John Bradshaw - Cremation, the Commandments and Christ's Return
John Bradshaw: Welcome to "line Upon Line", brought to you by It Is Written, where we answer your Bible question. You're in the right place. We're gonna be talking about cremation and about the return of Jesus and the law of God. We've got a question about dogs, and I've got Eric Flickinger with me. Thanks for being here, Eric.
Eric Flickinger: Yeah, we got some great questions today, John.
John Bradshaw: We have, we have. I've got a pitch a question to you to begin with here. Oh, and by the way, let me tell you, if you have a question for us, email it to us [email protected]. [email protected]. We'll do our best to give you a Bible answer to your Bible questions. So here's one. "I want to know what else is about the giants in the earth mentioned in Genesis 6:4". As I read that question, I hear another question in the background because there's a commonly held belief or idea about these giants, which is frankly reprehensible. We'll take on that as well.
Eric Flickinger: All right, so let's take a look at it. Here we go. This is Genesis 6. We're going to look at verses 1-4. It says, "Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, 'My spirit shall not strive with men forever, for he has indeed flesh; yet his days shall be 120 years.' There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown".
— Okay. let's get to the distasteful part of this. Commonly held belief. I mean like really commonly held belief is that the giants were fallen angels some people believe, who impregnated women and I guess created a race of giants.
— It's hard to imagine why that would be popular. It's certainly not scriptural.
— No, I've got an answer to that. And here's the answer. No, no, no, no, no. No. Have mercy. It's not in the Bible that you got fallen angels having sex with women and creating a race of giant people. It's simply not scriptural. Now gotta be careful we don't get too far off on the rough here, but you get some pretty weird stuff when it gets to demonic activity. I understand that. That's not this. This is not talking about demons who created little demons. I'm done with that.
— It might be great for Hollywood movies. Not that I would recommend that you would watch one on that subject, but would make a great script.
— Oh, Christian books.
— Yeah. All kinds of stuff. So how do we know it's not that? Well, a few different ways that we can know that. First of all, according to Jesus, angels don't procreate. In the book of Matthew chapter 22:30, Jesus says, "For in the resurrection, speaking of angels, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven". So angels don't procreate. So we can kind of strike that whole idea of fallen angels and human women having children, just doesn't fit. But what about this sons of God and the daughters of men?
— Yeah, good question. There's a very simple explanation. Thank the Lord. Go, right on. I might leave it to you to answer.
— So the sons of God. Who are the sons of God? As you look down through the scripture from Genesis to Revelation, you will find over and over again, that the sons of God or children of God are used to describe people who are following Christ, who are following God, who are on the side of good. I'll give you a few examples here. Let's take a look at Luke 3:38 says, speaking of the genealogy of Jesus, that He says that He was the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. So clearly Adam was human, but he was called a son of God. So over and over again, what you find... Here we go. Another one, 1 John 3:1, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons God".
— Verse 2, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we'll be alike Him; for He shall see Him as He is". Sons of God, the followers of God, those who are committed to God. That's the simple explanation. It's the Bible explanation. It's the not weird explanation. I think it's good for us to make this point from time to time. And now feels like the right juncture. If you've got two ideas, two competing ideas, conflicting ideas, alternate ideas, and one kinda sounds sensible and one kind of sounds wacky. The overwhelming majority of the time, the sensible idea wins out with the Bible.
— We shouldn't surprise us because God is rather sensible. I mean, by and large, He's a sensible guy. If I can call Him a guy, I feel even a little bit weird doing that.
— Yeah, but I think he's okay with it.
— He's sensible. And so, so steer clear of the stuff that's fantastic as it were. Stick with sensible and 9 times outta 10, you're on the right path.
— Yeah. This is a really weird idea. I mean, no offense. I think it's just a weird idea, that whole thing. So keep it simple. Keep it straight. Keep it sensible. Keep it biblical. It's always better. And I say another thing. Some people unsatisfied with the logical sensible, plain Jane idea. For some, they're not happy until they've got some new fanciful idea, maybe different to you. Maybe it makes me look like I'm bright. When it comes to the study of the Bible, you don't need to look like you're bright. You just wanna be faithful to God. We don't study the Bible to impress anybody without big knowledge. I don't try to say to you, "Oh, look at what a scholar I am". Someone need not say, "Look at my list of qualifications and let me demonstrate how erudite I am". You just wanna be faithful and plainly communicate what the Bible says. All right. I'm gonna ask you the second question. The question is from Rosalind, Eric. "Why do some people say that the dog is unclean"? And she adds, "Not talking about for eating, but as a pet".
