THE NAMES in the Book of Life
By Dee L. McCroskey
"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.)
THERE are two indisputable facts about the Lamb's Book of Life, which all believers know and understand: (1) that every saved person has his name written in the Book, and (2) that whosoever is not found written in the Book is to be cast into the lake of fire. (Rev. 20:15.) But beyond these two cardinal facts we find ourselves confronted with questions which often affect our joy, and sometimes even threaten to undermine our assurance of everlasting security in Christ.
The traditional teaching among informed believers has been that our names were written in the Book when we got saved, and that they can never be blotted out again. But there are at least two scriptures which plainly show that some names can be blotted out of the Book, and several others which show it by implication. We have often failed to find a satisfying explanation of such scriptures, until a few years ago when we began to see that there is a great deal more to this wonderful Book of Life than we ever suspected.
The two scriptures referred to are Exodus 32:32-33 and Psalm 69:28. In the first one, Moses asked the Lord to either forgive Israel or blot him out of the Book. Moses and the Apostle Paul are two men who so loved the people of Israel that they were both willing to be eternally cursed if it would save Israel. (Rom. 9:3.) But no mere human, no matter how godly he might be, is able to make his soul an offering for the sins of another. And so the Lord replied to Moses: "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my Book." In the other scripture, the 69th Psalm, the inspired writer is describing the sufferings to be inflicted upon the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Referring to His persecutors, the 28th verse says: "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous."
In Rev. 3:5, the Lord says about the overcoming believer: "I will not blot out his name out of the book of life." The implication here is that some names can be blotted out.
Already we are beginning to see the possibility of names being blotted out. This information is further augmented when we come to some scriptures where the same truth is meant, although the exact words "blotted out of the book" are not given, For instance, in Deut. 9:14, the Lord is angry with Israel and says: "Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven." This same blotting out is suggested in Ex. 17:14, where God says: "I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." Also see Deut. 25:19. Concerning the breaker of God's covenant in Deut. 29:20, "the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven." Also we find the wicked spoken of in Psalm 9:5, and it says, "thou hast put out their name for ever and ever."
Now let us notice the kind of people who get their names blotted out of the Book, or "out from under heaven." The list takes in those who have sinned against the Lord, those who persecuted Him and crucified Him, wicked Amalek and others called "the wicked," and if we turn to the last few verses in the last book of the Bible, we could add to the list the mutilators of the Word of God. Also there are the worshipers of the Beast in Rev. 13:8 and 17:8, whose names are not found in the Book. It becomes plain that these are all unsaved folks, whose names are either stricken out or at least not to be found in the Book when their final day
God refused to blot out Moses from the Book. The Tribulation saints shall be delivered, "everyone that shall be found written in the book." (Dan. 12:1.) The disciples were written in heaven. (Luke 10 :20.) Present-age saints, members of His body, all have their names in the Book. (Phil. 4:3 and Heb. 12: 23.) And in Rev. 3:5 God says He will not blot out their names.
These scriptures, together with the statement in Rev. 20:15, that "whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire," show that the saved of all ages have their names written permanently in the Book of Life. There is not the slightest intimation anywhere that any truly saved person ever had his name blotted out.
All this raises a perplexing question, if we cling to the traditional teaching that our names were added the moment we were saved. In that case, how did wicked Amalek get his name in the Book? And how did the crucifyers of the Lord, "the wicked," and other unsaved men get their names written in? Their names were blotted out, and the fact is inescapable that they must first have been in the Book in order to be blotted out.
There appears to be only one reasonable answer, and we are of the earnest belief that it is the right one: that every human being has his name written in the Book of Life when he comes into the world! This is so completely revolutionary to our traditional thinking that it startles us at first. But as we examine the matter farther, we will see that this only magnifies the great work done by our Lord on the cross of Calvary. It involves two essential laws with both God and man, the law of legal right and the law of appropriation. To have his name in the Book of Life is the legal right of every human, a right that was purchased for him by the precious blood of Christ, and a right which is in no way dependent upon the human himself. But as to the appropriation of that blood-bought right---that is eny thing other thing. It is this appropriation that spells heaven or hell to the sinner.
