Hi John.
Concerning Allison’s question of cremation and what God will exhume (with our bodies if we are ashes), I heard or read somewhere in the past that whether we are buried or burned, it really doesn’t matter. God would have nothing to work with in either case because whether a body is cremated or buried, it still turns into nothing useable as far as putting in our body back together. The Bible verses mentioned and which I read were in 1Corinthians 15:
- There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.
- The resurrection from the dead is the same way. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption;
- it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power;
- it is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a physical body, and there is a spiritual body.
The point which Paul made was that what will be raised is nothing like what was buried (or burned, etc.). This is my understanding of the cremation versus burial issue.
Gary
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Thanks, Gary.
That is true. Whether cremated or not, in the resurrection, Jesus will give his saints a different kind of body than this mortal, fleshly one. That one, for most of God’s people, will be long gone by then.
Pastor John
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Pastor John
I didn’t get the idea of Jesus exhuming our physical bodies from the grave from the original emails. But it brought Paul’s words in Corinthians about being raised as a spiritual body to mind, and Kay and I just read them. It really made me stop and think about how Paul likened the resurrection to the result of sowing a seed. I have never thought of death as a sowing. It also reminded me in a way of what Jesus said in John 12:24, “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless the kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Damien
- Still, someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come forth?”
- You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies,
37.and that which you sow, you do not sow the body that shall be, but bare grain, be it of wheat or of some other seed;
38.then God gives it a body as it pleases Him, and to each of the seeds, its own body.
…
- The resurrection from the dead is the same way. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption;
- it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power;
- is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a physical body, and there is a spiritual body.
49.and as we have borne the likeness of the earthly, we shall also bear the likeness of the heavenly.
- Behold, I am telling you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed
- an instant, at the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
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