THE CASE FOR BURIAL - Part 2

To be truthful, God is Almighty, and all things were made by Him. God generated all things from nothing and as such God has the Power to regenerate all things.

Thus far, in the previous commentary, the case was made that regeneration is a process that begins with planting a “seed” and culminates in glorification — the splendor in which the first man was created.

Think of generation and regeneration as planting a Garden, “weeding” it, and then planting a new, improved hybrid in the world. The generation of mankind was a Garden on the Earth, called “Eden,” and regeneration is on Earth again when the entire “Garden” is burnt and “new ground” comes from another realm. Isaiah saw the new “crop” in a vision, “’For as the new heavens and the new Earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,’ saith the Lord, ‘so shall your seed and your name remain’” (Isa 66:22).

Christians are the “seed” that will be planted in the “greenhouse” of heaven, later to be transplanted in the new Earth. The Name, “Jesus,” planted the first Garden (John 1-14) and will transplant it again. Think of the crucifixion as Jesus fertilizing the Earth to nourish glorified “plants.” Indeed, just as Adam was a “plant” in the Garden of God, according to scripture, so will those in Christ:

⁷ And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. ⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. (Gen 1:7-8)

 Now compare that to what Isaiah saw in the future (above) wherein those who follow the Way of God become the “seeds” that would be planted.

Having the Power to do it all over again, God could gather the ashes from anywhere they are thrown. But the question is; Is that what God intended? Was He to discard the “seed” of man entirely or use the seed that was preserved?

“Seed” is thought of as the gametes of the genders — sperm and ova. That is true, but sperm and ova are nothing more than “vessels” that transport what is inside. Think of them as microscopic “arks.” Because of Noah’s Ark, many think of an ark as a boat, but the Ark of God must not be forgotten. It was the vessel on which God was carried on Earth from one place to another. Therefore, esoterically, an ark is a vessel of any type that carries cargo or passengers.

With that background, what do sperm and ova carry? They carry chromosomes that encapsulate DNA — the very identity and characteristics of potential beings. Therefore “seed” in scripture is the encoded identity of Living Souls.

Pagans burned their “seed” even as a child sacrifice:

When you come unto the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall learn not to follow the abominable practices of those nations, There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or daughter as an offering… etc. (Deut 18:9)

 The pagans in Israel and elsewhere sacrificed their infants to the pagan god, Molech. That is an abomination. One might say, “But that is merely prohibiting human sacrifice!” Is it though? It is burning the seed that God made; it is cutting off a branch of God’s Tree of Life, remembering that Jesus said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Those in Christ are in the Vine, and as such, Christians are a “branch” of the Tree of Life in that Jesus is that “Tree”!

Cremation is not burning the soul but burning the flesh and bones. The soul is immortal, so only God can destroy the otherwise immortal soul (Mat 10:28). What is destroyed in cremation? All the carbon content! What is left in the ashes contains no carbon. The composition of the residue is listed for your perusal in Scattering Ashes (O'Neill,Gayle PhD n.d.). In that publication, Dr. O’Neill wrote, “You might think it (human ashes) was just high phosphate dirt without the carbon.”

Since DNA is the very identity of a person and contains his “family tree,” then all traces of both him and his progenitors perish. Cremation ends the genetic germline of the person. That is not to say that God cannot reconstruct the identity of the Christian but that is not His intention. God, in the beginning, chose each person to have both a soul and a body. He made both and He can destroy both.

Lucifer is the one to be feared who can destroy only the body. So, to destroy the body is Luciferian and the propensity of phosphorous in the ashes (as phosphates) is 47.5% (ibid). That phosphorus and Lucifer are synonymous may not be by accident. A living being has 1% phosphorus (Wikipedia 2001-2022), and it is neither created nor destroyed but changed from one form to another. Hence, cremation transforms the phosphorus. The function of phosphorus in the body is to regulate the vital organs, and after cremation, there is no regulation left because there is no vitality remaining!

Bones are the best source of identification for the deceased, “Sometimes, bones are the only accessible source of DNA, thanks to their structure, which preserves DNA comparatively well and for a long time” (Jakubowska 2011).

Therefore, bones may be, after considerable time, the only source of identification, and are essentially the “vessels” that preserve DNA, at least until the marrow totally perishes.

So, the bones are an important part of the identification of all organisms — animal and vegetable kind, but only animal kind have bones. Human remains are no longer organic in that there is no carbon in them! Even though God could carbonate them again, is seems, according to The Law, to be disrespectful to do so (Deut 18:9 previous).

Another prophet had a vision. He described the regeneration of those in Christ: Referring to the dry bones in the open valley, God revealed to Ezekiel the future event that theologians call the rapture where the dead in Christ shall arise (1 Thes 4:16).

³ And He said unto me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, thou knowest.”

⁴ Again He said unto me, “Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, ‘O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’”

⁵ Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; “Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: ⁶ And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.”

⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.

⁸ And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.

⁹ Then said He unto me, “Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, ‘Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’”

¹⁰ So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

¹¹ Then He said unto me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.’”