It is right here that the Universalists make their most terrible error, in not recognizing the difference between the scope, or legal right, of Christ's redemptive work, and its application Strangely enough, "scope" is a favorite word in their literature, but they seem to miss the scriptures dealing with its conditional application. In its scope, the redemptive work of Christ does take in the whole fallen creation. This is seen in such scriptures as First John 2:2, "for the sins of the whole world," and John 3:17, "that the world through Him might be saved." Yes, He died for ALL. And so the Universalist jumps to the conclusion that ALL will be saved in the end, even the devil himself. Such a heaven, with saint and sinner, murderer and his victim, Hitler and Luther, Satan and Christ, all there together, is repulsive and unthinkable to both justice and reason.
It takes only one scripture to put all Universalism, Reconciliationism, Annihilationism etc., to flight. That is John 3:36, about the rejector of Christ. "The wrath of God abideth on him!" We know from other scriptures that although Christ died for the sins of the whole world, most of the world is not saved, and will not be. It is because they refuse to appropriate the privilege that is legally open to them before God, and their names must be stricken from His Book.
For a simple illustration of the law of legal right, we have only to glance at the first paragraph of the American Declaration of Independence. Here we find three wonderful things: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. They are legal rights, guaranteed to every citizen of the United States. But has every American possessed these wonderful things? No, thousands have had to forfeit their lives because of violence. Other thousands have had their liberty taken away, and millions have failed to pursue happiness. They failed to appropriate the legal right to life, liberty, and happiness. So it is with the redemption work of Christ. Those who appropriate their legal right to eternal life through Him are saved, and those who despise this legal right are eternally lost.
We realize in writing this, that the legal right to salvation, all purchased and paid for as it is by the blood of our blessed Saviour, and just waiting for applicants to come up and claim it, is a hard blow to professional emotionalists. It is a blow to those who teach that you must "pray through" to get saved, must agonize, tarry and all the other forms of pleading to God to get Him to relinquish His gift of eternal life to the sinner. An applicant for naturalization gets a notice that he has qualified to become a citizen of the United States. He goes to the proper office, takes the oath and signs the papers--and he is a citizen. There is no reason for pleading with Uncle Sam, for sentiment is ruled out. Either the applicant qualifies or he doesn't, and no amount of tears or pleading will change things. And a holy and just God could not base His dealings on so discriminating a thing as sentiment.
>From the many blood offerings in the Old Testament we learn that
God dealt with humans on the basis of the price He was going to pay for their redemption. The blood of His Son was sufficient to put the name of every son of Adam in His Book of Life. He is said to be the Saviour of ALL men, but "especially of those that believe." (I Tim. 4:10.) That is, those who appropriate His redemption. That everyone has his name written in the Book to begin with, is the real reason that children who die in infancy, and imbeciles from birth, all go to heaven. But all normal, rational humans come to an age known as the age of accountability. They must then declare themselves, whether they will be a citizen of heaven or of the world, a subject of Christ by receiving Him, or a subject of fallen Adam, in whom all perish.
When does the unsaved man get his name blotted out? The answer to this question lies in what we might term "the final answer." Some men harden their hearts and give God a positive "No" early in life. Others linger in a state of indecision, keeping the door of negotiations open, until either they accept Him or they put it off and death finally closes the door and blots out their names. Most of us have seen people who were under conviction for a while, and then a cloud seemed to pass over their souls, and they became hard and unreachable. God had heard their final answer and blotted out their names, we believe. (John 12:39.) God had heard Amalek's final answer, also that of Esau and Pharaoh. They were blotted out of the Book of Life.
There are two scriptures which at first glance would appear to say that some have never had their names in the Book of Life since the foundation of the world. They are Rev. 13:8 and 17:8. The first one speaks of the worshipers of the beast in the Tribulation time, "whose names are not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb slain." (Margin.) The other one speaks of these same beast worshipers, "whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world." There is a strong suggestion here that the Holy Spirit is trying to show us the origin of the Book of Life, that it was begun with the foundation of the world, or when the present creation was introduced upon this earth. In 13:8 it is the foundation of the kosmos, or present world-system, and not the earth proper. It was then that men's names began to be recorded, and it was then that man fell and God began to look upon His Son as if He were already slain for man's sins. This was the only basis upon which He could offer pardon, through the symbolic blood offerings.
