bodies of our deceased throughout the history of the church and consider what the burial of the dead teaches and testifies to us.
What about those who have already cremated their loved ones? Draw comfort from the omnipotence and abundant mercies of our God. The bodily resurrection is not contingent on our preservation of a corpse but on his powerful word. Burial is an act of faith on our part; it does not earn merit before him. God is certainly not unable to resurrect those who have been incinerated, but rather that we should bury our dead in testimony to the bodily resurrection. The body is not an empty husk, but valuable and worthy of dignity even in death.
What about the cost difference? American culture generally spends way too much on funerals and memorials. Is it necessary to rent a funeral parlor, purchase an ornate monument and a gravesite? No. Is that a nice tribute to our loved ones? Certainly.
One way to save money is to have a visitation at the local church without the use of a funeral parlor.
Another way to save a significant amount of money is a direct burial. In this way, the family is able to testify to the certainty of the resurrection without incurring the costs of embalming or even an expensive casket; a simple pine box will work. In such instances, the family can arrange a funeral worship service with the local church in which they give thanks to God for the life of their loved one.
The meaning of life is to glorify and enjoy God forever. By burying rather than burning our loved ones, Christians testify that our enjoyment of God does not end in this life, but that we are confident the same bodies placed in the grave will be “raised up to glory” as we are “made perfectly blessed to the full enjoying of God to all eternity” (WSC 38).
Note
- Liz Knueven, “How much does a funeral cost in 2025?” CNBC, August 25, 2025.
©Ryan Biese. All Rights Reserved.
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Ryan Biese
Ryan Biese is married to Ann, and they have three children: Dabney, Thornwell, and Charlotte. He is pastor of First Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Fort Oglethorpe, GA and hosts The Westminster Standard Podcast. He is a graduate of Grove City College and Reformed Theological Seminary.
More by Ryan Biese ›
Thank you for the article. For some of us, it is “high” on our priority list! As one who had presided over 3 funerals this past year, it’s amazing how many Christian folk have really NOT thought thru this while using Scripture as their guide. And for that reason, it has been something I’ve been teaching on over this year. Thanks again!
My thought always was, that if Saul’s body was burned, it would be impossible for the Philistines to further desecrate it, seeing’s how the Israelites couldn’t prevent it from happening in the first place.
Good article. Although I wouldn’t presume to judge anyone who chooses to cremate, my thoughts always go to what happens to those who are unsaved. They are thrown into the lake of fire.
Was not Saul’s body cremated as an act of respect after the Phiistines had desecrated it?
1 Samuel 31:12 (ESV):
His body was burned. It is an inference that they did it out of respect. Why not simply bury him? Soldiers are mortally wounded in combat. They may have thought that they were being respectful but the narrator doesn’t tell us that or commend their decision.
Was it a pragmatic decision? Was it yet another tragic aspect to Saul’s life and death? Those are the questions I would ask: why does the narrator add this detail? What message is implied in it? My sense is that it nothing good is meant by it.
This article is a helpful, informative article is one that I can send people to when they have questions about why I prefer burial over cremation.
One small typo: the recovery of Saul’s body was in 1 Sam 31, not 1 Sam 3.
Typo corrected. Thank you.
Whatever happened to Christian liberty? Or is this Law?
Bob,
Ryan wrote:
Doesn’t this address your concerns?
If this isn’t Law, it puts a real guilt trip on anybody exercising their Christian liberty to have their loved one cremated. There is no “Law Lite”.
Bob,
Asking people to re-think their views and behavior is hardly binding anyone’s conscience.
Your repeated use of the word “incineration” is emotionally charged. Yes, cremation does incincerate bodies, but it appears you deliberately chose that word to raise a spectre of distaste for cremation. Indeed, I (and numerous Christians) do (still) find it distasteful.
But while I myself much prefer burial to cremation (but have relatives, friends and members of several of my and my husband’s former churches who have been cremated), it seems to me to be more a psychological issue than faith-related. Yes, burial of the righteous is what occurs in both Old and New Testaments, but I’m not convinced by your arguments that that wasn’t primarily cultural. The texts you site have to do with our eventual bodily resurrection, not mode of body disposal afte death. When Josiah burns the bones of pagan Israelites on their pagan altars, the point is desecrating those altars by placing “unlean” dead bodies on them, not first of all on the burning.
