“Burial or cremation?” The funeral director’s question hung in the air.
For generations, Christians assumed the answer. Burial is just what Christians do—so uniform was the practice that it came to be known as a Christian burial. But in recent decades, something has changed.
In the United States, cremation rates have skyrocketed—from around 5 percent in the early 1970s to nearly two-thirds today, with some estimates surpassing 80% by 2045.¹
This shift in practice has left many in the church unsure. Some recoil from cremation instinctively but struggle to articulate why. Others feel that it is a sensible and cost-effective solution. Still others feel torn between the practical benefits and a nagging sense of theological discomfort.
So, the question is: which practice should Christians choose—burial or cremation?
This is not a question about God’s power. No one doubts that the God who formed Adam from the dust and raised Jesus from the dead can raise any body. The question is about what our practices communicate—how each expresses our convictions and honors the body.
We will consider this issue through three precedents: the biblical, the theological, and the historical.
The Biblical Precedent
When we turn to Scripture, we do not find a prescriptive rule but a clear and consistent pattern.
The Patriarchs: Burial as Covenant Faith
The Book of Genesis doesn’t treat Abraham’s purchase of the cave of Machpelah merely as a real-estate transaction for burial grounds. It was an act of covenant faith.
As a foreigner in Canaan with no permanent property, Abraham purchased a burial plot to stake his family’s claim on God’s promised land (Genesis 23). His insistence that his wife, Sarah, be buried there was a declaration of his faith in God’s promise.
Likewise, Jacob made his sons swear to bury him in the same place (Genesis 49:29-32). Joseph’s last command—that his bones be carried out of Egypt—became a centuries-long testimony of faith in God’s redemptive promises (Genesis 50:25).
To Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, who were sojourners, burial was a theological statement—a physical claim on God’s promise. For the patriarchs, the preeminent issue was not as much about how the body was laid to rest but more about where the body was laid to rest: in the land of promise.
The Cultural Significance: Honor in Burial
Burial’s cultural significance pervades the rest of the Old Testament. To be given a proper burial was an honor; to be denied it was a curse.
Jeremiah pronounces judgment on King Jehoiakim:
“He will have the burial of a donkey.” — Jeremiah 22:19
Even executed criminals were to be buried the same day, lest the land be defiled (Deuteronomy 21:23).
This urgency carried into the New Testament. Jesus’ followers hurried to bury Him before sundown (John 19:31–42), echoing the Old Testament conviction that the body, even in death, should be treated with dignity.
The Exceptions: Fire as Judgment
The few Scriptural exceptions confirm the general pattern.
The men of Jabesh-gilead burned Saul’s desecrated body as an emergency measure to prevent further dishonor—but then buried his bones as soon as possible (1 Samuel 31:12). This act seems aimed to purify his corpse from ritual defilement—not to destroy it.
Achan was burned under divine judgment (Joshua 7:25). And God pronounced wrath on Moab “because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom” (Amos 2:1).
In Scripture, fire applied to the human body is overwhelmingly associated with judgment or contempt, never honor or sanctity.
The Gospel Pattern: Burial and Resurrection
The New Testament follows the same pattern. John the Baptist’s disciples buried his body (Mark 6:29). Devout men buried Stephen (Acts 8:2).
And most significantly, Jesus was buried with extravagant care—Joseph and Nicodemus wrapped His body in seventy-five pounds of spices.
The Apostle Paul includes this detail as an essential part of the gospel itself:
“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:3–4
That phrase “He was buried” isn’t filler. It anchors the claim that Christ’s resurrection was bodily, not merely spiritual.
Jesus’ burial was integral to apostolic proclamation. The apostles proclaimed a physical resurrection—and burial made that claim visible.
The Metaphor of Sowing and Sleeping
Paul’s metaphor in 1 Corinthians 15 underscores burial’s theological meaning:
“What you sow does not come to life unless it dies… you sow a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:36, 44
Burial enacts this truth in physical space—we plant the body in sorrowful hope, awaiting the harvest of glorious resurrection.
This is complemented by the New Testament’s description of death for believers as sleep—a temporary rest (1 Thessalonians 4:13–15). The Greek word for cemetery—koimeterion—literally means “sleeping place.” It’s a place of rest until Christ awakens His people.
