Some will not be blotted out of the Book Of Life.
"He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life...." Rev.3:5
Why even say this unless some others would be?
So some names will "remain" in the book of life, but
other's will be "taken ...out" of the Book Of Life.
"...God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city...." Rev.22:19.
The Creator has, of course, known since before He even created the first 2 humans who each of them would be and whether they would "believe" on Him or not. But He had to let their birth and unbelief develop in life as required by His foreknowing it. Even as Christ was foreordained to come and die for believers, before the foundation of the world, and that He would one day be "manifest" in a human body in Bible times, to deliver the good news.
"... Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God." 1Pet.1:19-21
Even so, our Creator foreknew who His believers would be and "chose them, in Christ, before the foundation of the world.""According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Eph.1:4
Here are two reasons truly born again Christians cannot be "blotted out" of the Book of Life ... First,
if you can repent, believe, accept Christ, receive eternal life, be written into the Book of Life, then commit a single sin, lose your salvation and be "Blotted Out" of the Book of Life ... then everlasting life isn't "everlasting", as God calls it 14 times, or "eternal life", as he calls it 25 times, in the New Testament. If a truly born again Christian could lose their eternal salvation, it would take just one sin, of any degree or any type, to become guilty of breaking God's law... all of it... "the whole law" ... "he is guilty of all". It is a single thing. "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." James 2:10. If you can lose it... one sin will do it. A curse word, a lustful thought, an exaggeration.
Second Reason ... God's word says in Hebrews that if you have been truly saved and then, for any reason, could lose it, you can never be saved again because that would require Jesus to be crucified again and put to shame. And that is not going to happen.
"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." Heb. 6:4-6.
The Book of the living was written the day God created Adam, but Gen.5 only lists those from Adam up to the three sons of Noah when that dispensation ended. It served God's purpose to list those but there was no need or space in the Bible to list the billions which would later be conceived. "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man...." Gen.5:1. I believe this was the book God compiled, on the day the human race began, of all of the generations of Adam, also called "the book of the living".
Our Creator certainly knew which individuals of all humanity would "believe", be born again, and "enter into redemption's rest", in Christ..."if" they truly believed.
"For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said,... if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. Heb.4:3.
God being omniscient, knew it all before it was later "manifest" in the world. That "foreknowledge" made its manifestation an absolute certainty and therefore predestined.
"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son...." Rom.8:29
All of the above was introductory groundwork for my own understanding of a difficult doctrine I once could not align, as a young pastor, with a most obvious doctrine in the Bible, Eternal Security. All scripture must and does harmonize. Therefore, I had to "Study to show myself approved unto God..." and "rightly divide the word of truth". 2 Tim.2:15.
The difficulty was those several verses which declare that some people will be "Blotted out of the book of life". How does that harmonize with Eternal Security?
Key verse:
"Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous." Psm.69:28
It is significant that in that verse, the book of life is called "the book of the living" and I believe that is exactly what the book of life is, the book of all the living which is referred to above, in Gen.5:1, as "the book of the generations of Adam".
All these verses referring to someone being "blotted out" has to mean what it says and need not and must not be falsely interpreted to harmonize with eternal security or with someone's theory of falling from grace or a hymn written by a man.
"Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out." Psm.109:13
It is my opinion that David's reference below, to his being written in God's "book", is in fact, a reference to God's "book of the living" written before anyone had ever been born in Gen.5:1 and called "the book of the generations of Adam".
David wrote....
"Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." Psm.139:16
This also means that since babies and little children who die need not have made a profession of faith in Christ, but are still safely listed in the book of life at the great white throne judgment.
God's prophet, Daniel writing about Judgment Day, at the end of time spoke of "books" being opened and people being judged upon what was in the books. The primary thing would be first... whether their names are still in the book of life at the white throne judgment.
"A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened." Dan.7:10. No one knows what all books are among those being opened on judgment day, but they could include the books of God's Law, the books of the Bible which all instruct us on God's will. Also, God's books of record of every human's life and actions, and surely the Book Of The Living, which then has become the Lamb's Book Of Life from which all the names of the unredeemed will have been, by that time, "blotted out"... and their absence there proves them lost... by their own decisions.
"But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end...." Dan.12:4
"And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." Dan.12:1. At this point, only the names of the truly born again will be still recorded in the "Book of the Living" and "the book of the generations of Adam". Therefore, since only the names of the born again Christians, the Bride of Christ, are still written in the book of the living, it becomes the "Lamb's Book Of Life".
- "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." Rev. 21:27.
The difference in those who are blotted out of the Book of Life and those who remain written there, in The Lamb's Book of Life, is that the latter have believed and received Christ as their Savor and thereby had their sins blotted out of God's record book, by the blood of the Lamb. ...."I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee." Isa.44:22
"Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." Acts 3:19. Only through Repentance and redemption. That is grace. RB