Marian,
I too have family members who’ve been cremated but burial was not merely cultural. I tried to address that argument in this essay:
The passage that really sealed it for me is 1 Cor 15. Paul says,
What is sown is a seed. It is planted in the earth. The resurrection is then a kind of harvest. Paul was writing to an urban world, to a congregation composed at least in part of former pagans, who, as pagans, thought nothing of incinerating a body. Arguably, cremation is closer to the cultural practice of the day than burial was.
After all, Abraham went to some lengths to ensure a burial place for Sarah (Gen 23). That narrative is there for a reason. It’s not merely cultural. It’s a witness to Abraham’s hope in the resurrection. These passages have to do with what we do with the body.
Take a look at the linked article and see if it helps.
Hi Marian, thanks for reading the article.
I see your point about the word “incinerate,” however when I learned my grandfather would be “cremated” I shuddered at the thought of incinerating his body like it was just garbage. From my research, “cremation” is simply the incineration of human remains.
Alrgotgh I certainly disagree with the word garbage, could not cremation be seen as the “coming from dust and returning to dust” view?
Ben,
Don’t you see a at least a formal difference between planting a body in the ground (not necessarily in a $20k coffin) and sliding a body into a furnace? In the first instance, in time, should the Lord Jesus tarry, a body will return to dust. In the other, it is not being planted but burned. Certainly the imagery of the two actions is decidedly different.
I see the differences to be sure, but in my eyes the results are in essence the same, I think one simply evokes a higher emotional response due to the speed of how it works. Just my thoughts at this point
Ben,
Do this. Look into the history of cremation.
Ask yourself: is the Lord really interested in efficiency?
What is the difference between planting and burning?
Another option, very similar to direct burials (and the terms are used interchangeably quite often): Green burials. (Google the term, plenty of info is available.) Rather similar to the measures noted in Ms. Beal’s comment.
Thanks!
Great article and very timely. I have been surprised at how frequently I have had conversations with Godly family members about their desire to be cremated rather than buried.
Thank you, Ross!
“Another way to save a significant amount of money is a direct burial. In this way, the family is able to testify to the certainty of the resurrection without incurring the costs of embalming or even an expensive casket; a simple pine box will work. In such instances, the family can arrange a funeral worship service with the local church in which they give thanks to God for the life of their loved one.”
Thank and BLESS you, Pastor Ryan! I’m sure you realize that you evoked traditional JEWISH practice. The following is from a Jewish funeral home website, with some editing: “In the Jewish tradition, we are all the same, in death as in life. For that reason, ostentation is generally frowned on when a member of the Jewish faith dies. You won’t see extravagant funeral and burial ceremonies, but solemn ceremonies that focus on the life of the deceased and the loss caused by his or her death. Furthermore, one of the tenets of the Jewish faith is the belief that we are created from dust and to dust we are destined to return. For these reasons…the Jewish custom is for burial to be in a simple pine box [a kosher casket]. The simplicity of the pine box ensures that we are all the same in death, but it also facilitates the return of the body to the earth… The casket is made entirely of wood: That means the casket includes no metal at all, including no nails to hold the casket together. This practice stems from the belief that not only should the body return to the earth as soon as possible, but the casket should as well… It is assembled and held together with dowels or pins, held in place by glue, so that every part of the casket will decompose. In fact, with a pine wood box, the casket will typically decompose at approximately the same rate as the body… The caskets typically have holes drilled in the bottom; there can be as many as a hundred small holes drilled across the bottom of the casket, allowing the earth to come in, so that the body is actually touching earth, hastening the decomposition process.”
I came to (Reformed) Christianity from a nominally-Jewish family; when my mother passed away in 2006, I rejoiced in seeing her finely-crafted, but BASIC pine casket. No fancy-schmancy, exorbitant caskets and vaults, all of which are destined for dirt! I wish that all Christians and Jews would embrace end-of-life pine caskets. Yes, funeral home revenues everywhere would languish at first…but the sheer volume of business courtesy of The Fall will always ensure rapid bottom-line recovery.