— All right, well, some dogs are unclean. Maybe they need to be bathed a little more frequently. Some of them give off an odor, but I don't think that's probably what she's talking about.
— Some dogs just stink. Are you a dog guy? You like dogs?
— I like dogs better than I do cats.
— Do you?
— Much better.
— Do you have a dog?
— Used to. Had many of them.
— Many dogs?
— We have a cat. No dog. We could have a dog, I suppose, but they take work.
— Yeah, cats like to climb up my legs with their claws.
— Yeah.
— So I prefer dogs. Thank you very much.
John Bradshaw: Dogs are unclean when it comes to eating.
Eric Flickinger: Yes.
John Bradshaw: In Leviticus 11, it speaks about that, which is clean and which is unclean. When it comes to animals, if you're gonna eat an animal, it needs to chew the cud and have a split hoof. By the way, I'm gonna come back to this. If I forget, say, "Hey John, you said there was something else about animals". I'll throw some, I'll throw a curve ball at you. To you, not, at you. If it swims, if it's in the water, it needs fins and scales. And if it flies, it's not quite as easy. But the bottom line is you don't want to eat a bird that eats carrion, a scavenger bird that eats dead stuff. So that's the animal thing. So dogs, they don't have a cloven hoof. They don't chew the cud there unclean. But again, she said, that's not the point of the question. So what is it about dog? It's okay to have a dog.
— Yeah, no problem with having dogs as long as you're gonna care for it. Take good care of it, yeah.
— Yeah, dogs are fantastic thing. So from a biblical point, I don't know why some people would say that a dog is unclean. Other than there are some dirty dogs, but other than that, it's okay to have a dog. It's okay to like dogs. Dogs are wonderful.
— Come back to that thing.
— When it comes to animals, right? It ought to have a cloven hoof or to chew the cud. There's one more thing. New Testament. Don't eat the blood.
— Right.
— Really interesting. You go to Acts 15, and the Jerusalem council. And you know, there are many Christians who say, "Oh, we take the book of Acts". Oh no, you don't. Not unless you don't eat blood. And so that would necessitate hanging up the animal and draining all the blood out of it. Didn't Jesus eat meat? Well, evidently He ate some, but it wasn't like what you bought at the steakhouse the other night. It was drained of blood. It was on a whole lot better than rubber as a matter of fact.
— No, the two things that make meat taste good are the blood and the fat. Get the right blood and the right fat content. That's a high price piece of meat.
— Everybody knows it, too. So I just thought, I'd add that. The question didn't go there, but that didn't stop us. Sure, dogs, and these other things are unclean biblically in terms of diet, cloven hoof, chew the cud, but read at Chapter 15 and it will tell you don't eat blood. That's important, too. My guess is we have another question.
— We do. We have one here from Ingrid. And Ingrid asks, "Can a Christian be cremated"?
— Oh, Ingrid. A Christian certainly can be cremated. But I think what you mean is may a Christian be cremated from a biblical point of view? Yeah, look, there's no problem with cremation. Cremation is just a way of disposing of the body. A person lives that person dies and they fall asleep. That's the biblical understanding. I know it's not what everybody believes, but it's the biblical teaching. "Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep". The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15. And it goes on to say, "We shall be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed". In 1 Thessalonians, "The Lord Himself shall be sent from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: and then we, which are alive and remain, we are caught up," and so forth. So what happens to the body? You bury your body, your body is... it molds away and the grave and decomposition takes place. When Jesus comes back, He doesn't dig up the grave and start scratching around for the old parts of the body and put a body back together again.
