No. What happens to the physical body in no way determines what happens to the soul and spirit. The decisions which make a difference here are made in this life-are we in Christ or not? Regardless of how we dispose of the corpse, it will sooner or later decay and return to its original components.
Corruption is a part of the sentence of death which was passed onto mankind through Adam. The Lord God told Adam and Eve, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). After death, the body dissolves into the chemical elements of which it is composed. By a natural process, these elements are absorbed into the earth. However, the miracle of resurrection is that God through the word of His power can raise the original person even after such total disintegration!
Cremation, the burning of the corpse, is simply a speeding up of this process of decomposition. The Bible does not prohibit cremation; it does give countless examples of burial. It does not matter whether the body goes into dissolution in low gear or high gear. Anthropologists have classified a number of ways various tribes and groups disposed of their dead. Burial was the common method used in Bible times, but this choice is evidently a matter of Christian liberty.