¹² Therefore prophesy and say unto them, “Thus saith the Lord God; ‘Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.’” (Ezek 37:3-12)

 The take from that vision is twofold: (1) That God will regenerate in the same manner as in the beginning, and (2) that rather than starting with dust from the ground, God will use the dry bones from His people to regenerate them.

Why dry bones? Because God will again provide the mist from the ground as He did in the beginning (Gen 2:6). God will effectively regenerate the DNA in those dry bones by breathing Life — Living Water — unto them just as with Adam himself. That mist from the ground was from the water that sprang forth in the Garden from the springs that God provided.

God made the elements from nothing, then mixed them together, and added His Spirit into the clay before it hardened, and with that done, perhaps the dry bones came first before God molded the flesh of Adam onto him to make an image of Himself. As such, the bones are the “skeleton” of God onto which He molded the flesh of man, held tightly by sinews in Ezekiel’s vision. In other words, God regenerates in the same fashion as He generated but uses the dry bones of the people that has the identification encoded in the DNA of the bones, alongside of the JHVG that is in the interstices of the DNA.

The bones are all that is left that has the DNA — the very identity of the person — and the bones are the “vessels” from which God transports the Identification through time until the carbon had decayed to the extent that the identification cannot be recognized.

How long can DNA survive in bones?

  Now scientists in Australia report they've been able to estimate this rate based on a comparison of DNA from 158 fossilized leg bones from three species of the moa, an extinct group of flightless birds that once lived in New Zealand. The bones date between 600 and 8,000 years old and importantly all come from the same region. (Cannon 2012)

 For avians, therefore, at least up to 8000 years, but Cannon says, “How long can DNA last? A million years, maybe more.”

It seems that bones are important, not only for the resurrection, but also for God’s timing. If the bones are preserved, then God has a million years, more or less, to re-erect Christians from dry bones. Without the bones there was no “erection” and without the bones, perhaps there will be no re-erection (resurrection).

If a Christian is cremated, can the resurrection still be done? Of course, because God can do all things; but is it His Will be done that He start from scratch again — encoding DNA and constructing bones again when He already has done that!

Those incinerated in fires have been cremated by accident, and since God is a graceful God, He can do all things. However, the faculty of the will in mankind was intended to be the Will of God, and as such, those in Christ, their Maker, should not diminish Him by being the ones to destroy the body, as Lucifer endeavors to do.

Christians are in Christ, and as such, it is His Will that they must do. Ezekiel saw the future erection of mankind and the new flesh was put on old bones. New flesh, specifically, for each induvial, “fit” the identity of the person; new flesh that looks like you and is who you are will be added to the bones that identifies each person. The bones are the “storehouse” for the identity in the DNA of every person that God will find useful when he matches up souls with each identity.

Pagans do not care about that, so cremation means nothing to them! What God’s Will for them is of no concern for those who deny God.

Throughout scripture, bones were buried in the ground from which their dust came, just as God said when He cursed Adam to die, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen 3:19). That is the flesh, but the bones of Adam were beneath Calvary until Good Friday, AD 33 as Jesus died:

⁵² And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, ⁵³ And came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (Mat 27:52-53)

 The first “resurrection” was Jesus but those dead in Christ, Adam and his righteous seed, that had been buried “five-and-an-half days” before (5500 years, according to the Book of Adam and Eve), were re-erected from dried bones.

That Calvary is the place of Adam’s bones is from sacred literature, and that it is the Cavlariae locus (Latin) is significant. It is not only the place of the cranium of Adam but also his bones that are believed to have been buried beneath Calvary. However, that “cave” is expected to be empty because Adam arose when Jesus did! (Consider reading my book, The Skull of Adam, for more about that.)

Cremation incinerates the bones, if done thoroughly, and there goes the carbon with it. “For me to live is Christ; and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). So, for me, I will not be the one to destroy the identity that God encoded me with and put into my bones. I still want to be identified as “me” when I die, not some inert pile of refuse! I am too valuable to God than for me having the arrogance to destroy the identity in which God encoded me when I was conceived by Him to be a living being.

That the bones of Adam were re-erected at the crucifixion is significant. How did Jesus re-erect Adam? He added His own DNA from the white blood cells that he bled onto the ground at Calvary and the bones of Adam were imbued with the DNA of Jesus. Adam was engendered from above by God on the Cross. (That “born again” is literally, “engendered from above,” is the topic of my latest book, Genes from Above, subtitled, Born Again.)

You see, the dry bones of Adam were imbued from above by the propitiated blood of Jesus for the sins that are past of Adam and his kind (Rom 3:25). Jesus corrected the wage of sin in Adam and as such all who have sinned can be engendered from above.

Because Ezekiel saw the dry bones of Adam, as the first “saint,” then he saw what Matthew saw when the graves were opened. I suspect that Ezekiel understood that one of the skeletons that he saw belonged to Adam!

(picture  credit: Gustave Dore; "Posterazzi Ezekiel The Vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones")