On Death and Dying (Part 2 of 2)

As believers, we know that our bodies are temples.

They are God's dwelling place. And because of that, we ought to treat our bodies with care. If that's our view of life, how should we care for our bodies in death?

Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explores the delicate subjects of burial and cremation in a message titled, On Death and Dying. We're in Ecclesiastes chapter 12. We have within the Scriptures these clear, wonderful, encouraging, guiding statements concerning the nature of death for the Christian. And we could run through a whole host of them.

But for example, I'll tell you just three. For the Christian, death's sting is drawn. The sting of death is drawn. That's 1 Corinthians 15.56, if you want to look it up later. Paul says, The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, the Bible makes it clear that we are asleep in death through Jesus. Now, interestingly, when the Bible uses the picture of sleep, as best as I've been able to look for it, it never uses sleep in relationship to our souls. It uses sleep in relationship to our bodies. It talks about our bodies sleeping—not about our souls sleeping. And it gives to us the reality of this notion of having fallen asleep in Jesus.

Again, that's Pauline terminology. And the conjunction is, through Jesus—falling asleep through Jesus, as a result of Jesus. In other words, just in the same way as a child inevitably hears their mom or their dad say, Bedtime! we will hear Jesus say the same to us.

Bedtime! And we may say to Jesus what children say to their dads or their moms. Will you stay with me while I fall asleep? And Jesus says, Yes, I will.

Better than that, I will be with you in that sleep. And Manton says, Man cannot be completely happy till the body be raised again. The soul alone doth not constitute human nature or that being which may be called man.

The body doth essentially concur to the constitution of man as well as the soul. Therefore the soul, though it be a spirit and can live apart, yet it was not made to live apart forever, but to live in the body. And so remaineth a widow, as it were, till the body be raised up and united to it. It is without its mate and companion, so that it remaineth destitute or half itself, which though it may be borne for a while, yet not forever.

And then he goes on to write from there. Now, this is important to come to the question of what we're doing with the body in the process of death, and that's why I read it. What he is saying there is that humanity, man qua man, in its constitution, is not complete simply as a soul, but body and soul unite to make the human constitution.

And the absence of the soul from the body does not therefore render the body obsolete, insignificant, as if you were throwing out an old water bottle to be discarded because you knew that you were going to get a better water bottle on some later occasion. Death's sting is drawn, we are asleep through Jesus, and present with the Lord. Present with the Lord.

Again, Paul, he's so masterful in these things. In 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 8, he says, We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So, when someone dies in Christ, in their disembodied spirit, they are in the presence of the Lord, in the full enjoyment of the Lord, and when the Lord in glory comes, that individual in their body will be presented faultless, without spot, and without blemish. And I can't find anywhere in the Bible that suggests that when we get a new body, we're getting a different body—i.e., I may want to be six foot three and look like a Norwegian sailor, but I clearly don't, and in heaven I won't.

Because if I did, my wife, to whom I will not be married in heaven, would not recognize me if she met me on the beach. So, somehow or another, in the reconstitution of our physical frame, there will be that which is both identifiable and different, the hint of which is given in the resurrected body of Jesus, which was in the one hand immediately recognizable and yet at other times unrecognizable—which had capacities that were not present, apparently, prior to the resurrection. Well, we don't have time to deal with cremation. We'll just stop here. Let's say a word, then, about dealing with death itself, in terms of the process of death and dying and what plans we may make for it and decisions that we may choose to make. I want to be sensible and guarded in my use of language here, but I also want to be fairly straightforward and clear. When a loved one dies, it is, as some of you will have experienced, phenomenally sad, it may be dreadfully ugly, and the whole event is so clearly an enemy.

An enemy. I've lost count of the times that I've been in the home of a widow for that horrible moment when the undertakers arrive to remove the body. And it is virtually impossible to talk over the event.

And given their best attempts to manipulate this human frame down the stairs in that dreadful, ugly bag, there is not one redeeming feature to it. And in all of the processes that follow from it, we say something about our convictions, and about our ideals, and about our Christian perspective. In one sense—and it needs to be said very quickly and right at the beginning—in one sense, it's accurate to say that the manner of the disposal of our bodies after death is actually not a matter of vital importance, in the sense that God will reconstitute the human frame, whether that was lost at sea in the Titanic or was burned in a dreadful Chicago fire in Moody's Day or was resurrected from a graveyard on the east side of Cleveland. There won't be any difference between those who were buried in graves or those who were drowned or those who were destroyed by fire.

