Can Your Name Be Erased From the Book of Life?

Some speak a troubling message that you can lose your salvation, but God wrote our names in His Book of Life (Revelation 3:5 and elsewhere) before time, Earth or even we existed. He filled out the Book of Life in anticipation of how we would respond to Him and His effectual calling (John 6:44).  His calling, being effectual, means that He has the ability to completed in us a work that He began in the first place.  If it were up to us and our feeble, human efforts, then yes, we ought worry about or salvation for in frail human hands, nothing is certain.  But in Jesus' hands and The Father’s hands, who could wrest us from them (John 10:28-29)?  No one, no death, no sin, no thing on Earth, under the Earth, or in heaven can.  

God has complete knowledge of all eternity, the Alpha and Omega.  He knows the beginning and the ending, in advance, about us and, in fact, everything!  Ours is an awesome God. Therefore, He did not write in response to what we actually did; rather, He wrote in response to what He knew we would actually do…but, more importantly, what He can accomplish in us.  He knows our day of death and day of birth, before we even existed.  As parents-to-be, my wife and I also knew, in advance, what our baby would be like, what he or she might look like, what toys they would prefer, what music, what soft, soothing voices and love that they needed.  This we knew before we even conceived our precious children.  We also knew well in advance that someday they would leave home…that they would eventually drive a car, find a job, move out of the home….again, all well in advance, even before they were ever born.  Now this distinction is very important because we, if we as finite humans could know these predispositions before their birth, God is more than able to also know well in advance what we would be like, what we would like and dislike, what we would be gifted at…and even the very day of our death He knew (Hebrews 9:27, etc.).

So, it should not surprise us that God then knew in advance those whom He would call, and justify, and redeem…those who would respond to His sovereign and effectual calling and those who would not.  The point is that if God put our names in the Book of Life as history unfolded (as I used to think), it could be argued that He erases them as history unfolds as well, since not all will be saved.  But if God entered names according to perfect and complete His foreknowledge, it follows that He would erase them according to His foreknowledge, which makes no sense at all. If God wrote and erased according to foreknowledge, both His writing and His erasing would be complete before the world began.  The point is that no one needs to live with the fear that his or her name will be erased from the Book of Life today or sometime in the future. Once you are saved, you can never be lost again (John 10:28-29). 

It is too easy to take text out of context, but this makes is a pretext.  People who misread  Revelation 3:5 and don’t read all the dozens of other Scriptures that promise eternal security/salvation, miss out on the peace that Jesus spoke of;  His peace.  One should no longer have to worry or live in fear of losing their salvation (i.e. “I wonder if I am still saved?!”).   It is impossible.  There is no blotting out your name from the Book of Life once you accept Jesus.   

Another worry that is often expressed in Revelation 3:5 about their eternal security of salvation is that only those that “overcome” can wear the “white raiment”.   So there may be doubt if one is really an over-comer (Rev. 3:5).  Have they really overcame? But what is the Bible talking about when it mentions “for those who overcome”?  Who exactly are those that are saved and have overcome the world?  Am I an over-comer?  How do I know if I have overcome already?   Here’s how.  It’s in another of John’s books.  I John 5:5 says,  “Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”  So over-comers are believers in Christ.  If you have believed on Jesus, then you have overcome the world (Rev. 3:5) the day you accepted Jesus Christ as Savior (I John 5:4-5).   The word “blot” actually means blemish or stain or soiled.   Maybe a better way of looking at it is that our blemishes, stains and sins will not be used to blot out our names because of Christ‘s own (not ours) righteousness.  So your name’s there; it’s not blotted out and that is why you’ll wear the “white raiment”…worn only by those that have “overcome”.  Next, in the final and last part (3) of Eternal Security, an examination of the question of whose names are put in the Book of Life and when they were recorded in it.

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