Welcome!

QUESTION 45:
Would you tell me where in the Bible it says that a committal service can be held in the Funeral Home or Church; then the remains taken and thrown in the grave

ANSWER:
I know of no scripture that would answer these questions. If you were referring to an indecent burial, this would be most unscriptural. Neither the Funeral Home nor Church Building is mentioned in the New Testament.

I would think that whether you have a committal at the grave or otherwise is a matter of family preference. Families ought to be closely knitted together at such a time, seeking to work these and other arrangements out in a good order and taste. That the Scriptures teach a decent and respectable burial is most certainly true.

There are, at least, three kinds of burials referred to in the Scriptures. In Ecclesiastes 6:3 "If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he." This evidently means that he, like Jezebel of 2 Kings 9:35, is so destroyed by violence of some sort that there are no remains to burial. Then in Jeremiah 22:19, we read of Jehoiakim, the king being "buried with the burial of an ass or mule, drawn out and cast forth." This is a most indecent burial and is little better than none at all. These types of burials we ought not to hold or have. Then, there is the burial of a King in 2 Chronicles 26:23 ".. the burial which belongeth to the Kings." This is the burial that our Lord Jesus had and is the one desired, or should be, by all Christians. Cremation is not taught in the scriptures and we, as Christians should not practice them.

"Believe (trust, rely) on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved" Acts 16:31.

All comments and questions to: Harold Smith

Return to Christian Living Questions Main Page

Updated July 2009, by Shelly Allen