God will take care of all of that. So in that sense, we are not to be particularly preoccupied with the question. But given that in the vast majority of cases, either we or someone who loves us will be called upon to make decisions regarding this process, it is of significance to think it out. And the fundamental question in relationship to cremation is not whether God can put our loved one back together again—that's not a matter of debate. The question is not whether God can do that. The question is really whether we should put God in the position to have to do that by destroying our loved ones' bodies in a furnace that is heated to seventeen hundred degrees Fahrenheit. In looking for substantiation for cremation in the Bible, I've only discovered that the proponents of cremation argue from two Old Testament events—one concerning the death of Achan in Joshua 7, which you can look at on your own, and the other concerning Saul in 1 Samuel 31. And what is interesting to me is that these passages of Scripture are used to say, essentially, see, there was cremation, and therefore it's okay to have cremation.

But in actual fact, when you look at the passages, they really argue for the reverse. When you read the events, there is nothing reverent about what takes place, there's nothing desirable about what takes place, but what actually takes place in the disposing of these bodies speaks, actually, of a kind of judgment and approach to things that was not part and parcel of the way the Hebrews dealt with death, or really have dealt with death throughout the ages. When you try and find historical substantiation for where we are, you, along with me, will discover that cremation was virtually unknown in early America.

Virtually unknown in early America. The early proponents of cremation, as far as I could find, came out of Unitarianism, liberalism, they were skeptics, they were freethinkers, they were utilitarian, they were pragmatists. And in the vast majority of cases, they saw cremation as an opportunity to shake their fists in the face of God and in the face of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, so that cremation was not simply a utilitarian response to how do we dispose of this body as much as it was an expression of a philosophical or idealistic view. Given that there is validity to somebody seeking to wed their philosophy of life with their perspective on death, it then falls to the Christian to say, How do I bring everything that I know of the doctrine of man in creation and in preservation and in all of the beauty and the nuances of God's creative order in making my children in this way or making my loved one in this way?

How, then, do I deal with their demise in relationship to that far bigger picture? Burial fits the biblical picture of being sown in dishonor and raised in glory. That's why Paul employs it. Burial fits the biblical picture that Jesus used on a number of occasions, and the apostles followed him, to which we've already referred of sleep. And burial shows respect for the physical frame. Now, I understand that people can say, Well, it's only a matter of timing in relationship to these things.

But actually, it's not just a matter of timing. Again, I don't want to be so graphic as to keep children up at night. But in my experience as a young minister in Scotland, nothing chilled me more than funerals that I conducted at the Warriston crematorium. And this is how it went. When it came time for me to say the words of committal, for as much as it has pleased Almighty God to receive unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground, which we don't, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our earthly bodies, that they may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things, even death, unto himself. While I was saying that, I had to press a button which was right here on the side of my pulpit. And when I pressed the button, the coffin, which was beside me here on my left, moved through the velvet curtains. And if I did not get through the words of committal fast enough to get the organ playing quick enough, then it was impossible for everyone sitting in the room not to hear the furnace kicking in in the same way that it kicks in in the basement of your house.

And it just went boom! So you had to get the organ going as fast as you could. And then, make sure that you don't let any of the members of the family, as they drive away in the funeral procession, don't let them look back. Because the smoke they see coming out of that crematorium chimney has been produced by the burning of the body of their mom, their dad, their brother, or their sister. Now, you can tell that I am a great fan of cremation from this.

The Old Testament saints—it's constant. Abram wanted a nice place to bury Sarah. Rachel was buried. Joseph was concerned that his bones would be put in a coffin and carried up. What the Old Testament saints did was to show tender care for their dead, and as a result of that, they established a pattern which made an impression and established a kind of unbroken communion of the saints leading all the way through into early Christianity. And fundamental to it is the fact that Christianity redeems the body as well as the soul, and Christianity consecrates the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit.

You're not your own, you were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. We say, Well, that's only when you're alive.

Why only when you're alive? You see, Christianity should honor the body in death. Because it is still the body. It's still God's creative handiwork. He put the eyes in there. He put the nose in there. He fashioned this body. And yes, the soul, in its disembodied state, is now present with the Lord Jesus Christ, but it hasn't rendered my dad irrelevant.

