Can a Christian’s Name Be Erased From the Book of Life?
In Revelation 3:5, the apostle John wrote, “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life.”
The Book of Life is the divine register of souls whose names are recorded in heaven. Jesus Christ acknowledges that those individuals are saved from eternal condemnation and redeemed by grace through faith in Him.
The word overcomes does not mean believers are redeemed by works. Rather, those who are born again by faith in Jesus are overcomers (1 Jn. 5:4–5). Anyone who has been born of God overcomes this evil world through faith in Christ.
Jesus makes three promises to each overcomer:
1. He or she “shall be clothed in white garments” (Rev. 3:5), a symbol of purity, righteousness, and salvation.
2. Christ will “confess his name before [His] Father and before His angels” (v. 5). The Lord grants believers heavenly citizenship in the eternal state. Jesus is their Advocate before God the Father (1 Jn. 2:1) and will acknowledge their names before Him (Mt. 10:32).
3. The Lord “will not blot out his name from the Book of Life” (Rev. 3:5). This verse does not mean those who have received Jesus as Savior can lose their salvation and have their names erased from the Book of Life, as some interpret the text. In fact, the opposite is true. The word not (Greek, ou me) forms a double negative with “blot out,” meaning under no circumstances can true believers in Christ have their names blotted out of the Book of Life.
Theologian Robert Thomas wrote,
Another understanding is to take the “blotting out” as an example of litotes, a figure of speech in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of a contrary statement. Coming by way of a denial of the opposite, this is an understatement to express emphatically the assurance that the overcomer’s name will be retained in the book of life. The purpose of the promise is to provide certainty and assurance to those who are “worthy” (cf. v. 4), not to indicate anything about the fate of those who do not overcome.1
Thus, God promises He will never blot out a believer’s name from the Book of Life. True believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). Those whom God the Father gives the Son will never be lost and have “passed from death into life” (Jn. 5:24; cf. 6:37, 39; 10:27–30).
ENDNOTE
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- Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 1—7: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1992), 261.
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