1. An Abomination to the Lord
Cremation is of pagan origin. To burn their dead was and still is the recognised custom of heathen peoples. Cremation was virtually unknown in Britain until late in the 19th century, and did not obtain legal sanction until early in the 20th century. Its introduction coincides with the apostasy of the latter days, “when men will not endure sound doctrine — and shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (II Tim. 4, 3, 4). Hence the paganism of our day, of which cremation is one of the proofs. Cremation belongs to the worship of Molech, all the rites of which were an abomination to the Lord. Against them He gave repeated warnings to His people Israel. “Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 18, 30). The rites of Molech worship are specifically mentioned as “one of these abominable customs.” (v. 21). How solemn the judgments threatened! “For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people” (Lev. 18, 29). “And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.” (Lev. 20, 3). Hundreds of years afterwards the prophet Jeremiah declares, “For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the Lord: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it. And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire: which I commanded them not neither came it into my heart.” (Jer. 7, 30, 31).
Families and individuals may consider themselves modern, and abreast of the times in having their dead cremated, but neither the fatuities of modernism, nor the worthless prayers of ministers officiating at cremation services, can avert the judgments of the Most High. What God has said shall stand: “And I will set my face against that man.”
2. Excuses for Cremation
Two main stock arguments are put forward by the advocates of cremation, writes James Griffin in “Cremation Historically and Theologically Considered.” These are: (1) Sanitation. (2) Land accommodation.
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Human and communal experience throughout the centuries belies the “Sanitation” argument, which resolves itself into mere theorising without a vestige of fact to support it. In many of our ancient churches lie buried some members of eminent families of long ago, but there is no evidence whatsoever of any worshipper in those churches ever having contracted any kind of infectious disease with the added danger of spreading an epidemic. Nor are there any authentic instances of pollution of water supply such as to provoke epidemic diseases in people living in close contiguity to a cemetery or a graveyard. It is reasonable, therefore, to maintain that, having through the centuries in which there were neither legal obligation nor legislative and administrative activities to enforce laws of sanitary procedure, the nation escaped without any recorded outbreak of diseases from the incidence of public burials, the possibility of any such experience in these days of advanced knowledge in the science of sanitation would surely be exceedingly remote.
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Land is available for extension of pleasure pursuits, for building purposes and for various forms of industrial and social development. Why land for burials should be excluded from the category of uses for which land is unrestrictedly obtainable, requires some adequate explanation. It would be a staggering revelation to consider, and to compute, how many bodies could be buried in the acres which the crematoria of this country now cover! Those acres alone, if applied to burials instead of buildings would undoubtedly provide sufficient burial space for generations yet unborn.
3. Burial scripturally defended
“There is no trace of cremation in the Word of God,” writes A. J. Pollock in “Pagan Cremation or Christian Burial.” For human beings to be burned with fire, according to the Scriptures is reserved as a punishment for the wicked, and not an act of respect of the living to the dead, as Christian burial is.
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou RETURN unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Gen. 3, 19). These were the words of God addressed to Adam, and form part of the sentence He passed upon him for his sin in partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is plainly stated that death is the penalty of sin. It is as plainly stated that just as Adam was created out of the ground so he is to RETURN unto the ground. God ordained burial in the earth as the way of the disposal of the bodies of the dead. “TILL THOU RETURN UNTO THE GROUND” was and is God’s decree for sinful men. Cremation goes dead against this basic law of God and THEREBY STANDS CONDEMNED FOR ALL TIME. Let there be no mistake about that. (p. 9).
“The late Dr Edwin Slossen (a chemist of international fame) has recorded his conviction that ‘the greatest miracle of the Bible is its chemical accuracy. The first book of the Bible says man was made out of dust of the earth and this is literally and scientifically true. In the dust of the earth there are 14 different chemical elements and in the body of man there are those same 14 chemical elements’. The perfect correspondence suggests that for some purpose or reason which none can precisely fathom, God ordained that the body with its elemental correspondences with the soil shall ‘return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return’.” (Gen. 3, 19). “Cremation Historically and Theologically Considered,” by James Griffin (p. 7).
There is not a single instance of any of the Lord’s people in either the Old Testament or the New being cremated. They were all reverently buried. We read that Moses was buried in a valley in the land of Moab against Beth-poer BY GOD HIMSELF (Deut. 34, 6). The divinely-inspired Apostle, in writing of the resurrection body of believers, says: “It is sown (not cremated) in corruption: it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour: 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.” (I Cor. 15, 42-44).
“Know ye not,” said the apostle to the Corinthians, “that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.” (I Cor. 6, 15). Cannot the question be pertinently put. Shall I then take the members of Christ, and prostitute them at death to pagan form of burial? God forbid. In either case the giving over of the body to fornication or to cremation is a shameful and gross violation of God’s revealed will. Flowers and prayers and beautiful singing cannot alter the solemn fact that cremation is an ABOMINATION in God’s sight, a pagan practice to be shunned and abhorred.
Surely the burial of the Saviour in the grave is the last word on the subject for any believer! The Church of God has in the infallible Word an account of the burial of the Lord. Through His death and resurrection He robbed death of its sting and the grave of its victory. The grave, He has bequeathed as a place of rest for the bodies of His people until the resurrection of the Last Day (John 6, 40), when “all that are in their graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” (John 5. 28, 29).
“Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain.” (Jer. 10, 2, 3). Let us rather learn of Him who hath said, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me, and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love Him and will manifest Myself to him.” (John 14, 21).
W.M.