To dust shall you return

When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of life in defiance of God’s command, God banished them from the Garden of Eden and admonished them with these words: “For dust thy art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” 

Accordingly, the creation account states that God “formed man of the dust of the ground.” Consequently, all humans are made from dust and, at some pint after death, they will return to dust.

A distant and aged cousin told me that her mother, buried in the early 1900s, had been dead over 50 years. Since her mother died young and was buried in another town 70 miles away, my cousin wanted her mother’s remains transported to the local cemetery where the rest of the family was interred.  

When the decision was made to exhume her mother’s body, a crew was dispatched to the cemetery site in the distant town. They found the wooden casket almost completely decayed. Her mother’s remains were collected and placed in a hearse. 

Prior to reburial of the remains, the man in charge of the exhumation requested a meeting with my cousin. He brought with him a container containing her mother’s remains and stated there was not enough to warrant purchasing another casket, that he would simply bury the container.  

My cousin said, “ The only things I could see inside the container were my mother’s hair, a few of her teeth, and the rest was a powdery substance. All her flesh and bones had been reduced to dust over the five decades since she was buried.”  

In those early days, they did not use embalming fluid, which preserves the body for long periods. Embalming with formaldehyde is the mortuary custom of preserving bodies after death. 

As far back as the ancient Egyptians, people have used oils, herbs and special body preparations to help preserve the bodies of their dead. Yet no process or products have been devised to preserve a body in the grave indefinitely. Consequently, embalmed bodies over thousands of years will be reduced to dust.  Even a piece of steel will oxidize and revert to dust after eons of time.  

“ Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” states the scripture, so it’s safe to assume that our bodies in the next life will not comprise flesh and blood. 

What kind of bodies will we have? Paul answers the question: “When buried, it is ugly and weak, when raised it will be beautiful and strong. When buried it is a physical body; when raised, it will be a spiritual body. Just as we are born in the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”  

Therefore, the resurrection body will be a superhuman, spiritual body that is fit for the abode of heaven. Paul concludes with this rousing exultation: “I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye. When the last trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised, never to die again.”