Skeletons, Gravestones, and Tombstones as Symbols of Halloween

Skeletons and Gravestones

This page offers a brief history, from a Christian perspective, of skeletons and gravestones (also called tombstones) as Halloween symbols and images.
Halloween Skeletons and Tombstones NOTE TO PARENTS: Since the Halloween season is full of images of gravestones and skeletons, it affords the perfect opportunity to discuss what happens to us when we die.

Generally, after deterioration, all that is left of our dead bodies is a skeleton and/or a tombstone. In a biblical worldview, physical death is not the end us — our spirits go to dwell with Christ in heaven. But this is only a temporary state. God’s permanent plan for us is to live for eternity with new, glorious bodies on a new earth (2 Peter 3:13) – one in which there is no longer sin, pain, or death. Skeletons and tombstones are a visual reminder of our bodies (or ashes) that sleep, or rest in peace (R.I.P. is a very Christian concept by the way), until Christ returns to clothe us with new bodies:

“I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’” (1 Corinthians 15:50-54).

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