But no matter how we take the term "foundation of the world," it does not actually say that these worshipers of the beast never at any time had their names in the Book of life. These scriptures do tell us, however, that their names are not to be found in the Book at the time they worship and wonder after the beast. These people will all have made their final choice by then. They will have rejected God's way and will have received the mark of the beast. Nowhere in the Book of Life, from the foundation of the worl
How different with a sinner who comes to the Lord just as he is and receives Him as the only hope, the only Saviour. Such a one gets his name traced over, as it were, with the blood of the Lamb, never to be erased from the Book of Life. The Lord says He knoweth His own sheep by name, and they shall never perish. (John 10:3, 28.) They are forever written in His Book of Life.
How amazingly wonderful is the perfection of God's Word from beginning to end! In the first book of the Bible, man's history begins with the tree of life. In the last book of the Bible, it is the book of life. (Rev. 22:19.) In Gen. 3:24 man is driven from the garden, banished from God's presence because of his rebellion, and a flaming sword turned every way, "to keep the way of the tree of life." Until then, man had a legal right to the tree of life by virtue of creation, But he forfeited that creative right to the tree of life, and it was then that his wise and loving God set about to purchase for him a legal right to the book of life by virtue of redemption. "0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"
Our Lord referred to this great work of redemption when He said: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." (John 5:17.) The Father had worked for four thousand years on His great plan of redemption. He had carefully guided human affairs so as to lay down type after type of Calvary's cross, clothing Adam and Eve d system on down, can their names be found
In dealing with the status of unsaved human beings, we must recognize that there are two kinds of them. There are the multitudes who have not yet received Christ and are lost; they are the sons of Adam. And there are a few here and there who are cursed of God in a special way, and have become the seed of the Serpent, who is Satan. In Gen. 3:15 the seed of the woman is mentioned, who is Christ, and also the seed of the Serpent is mentioned. The seed of the Serpent, that is, wicked and Satan-inspired humans, are referred to here as those who would bruise our Lord's heel, a picture of the cross of Calvary. Cain was the first of this line of humans who became Satan's seed, as we find in I John 3:12. The Pharisees were others, said in John 8:44 to be "of your father the devil." These men were not born in that cursed position, but they came into it the day they made their final decision and God removed their names from His Book.
Let us take the case of Cain as a sample. In Genesis 4:5 he brings the wrong offering and gets mad at God. In verses 6 and 7 the Lord graciously pleads with him, offering him once more the way of eternal life through the blood of a sin offering. A sin offering was there at Cain's door and he had only to lay hold upon it. But at this point Cain makes his fatal decision. He goes out from this scene of grace, murders his brother and becomes a fugitive from God. God heard Cain's final answer and blotted him out of the Book of Life. It was then that he became the seed of the serpent.
We have known many in our days who came to the meetings for a while, but never really surrendered to the Lord nor fully accepted Him. They hoped to "grow into" salvation. Some hoped that it might come to them through study of the Word. But this finally comes to an end and they go out from the presence of the Lord like Cain, having made their final decision.
with blood-bought skins, displaying Abel's blood offering on the altar, Abraham and Isaac on the mountain top, the blood on the door posts in Egypt, and hundreds of other rehearsals of the cross-work of His Son. It was all worked out so plainly on the stage of time that no one in any age need be ignorant of His plan of redemption. All are without excuse. And the Son said He worked also. He finished the work, paying for our sins with His own blood, and shouted triumphantly: "It is finished." He had purchased for every human the right to have a "part" in the book of life forever.
But He will not force His salvation upon anyone. His invitation is: "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely:" It is His gracious offer and He bids every sinner to come and accept it.
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Christ DIED, that’s HISTORY.
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Christ DIED for YOU SINS and Rose again that’s SALVATION.
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Romans 1:16, Romans 10:9-10 and 1. Corinthians 15:1-4
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