Burial vs. Cremation

There are some layers to understanding the Bible here. Here's my overview of the issue. 

1. The practice of people who followed God in the Bible was to bury, NOT to cremate. This seems to be for 2 related reasons:  1) Separation from other religious practices. 2) Expressing a belief about the body's future. Other religions cremated because they believed that in death, the good soul escapes the confines of the evil/plagued/unnecessary body. This is not the biblical understanding of the body/soul relationship, nor of the future that God has designed for people. 

God made human beings to be body+soul creatures. He designed us to flourish body+soul. Incidentally, this is why we enjoy food, sun, water, mountains, music, etc. Aesthetics are sensorial. They are aspects of the physical and embodied nature of our existence. To be embodied is not bad, but it's part of how we experience the glory of God. This one application of what Romans 1:20-23 says about how the invisible God has manifested His invisible attributes and His glory through what He has made. 

The incarnation of Jesus and His resurrection further prove that body+soul is good and is God's design for humanity. It's true that when we die, our souls leave our bodies and go into the presence of the Lord. But in the future, when Jesus returns, we will be raised beyond death and we will be given new, resurrection bodies (1Corinthians 15:35-55). We will inherit a physical+spiritual new heaven and earth (Revelation 21-22). Then for all eternity, we will be perfected body+soul beings in communion with God, others, and all of the physical universe. Because of this, Jews and Christians practiced burial as a declaration that the body is good and it was buried in hope that it will be raised and renewed in the future resurrection of all things (John 11:24). 

So Jews and Christians practiced burial because of their belief in image of God in the present physicality of the universe and the future physicality of the resurrected and renewed universe. They rejected the way that other religions discredited or repudiated the physical. It is true that it's possible to cremate for other reasons than to reject the goodness of the physical present and future. This leads to my next point.

2. I believe that the practice of burial in the Bible is DE-scriptive, rather than PRE-scriptive. This means that the Bible reports what God's people did, but does not say that this is the only way to do it. There is no command from God to bury. Burial is what they did because of what they believed about the present and future. I think that it's possible to cremate without believing in a pagan understanding of the "free-the-soul-from-the-body" or "reject the physical in favor of the spiritual" dynamics. Even if you do bury someone, that person will return to dust in a way that is not dissimilar to the ashes produced by cremation. Both ashes and dust reflect the undoing of the process of God bringing human life into the world (Genesis 2:7). 

Because people can choose to bury or cremate and still have a robust faith in the Bible's worldview of the body, I think this is an issue that is similar to the "Meat Offered to Idols" issue that the early Jew+Gentile church wrestled with. Paul addresses this issue thoroughly in Romans 14-15 and in 1Corinthians 8-10. His conclusion is that it's okay to eat or not eat as long as you are doing it (or not doing it) as an expression of your faith in Jesus. Along these lines, I believe it's okay to bury or cremate as long as you are doing either in faith--meaning that you believe in the goodness of the physical of the present creation (even though the present creation has been marred by sin and temporarily cursed) and you believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus and in your own future resurrection.

3. It's most important to make a decision based on your faith in the resurrection from the dead. If God will raise you to live beyond death, if God will give you a new body and have you live forever in a body+soul reality, then I think you want to make a decision that reflects your faith in that future. Many people just don't worry about it. They think--well, God can find the ashes or the dust wherever they are and just put it back together. I would suggest that people handle someone's remains in a way that shares with those left behind your faith about your future. So I would suggest (this is my best wisdom, but this isn't the only way) that whether you bury or cremate, choose a location for the remains. This honors your body and it honors you with a place. Your soul will be with Jesus from the day you die, but your physical remains will have a location that can be remembered and honored by those who you leave behind.