It’s difficult for families to plan for a funeral, but it’s even more difficult when there are questions or doubts about organ donation or cremation.

It’s wonderful when a person donates organs so that others can live. But will that affect what happens to his or her body on the great day of the resurrection of the dead? And what about cremation? Some people may want to be cremated and have their ashes scattered as a statement of defiance to God, but what about a Christian who, for personal reasons, wants his or her body cremated? Is that wrong, or will that affect what happens at the resurrection?

God has the power to raise all bodies

If ever we wrestle with such decisions, it might be good to read what Paul wrote to Christians in Corinth, Christians who also had questions about the bodily resurrection:

 Someone may ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’ How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory . . . Just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:35-43,49)