For those who have committed forgivable sins in their lifetime, Christians believe they must serve time in purgatory before they can move on to heaven. Typically the Christian faith prefers burials over cremations; this is because it interferes with their beliefs on resurrection and the afterlife. However, if a loved one is cremated, the church asks that their ashes are respectfully buried instead of scattered.
Organ donation is seen as an act of charity and therefore accepted by numerous branches of Christianity. Christian funeral rites are a set of principles and actions that are carried out when a loved one dies. Common rites include, but are not limited to:. Interestingly, Protestant funeral rites are simpler and less extravagant than Catholic funeral rites. Catholic funerals place greater focus on rituals, whereas Protestant funerals are more focussed on remembering the deceased.
Like most religious funerals, a Christian funeral service is tailored to the person who has died. The service is usually carried out at a church, crematorium or cemetery and will include prayers, a sermon, readings, hymns and sometimes music or poems see our guide to popular funeral songs and famous funeral poems. Additionally, a friend or family member may choose to deliver a eulogy as a tribute to the deceased. Typically, a Christian funeral will last around an hour. This can be shorter or longer depending on whether the funeral includes a mass.
There is no expectation to take anything to a funeral, but flowers or a card for the grieving family can be a nice gesture. For some funerals, the family may request a charity donation in honour of the deceased instead of flowers.
It is funeral etiquette to wear dark colours and smart clothing to a Christian funeral service. Mourners are not required to wear a head covering. If you are unsure of what is appropriate clothing for a funeral, you can read our guide: what to wear to a funeral. If you are planning a funeral for your loved one, please contact your local funeral home. Read the article. When someone passes away in the UK, the process of repatriating someone to another country can be a complicated task for anyone to deal with.
Skip to content. Christian Funeral. Since everyone falls short, how can anyone go to heaven? No one can meet the standard of perfection on judgment day by their own efforts, but God made a way for people to spend eternity with Him.
Jesus lived the perfect life that we cannot, then died in our place to take on the penalty we deserved for our rebellion against God. God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when He held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for He was looking ahead and including them in what He would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate His righteousness, for He Himself is fair and just, and He makes sinners right in His sight when they believe in Jesus.
Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law. Romans God does not force you to have a relationship with Him; every person must decide whether they want that. You can accept that what Jesus has done is sufficient to save you from an eternity apart from God, or you can reject it and rely on your own efforts to save you.
God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of His Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of His Son.
So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
He will live with them, and they will be His people. God Himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. I am the Alpha and the Omega — the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be My children.
Since God is goodness and love, being apart from Him will mean being in a place of suffering and pain. Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Revelation But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars — their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
This is the second death. All of us do things we know are wrong or immoral to some extent or another, and we choose to go our own way instead of following God. If you take this passage out of context, it seems rather hopeless. But God has made a way through Jesus to receive forgiveness for all of these things. Thankfully, God can wipe out our wrongdoings and make people worthy of eternity with Him. We can be resurrected into a new life if we trust in Jesus.
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Colossians , New International Version. It is natural to wonder what people will be like in eternity. The Bible makes it clear that eternal bodies will be different from earthly bodies. Paul, an early follower of Jesus who wrote much of the New Testament, wrote about this in his first letter to the church in the city of Corinth:.
What kind of bodies will they have? When you put a seed into the ground, it does not grow into a plant unless it dies first. And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow, but only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting.
Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength.
They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul explains further that our new bodies will be better, stronger, and not subject to disease or death like our earthly bodies. We know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down that is, when we die and leave this earthly body , we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God Himself and not by human hands.
We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. Unlike the cartoon version of heaven, where people become spirits with wings that float around on clouds and play harps, people in heaven will have real bodies.
People will not become ghosts or disembodied spirits. Though most Christians agree on the basic beliefs about the afterlife described above, there are some differing views on aspects of life after death.
The Catholic church teaches the doctrine of Purgatory, that Protestant Christians do not usually accept.
Catholicism teaches that those who have a relationship with God but are not fully purified will have eternal salvation but still need further purification after death. After purification in Purgatory, they achieve the perfect holiness required to be in the presence of a perfectly Holy God. The Catholic Church partially bases the doctrine of Purgatory on Scripture passages referring to a cleansing fire. It also draws this concept from a passage where Jesus said that those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come.
There are some people who identify as Christians who claim there is no literal hell. They believe that everyone goes to heaven. Religious and Nominal Christians. There are a significant number of people who self-identify as Christian but have their own individual views on the afterlife. They may have grown up going to church regularly or just for religious holidays and may or may not continue attending church. They do not necessarily accept all of the Bible as true, so their beliefs vary about heaven and hell.
Others believe hell is only for especially bad people or that there is no hell, and people who do not go to heaven just stop existing. Though these views are common, they do not represent what the Bible says about life after death. The Bible makes the most important things clear in the Bible: What God is like, why we can trust Him, what Jesus has done for us and why that matters to every person on earth.
These are the fundamentals on which Christians agree, because the Bible makes them very clear. But some details about the afterlife remain unclear enough for Christians to hold differing beliefs about them. This does not mean they differ in their understanding of how you can know God personally.
So how do Christians reconcile themselves to believing in things that are not completely clear to them? Christians do not trust God because He always explains Himself but because they know He is good. God Himself is beyond the level of our understanding. But we can know Him and trust Him without completely understanding every aspect of His nature or the way He has designed this life and the next. Because there is room for interpreting the Bible in different ways, Christians sometimes understand the afterlife with slight differences.
The Bible talks about Jesus returning at some time in the future. After saying this, He was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see Him. As they strained to see Him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday He will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go! Some, but not all, Christians believe the Bible teaches that there will be a time of great persecution for people who follow Jesus.
This time is often referred to as the tribulation. These Christians also believe that at some point before Jesus returns, He will take His followers away to be with Him and leave other people on earth for a time.
This is called the rapture. Among the Christians who believe these things, many differ in their beliefs about what order the events will happen in. Some believe that prophecies in the Bible that talk about the end of the world, including the book of Revelation, actually refer to historical events that have already occurred. Others believe some of these prophecies refer to events that have happened but that other prophecies refer to future events.
Still others believe all of these passages refer to events that will occur in the future. Some believe most or all of the things written in these passages are literal, while others believe they are metaphorical. Some things about heaven really are beyond our earthly understanding. These can only be described metaphorically by comparing them to earthly things we can understand.
For example, when the Book of Revelation describes the new Jerusalem, the beautiful city of the new earth, it compares it to a precious stone, jasper and crystal. The author, John, could not fully capture what he saw in his vision because it was unlike anything he had ever seen. So he took me in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.
It shone with the glory of God and sparkled like a precious stone — like a jasper as clear as crystal. Though views differ and questions remain about the afterlife, in the end each person must find for themselves the answer to the most important question: Where will you go when you die?
According to the Bible, every human being that dies will spend eternity either with God or separated from God. A natural response might be to wonder why there are two options.
Because God is perfect and good, He cannot allow us, imperfect people who have rebelled against God, to enter eternity with Him in our current state. Christian beliefs about life after death are based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through his death on the cross, Jesus pays the penalty for mankind's sin and mankind's relationship with God is restored. This is called atonement. Christians believe that three days after the crucifixion, God raised Jesus from the dead and he once again appeared to his disciples.
Although physical death still happens, those who believe in Christ and live good lives will be given eternal life in Heaven. Many Christians believe that after death, they will be taken into the presence of God and they will be judged for the deeds they have done or failed to do during their lifetime. Some of the guiding principles for what will happen upon death include:. Some Christians believe that this judgement will happen when they die.
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