Summary
Scripture never commands, “Christian, you shall bury your dead.” There is no prescriptive rule, only a consistent pattern: God’s people—patriarchs, prophets, and apostles—honored the body in burial as an expression of faith in God’s promise of resurrection.
The Theological Precedent
We live in a world infected with quasi-Gnostic assumptions that treat the body as secondary or disposable.
Ancient Gnosticism, against which 1 John was likely written, taught that matter was evil, the body is a prison for the soul. Greek philosophy, like Platonism, viewed the body as a vessel to escape. Many Eastern religions today share similar views, making the destruction of the body after death preferable.
Christianity proclaims something radically different. God formed humanity from the dust and called His creation—including our bodies—“very good” (Genesis 1:31). The ultimate vindication of the body comes in the Incarnation—when the eternal Son became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).
For believers, the body’s dignity only intensifies. Paul teaches that the Christian’s body is “a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). Purchased at the immeasurable price of Christ’s blood, it becomes a sacred space for God’s dwelling.
If the body were unimportant, God would let it perish forever. But instead, He promises us resurrection, not disembodiment. Christ’s resurrection is the “firstfruits” (1 Corinthians 15:20), guaranteeing that He will “transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body” (Philippians 3:21).
Because the body is God’s good creation, sanctified and purchased by Christ, indwelt by the Spirit, and destined for resurrection, it must be treated with honor—even in death.
The Historical Precedent
Christianity emerged in a world with diverse funeral customs. In the Roman Empire, both burial and cremation were common. But each choice carried worldview weight. Funeral customs revealed worldview commitments.
Many Romans, shaped by Greek and Gnostic ideas that devalued the physical, preferred cremation—believing the body’s rapid destruction liberated the soul.
In contrast, the Jews practiced only burial, continuing the tradition from the patriarchs.
The early Christians faced a choice. They could have conformed to the surrounding culture’s preference for cremation or bury their dead—and they deliberately chose burial.
For many Romans, cremation expressed disbelief in bodily resurrection, so Christians buried their dead as an apologetic witness—a counter-cultural testimony of bodily resurrection in a world that counted it foolish.
The early church deliberately aligned its funeral practice with its theology, even when that meant opposing cultural norms.
Francis Schaeffer later reflected on this distinction: “The Romans burned their dead; the Christians buried theirs.” He even suggested that the spread of Christianity across Europe could be traced by where cremation yielded to burial.⁴
The point is not that cremation contradicts resurrection, but that, when free to choose, early believers embodied their doctrine by burying their dead.
A Conscience Formed by Hope
Scripture nowhere forbids cremation or commands burial. This is a matter of Christian liberty—a decision to be made through study and prayer.
No believer should fear that choosing cremation, especially in financial hardship or practical necessity, endangers salvation or God’s power to raise the body. The Lord who formed Adam from dust will have no difficulty reconstituting those lost at sea, burned at the stake, or reduced to ashes (Revelation 20:13).
But Christian liberty isn’t license for thoughtless action. It invites wise discernment. If our culture were to ever interpret cremation as a denial of the resurrection, the church should abstain—not out of fear, but as a witness to the hope we proclaim.
Whether buried or cremated, our assurance rests not in our body’s disposition but in the power of God:
“We know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, eternal in the heavens.”
— 2 Corinthians 5:1
As a pastor, I can testify that few occasions open hearts to the gospel like a Christian funeral. A Christian funeral is a believer’s last sermon—a powerful opportunity to proclaim that death is not the end, that the body matters to God, and that we await Christ’s return when those who have fallen asleep will be raised imperishable.
Josh Taylor is a pastor and author with degrees in Pastoral Ministry, Christian Apologetics, and a DMin in Biblical Preaching.
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References
¹ Cremation Association of North America, “State Cremation Rate Milestones,” CANA Blog, accessed October 10, 2025; National Funeral Directors Association, “Statistics,” accessed October 10, 2025.
² David W. Jones, “To Bury or Burn? Toward an Ethic of Cremation,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 53, no. 2 (2010): 337–38.
³ Jones, “To Bury or Burn?,” 346.
⁴ Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1976), 24.