— I think some people are concerned that God's not gonna be able to do that. Like if we're turned to ashes and dust, that somehow God's not gonna be able to put the pieces back to together again. We gotta remember who we're talking about here. We're talking about God. I mean, he brought something. He brought everything from nothing. And so to believe somehow that God is gonna be stymied, if we give Him dust or ashes, we've already given Him more than He started off with. But the good news is He's not even gonna use that. It's interesting. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:39, he says, "All flesh is not the same flesh, there's one kind of flesh of men, another of animals and another fish, another birds. There are also celestial heavenly bodies and terrestrial or earthly bodies. The glory of the celestial is one, the glory of the terrestrial is another". Drop down verse 42. He says, "So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It's sown in weakness; it's raised in power. Sown in natural body; raised a spiritual body". The good news is that body for the righteous that comes up outta the grave is brand new, not made of the old material.
John Bradshaw: The person who's burned in a house fire, somebody go or dies at sea, or buried at sea and is eaten up by sharks and whatever the case might be. I mean, what would we make of that? God created you. And then He recreates you, gives you a new body. For some people it's cultural.
Eric Flickinger: Yeah.
John Bradshaw: This is how we do it. What would you say to them?
— I'd say, "You know, if you wanna do it that way, great. If you don't wanna do it that way, that's fine". But think of it this way. God created us from the dust. When we die, we go back to dust again. What is cremation? It's just accelerating the process, getting dust a little bit faster.
— Speeds it up. That's all it is. So you don't need to worry about that. A Christian can be cremated and certainly may be cremated. We're not recommending that, nor are we speaking against that. But you decide, you get to decide. What I like to tell people is be nice to your kids because at the end of the day, it's likely them who are going to decide what happens to you. This is a "Line Upon Line" from It Is Written. Thanks for your Bible questions. We'll be back to answer more of them in just a moment.
— Welcome back to "Line Upon Line", brought to by It Is Written. Thank you again for sending your questions to us. If you would like to send one, send it to [email protected]. That's how we receive your questions and that's how we can answer them.
— Amen.
— So, John, we got a question here. This one comes from David. And David asks the question or makes the statement, "We do not currently enjoy going to our church. We have found It Is Written TV and watch from 11 to 1 each Sunday".
John Bradshaw: Amen. Fantastic. That's all right.
Eric Flickinger: "Are we sinners because we don't go to church? Are we doing wrong? We get more out of your two hours each Sunday than going to our church".
— Well, we're certainly encouraged to know and blessed to know that you are blessed by It Is Written TV. That's good. And so therefore, I hope you'll tell lots of other people to watch so they can be likewise blessed. The Bible says in Hebrews 10:25, that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. In other words, go to church. That's really good. Now what you are telling, and we're gonna read through the lines just a little bit is that, you are not being blessed or getting something outta church. Now, here's how you ascertain where you ought to be. According to Paul, when you wrote to Timothy, "The church is the pillar and the ground of the truth". So we would say to people, "Find a church that teaches the Bible and be at that church". If it's teaching the Bible, well, don't most churches teach the Bible to some degree, but keep studying the word of God. And when you find new Bible truth, you wanna be in a body of believers that is teaching those very important Bible subjects. You wanna be in a church where the seven day impetus being kept. That's a given, why would you not? That's one of the commandments of God. And if you love God, you'll want to do His will. That kinda narrows down the field right there. Now, let's say that you're satisfied that your church is a biblical church and you just kind of don't like it.
— Yeah.
— What do you say to that person?
— One thing that you can do is go to the church to be a blessing.
— There are people who are gonna come to church who won't get a blessing if you are not there. You can be an instrument for change. If you realize there are some things that maybe aren't to your liking, I'm not talking about theologically. Theologically, you need to go to a church that's in line with the Bible, but maybe some things, the way things are done, the way they pass the offering plate, some of the music that's played or something like that, be in there and participate so that you can be an instrument of change for good.
— Yeah, amen. So we would encourage you to be in church, but if you're watching It Is Written TV, we are glad, and we hope that you'll be able to find a church that teaches the Bible as clear as you know, and plug right in there and be blessed and be a blessing. Eric, a question for Rosa. Rosa asks, "When will all eyes see Him? Will everybody, righteous and wicked, see Him at this same time when He comes? Or is the resurrection two part"? And my guess is Rosa's thinking of Revelation 1:7.
