Thanks again for all your teaching. I have a question on cremation. Does it go against biblical teaching? In a recent Bible study one scripture used against cremation was Amos 2:1. The teacher said we would bring punishment from God. And it really amounted to people being cremated out of greed of money because it is a lot cheaper than a traditional funeral.
I can’t find any connection between the specific charge in Amos 2:1 and a general prohibition against cremation. Some people used to believe that cremation made resurrection impossible because it destroyed the body, but as a practical matter any body that has been buried for any length of time will have turned to dust and be just as completely destroyed, so what’s the difference?
There has only been one resurrection, and in that case the body had neither been embalmed nor buried in the ground and was only lifeless for 3 days, so the process of decaying had not yet begun. For the bulk of dead believers this is not the case, so resurrection is really the act of rejoining a person’s eternal spirit with a new immortal body. Personally, I don’t see millions of bodies bursting out of the ground in cemeteries around the world at the rapture. Instead I see spirits being rejoined with new perfect bodies that resemble their old ones, but without the defects.