And if I'm going to keep my dad's Bible on my shelf, if I'm going to keep a number of his ties to wear, because of my love and affection for him and because of the association that these things have with him, why would I treat his body in that way, if I wouldn't treat his Bible that way? You visited Rome, many of you. And the catacombs are a vibrant testimony to the early Christians' belief in the resurrection of the body. Julian the Apostate said that there were three things that he had identified that could explain the rapid-fire course of Christianity spreading through the Roman Empire.

And he said there were these. Number one, benevolence. Number two, honesty. And number three, the Christians' care for the dead. Number one, benevolence. Number two, honesty. And number three, their care for the dead.

Let me say one final thing. In the Bible, fire is a type or a symbol almost exclusively of destruction, isn't it? It's a symbol of judgment, of a judgment that is complete and without remedy. My personal perspective—and, of course, it would come out, and it is only personal—is that burial is a more fitting end to the life of a Christian. Cremation, I think, is at best sub-Christian. I don't think it's un-Christian. I think it's sub-Christian.

And I haven't dealt with Hinduism and Buddhism and Zoroastrianism and every other ism that, in the way they deal with death, say something about their conviction concerning the sanctity of life. But here's the final thing. This piece of the puzzle is not a main thing. It's clearly not a plain thing. And you're sensible people.

And you must figure it out for yourselves. You've been listening to Truth for Life. Alistair Begg is in a series called My Times Are In Your Hands. Alistair will be back in just a minute to close with prayer, so please keep listening. We all need to be reminded of God's promises in both good times and bad times.

They give us a reason to be thankful when all is well, and they offer hope during life's challenges. Today we want to recommend to you a wonderful year-long devotional that will deepen your trust in the promises of God. It's titled Checkbook of the Bank of Faith. It's written by the great 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon. The title comes from Spurgeon's comparison of God's promises to bank checks.

They're given in the present as a guarantee of fulfillment in the future. Whether 2021 becomes a season of blessing or a time of difficulty, this book, The Checkbook of the Bank of Faith, will encourage you to find your hope and rest in the promises of God. And let me mention you'll love the size of this devotional. It's formatted to be the size of a checkbook.

It's thin, it fits easily in your pocket, and it's bound in a rich leather cover. You can request your copy when you give today at Truth for Life. Simply tap the book image you see on the Truth for Life mobile app, or visit truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can call us at 888-588-7884. And if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life at post office box 398000 Cleveland, Ohio 44139. If you have been benefiting from this series about God's providence in the midst of times of affliction, you can dive deeper into this subject using the brand new My Times Are In Your Hands Study Guide. This guide leads you through each of the 12 messages Alistair teaches in this series, and it provides you with questions that are perfect for group discussion or personal reflection.

You can purchase the guides individually or bundled together, along with the companion audio series on a USB drive. To find out more, go to truthforlife.org slash store. Let me also mention we have added an ESV Bible to our store. This is a softcover edition that makes it easy to introduce others to the scriptures.

It's only $2. We've had many requests for a Bible that can be purchased in multiple quantities to give to friends or community groups. This version is great for those who are just getting started in their study of God's word.

It makes a perfect gift at this time of year. You'll find this Bible online at truthforlife.org slash store. Now here's Alistair to close with prayer. Father, one day we will all die, and we think about it in relationship to a will and to what we leave behind and the way we approach death, and we want to find a Christian way to tackle this. We don't want to get sucked into spending vast sums of money for no good reason.

So help us to think these things out. I pray that no one will be harmed by these comments, especially those who've had loved ones cremated. We know that you're sovereign over all of that. We don't second-guess any of it.

Some have already made plans in their will, and now they're thinking they're going to have to pay their lawyer another fee to fix it. But that can be done too. And at the end of the day, Lord, we have only one Master, Jesus. And where the Bible is clear and plain, we can move forward unashamedly and unequivocally, and where we have to ferret around as I've done this evening, then we know that we can't be definitive and categorical in a way that would put strictures and structures on others. So help us to work out our own salvation in this respect with fear and trembling. Thank you that Jesus is alive. Thank you that every Sunday it reminds us of the resurrection, and indeed, that every day for the Christian is Resurrection Day. So when we wake in tomorrow morning and we see the sun rise, it reminds us again of that glorious day when, just as on Resurrection Sunday morning, Jesus emerged from the tomb so the trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will rise first. And we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them. And so we will meet the Lord in the air, and we will be forever with the Lord. Thank you that we have been born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And it's in his name we pray. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Hope you can join us back tomorrow as Alistair discusses the topic of bereavement in a message called Christians Grieve Too. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.