— That's exactly what I'm thinking. So let's go over to the book of Revelation 1, look at verse 7 together. Revelation 1:7 says, "Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so. Amen. So it says, "Jesus is coming back with clouds". When you go back over to the book of Acts, when ascended to heaven, the Bible says that He went up with the clouds when He comes back, He's coming back the same way. So here we see a picture of Jesus returning. This would be the second coming of Christ. He comes back and it says that every eye is going to see Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. So when Jesus comes back, every eye is gonna see Him. That is both the righteous and the wicked. Now there are some theologies floating around out there that teach that when Jesus comes back this next time, it's gonna be this kind of secret thing. And the wicked are not gonna get to see Him when he comes back this second time, it'll be sort of secret-ish.
— In fact, nobody would see Him.
— Nobody see, and the righteous kind of vacuumed up. And that takes care of that. But no, the Bible says that every eye sees Him, both the righteous and the wicked. And the wicked, when they see Him are going to mourn. Why? Because they're not ready. Because they had the opportunity to be ready for Jesus, and they weren't. For the righteous, they're gonna be saying, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him and He will save us. And that's why he's there". So every eye will see Him. Now, somebody might say, "Well, what about the blind"?
— Yeah.
— Are the blind going to get to see Jesus when He comes? Well, why not? Because when Jesus comes back for the righteous, in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, Paul says they're gonna be change. Every imperfection is going to be unperfected.
— Yeah. That's very good English.
— There we go. So why not the blind able to see Him? The deer will be able to hear Him.
— The deer will definitely be able to hear Him.
— So will the death.
John Bradshaw: Yeah.
— But when Jesus comes back is gonna fix all those problems. And we can expect that every eye will see Him. That's at the second coming of Christ.
— Revelation 1:7, "Every eye will see Him and those who pierced Him". So if you take the Bible, as it reads, that can only mean one thing.
— That's right.
— And that means that those responsible for nailing Jesus to the cross are gonna be resurrected to see Him come back. Now, I didn't invent that. I'm just reading what it says in the Bible. Somebody might say, "Oh, those who pierced Him are those who sinned pierced Him". Okay, I can imagine that. If that's what you think that's okay. I'm not gonna hurt anybody. But it seems like there'll be a resurrection of those who were responsible for nailing Jesus to the cross.
— Yeah, speaking of those individuals, Jesus was talking to them just shortly before his crucifixion. And he said, "You will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven".
— Yeah, that's exactly what he said.
— He made a promise to them. And here we see a fulfillment of it.
— All right. Question here from Rhamey. Rhamey asks, "Jesus can deliberate us from sin and the law. Can we still be governed by the laws God gave the Israelites? If not, then is the Old Testament only of historical value to me?
— Ooh, good question.
— Thinking question.
— And this really comes to the question of, what is the law? Now, there are different types of laws in the Bible. There are health laws, there are civil laws, there are moral laws, there are ceremonial laws, and the list probably goes even further than that. But when we talk about the law, usually there are two big divisions of the law. There's the ceremonial law and there's the moral law. The moral law, we often refer to as the 10 Commandments, that basically tells us what is right and what is wrong. It's not up to us to decide, we go to God and we ask Him, "What should I do in this situation"? And God says, "Here, I've spelled it out for you. I've written it with my finger on stone, just so that it's pretty straightforward and clear". On the other hand, we have this ceremonial law. The ceremonial law was not written on stone with God's hand. It was written in a book and it was handwritten by Moses. The ceremonial law talked about, what we should do once we commit a sin? Now the ceremonial law today has been nailed to the cross. The ceremonial law is no longer applicable to us, but the moral law, do you think we should get rid of the moral law, John?
— Get rid of thou shall not steal, thou shall not kill, thou shall not commit adultery? I think there are some people who would advocate for that, but by and large, thinking people would say, "No, that's a perfectly good law. We are glad we have it, we must retain it".
— Yeah, absolutely. So there are some aspects of the Old Testament that are valid today. In fact, the Old Testament is there. The stories in the Old Testament are there for our admonition, and so that we can learn from them and live a life according to God's will here in New Testament times or beyond New Testament times. So don't throw out the Old Testament and just say, "Oh, that's kind of interesting". No, there's a lot of meat, if I can use that, in the Old Testament that you don't want to miss. It really brings to life everything that you read in the New Testament. Jesus quoted from the Old Testament constantly.
