Book Of Life - What Is It? - Whose In It?
I once heard an evangelist ask this question at a revival
meeting.
Is your name written in the Lamb’s book of life?
At the time I did not know or have an opinion. And it turned out, he did not know either, but he did have an opinion. He said that we are entered in the book when we
make a decision for Christ, and those who do not make that decision are left
out, or blotted out, to be eternally condemned to hell.
Then he appealed to the crowd to repent and accept Jesus so that your
name could be written in the book of life. So up to the alter I went, an act in
which I would repeat almost every time revival services came to town...until I
started studying the Bible for myself.
Here is what I think about the book of life after reading
all Scriptures, including those which reference that book.
Anyone who is born and is alive is in the book of life
(they’re alive).
And anyone who dies is blotted out (they’re dead).
Well that is a bummer isn't it?
Well yes, if it were not for the
good news that God is not willing that any should “perish”
(stay dead-totally destroyed).
And so, we have been given the good news to share…
“And I
make known to you, brethren, the good news that I proclaimed to you…that Christ
died for our sins, according to the Writings, and that he was buried,
and that he hath risen on the third day, according to the Writings…Christ hath
risen out of the dead -- the first-fruits of those sleeping he became, for
since through man [is] the death, also through man [is] a rising again of the
dead, for even as in Adam all
die, so also in the Christ all shall be made alive...the mortal must put on immortality…then shall be brought to
pass the word that hath been written, The Death was swallowed up – to Victory” (1
Corinthians 15 YLT)
All
mankind started out as mortals written in the book of life, and all mankind are
blotted out because all mortals sin. However, the
death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, after he took upon himself the sin of
the world, guarantees us that mankind will not “perish”. He is “the first-fruits of those sleeping” and all
others will be raised and inscribed in the Lamb’s book of life, this time righteous,
and immortal, so that death can never again blot them out.
“God
was in Christ — a world reconciling to Himself, not reckoning to them their
trespasses…him who did not know sin, in our behalf He did make sin, that we may
become the righteousness of God in him… he is
a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole
world,” (2 Corinthians
5:19-21; 1 John 2:2 YLT)