Is it biblical to bring the dead into the church building?

QUESTION:

Hi, Brother Pastor Filat! I would have a question: can the dead be allowed in the church for funerals? Is it biblical?

I suppose you asked this question with the Old Testament commandments forbidding the touching of a dead person and the fact that those who touched it remained unclean for seven days and were forced to leave the camp of the children of Israel (Numbers 5: 2, 19:16, 31:19). Things were even stricter when it came to priests, for they could only come to the death of close relatives, and the high priest could not even come to his parents’ funerals (Leviticus 21:11).

We do not find any commandment in the New Testament that forbids touching a dead person, nor that it would forbid a person’s lifeless body to be brought into the church building. Frankly, when the New Testament was written, Christians did not even have special buildings built for local church meetings. They gathered at their homes and the great emphasis was on learning the Word of God. We do not find that there were special conditions or that these cleansings were needed after someone touched a dead person. The women who bathed Tabitha put her in the upper room and sent someone to call the apostle Peter. No special requirements are mentioned for him, as well as any cleansing or being considered unclean for a certain period.

So there is nothing wrong with bringing the lifeless body of a person into the church building and into most churches. The last funeral service that was done in the church building was in the village of Cinișeuți, when the body of sister Claudia Melnic was buried. The church building was filled with close and distant relatives, with the villagers and of course the believers from the village who knew her well. A beautiful testimony of this lady’s faith was presented and the gospel was presented. From there I went to the cemetery and there, before the lifeless body was placed in the grave, I also had a message in which I explained to the people what will be next with this body and the soul of the deceased.

Rodica, Mrs. Claudia’s daughter, together with her husband got inductive Bible study textbooks “Heaven, Hell, and Life After Death” from Kay Arthur and offered them to everyone who came to the funeral service. Everyone wanted to take a book to learn more about eternal life.

Precisely because this is a particularly good opportunity to tell all people the gospel of Jesus Christ and to warn them about eternal life, a funeral service must be organized in the church building, and I urge all Christians and all pastors to organize in this way and proclaim with power the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Translated by Didina Vicliuc