— Yes, He did.
— Especially from the Book of Deuteronomy, which is incidentally, Deuteronomy means the second law, or the second giving of the law. Moses going back and recapping many of the high points of what he had talked about before. So don't get rid of the Old Testament just because you have a misunderstanding or may have a misunderstanding of what the law happens to be.
— I'm reading Deuteronomy in my personal devotional time in the morning. Every time I read through that book, it just gets richer, deeper, broader. It's yeah, fantastic. Okay. I wanted to ask you this question, from Davanna.
Eric Flickinger: All right.
John Bradshaw: "Was the devil cast out of heaven before the creation of the earth"?
— Was the devil cast out of heaven before the creation of the earth? Well, the Bible seems to indicate that, yes, he was cast out of heaven before the creation of the earth. Now, not long after that, apparently, God created the earth and populated it. Didn't take Him long after the creation for Adam and Eve to come on the scene. In fact, about six days. And so Adam and Eve showed up and not long after that, the devil came in, tempted them. So the indication from what we see in the Bible is that, he was cast out before the creation of the earth, but not long after that, however long that may be, God created the earth and brought forth Adam and Eve. And then the devil got busy with his handy work again.
— Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Hey, we got a question here from Eric.
— Oh, I wonder what I wonder.
— I wonder if you can read your question.
— So Eric wonders.
— I must say, I don't think it was you, but someone who was a tastefully name.
— All right, I would agree with that. Eric says, "I'm trying to get stronger in Christ. Should I leave angry situations"?
— Ooh, that's a tough one, Eric. Let me think about that for a moment. The answer is, yes. Get outta those angry situations. Angry situations, 100%. Look, I was talking with some young people about this very thing last night, if the devil is after you, how do you defend yourself from Satan? One way, and a young lady said this to me, one way is just not to put yourself in situations where you're gonna be tempted. Look, you might say, "I'm a Christian. I should be able to handle this". Or maybe the way you handle this is just to get out of it. If someone's pressing your buttons and you feel the temperature rising and the hair standing up on the back of your neck and so forth, best thing you can do is extricate yourself from that. The wise man wrote in Proverbs 15:1, that a soft answer turns away wrath. So you can learn how to diffuse situations. You can't always run from everything. We cannot give you an absolute blanket answer, but you might say, "You know what? For the most part, I just need to get outta those situations that are gonna cause me to stumble, cause me to fall, cause me to lose my experience". It's a very mature thing to be asking, frankly. You don't wanna be angry. You don't wanna be hostile. You don't wanna be offensive. If mitigating against that means getting out of a situation, absolutely right. You got anything to add?
— Yeah, there's a few verses that Paul writes to Timothy. Timothy was a young preacher. And so Paul was giving him advice, counsel, if you will. In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, he says, "In the last days perilous times will come. Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God". And then he says, "Having a form of godliness, but denying its power and from such people turn away". So there's some good counsel from Pastor Paul to you and to me, he says, "if you're gonna run into people like this who have these characteristics, who are going to make you angry, turn away from them, spend time with other people". Now you can minister to people like that. They need ministering, but don't get yourself sucked down the whole that they happen to be in the process.
— It's a really good principle. I think, to look at your whole Christian experience. If I'm in this situation, what does it do to me? If I'm around these kind of people, how do they affect me? I lost my Christian experience there for a while. Didn't live like I know I should have. What was it? Oh, I see some of the factors. Now I can prevent myself from going into those situations. It's very wise. You need to know what to do ahead of time so that if you're tempted, if you're pushed, if you're proded, if you're pressed or poked, you can take evasive action or corrective action. The question's great 'cause you're saying, "How do I hang onto my experience"? And we want to encourage you in that. Hey thanks, Eric. Good stuff.
— Good stuff today.
— Appreciate it very much. And will be back again next time with Eric Flickinger. I am John Bradshaw. Thank you for your questions. We will answer more next time on "Line Upon Line" from It Is Written.