Is it possible for a person's name to be erased from the Book of Life?

WHAT ABOUT NAMES BEING BLOTTED OUT OF “THE BOOK OF LIFE”?

It is very plain that the statement that certain names would NOT be blotted out of the Book of Life implies that names may be blotted out. God does not hold out empty threats (Rev. 22:19).

Rev. 3:5. — “He that overcomes, he shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life, and will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” Here are three promises. (1) The overcomer who walked here in purity, in personal uprightness before God, shall be amply justified in the glorious scene outside this world. He shall be clothed in garments of white on which no speck or stain shall rest. (2) He who persevered in the path of life to the end would not have his name blotted out of the register of Christian profession. Many standing high in the Church, whose names are as “household words,” may be erased in the day when life’s records shall be scanned by the all-searching eye of the Lord of the churches. (3) He who shrank not from the confession of the Name of Christ — always unpopular in merely religious society, and, of course, ever so in the world — shall be singled out in the august presence of the Father and His angels and have his name confessed before that grand assembly.

— “The book of life” here is not the same as that of Revelation 13:8. In Revelation 3:5 it is profession which may or may not be real. The end would show. Some names would stand, others be erased. But in that of chapter 13:8 every name recorded was that of a true believer, because the names were written from the foundation of the world, and hence before the course of human responsibility commenced. God knows the end from the beginning, and so in indelible letters wrote each name. In chapter 3:5 “the book of life” is the record of Christian profession; in chapter 13:8 “the book of life” is the record of reality. In the former the true and false are found; in the latter the true only.

Registry of persons' names as living. One (also called simply God's book,) may be a book of those who only have a name to live, and consequently whose names may be blotted out. Ex. 32:32-33; Ps. 69:28; Rev. 3:5; Rev. 22:19. Another is a book of the saved, from which none will be erased. Phil. 4:3; Rev. 13:8; Rev. 17:8; Rev. 20:12, 15; Rev. 21:27. A third (called simply 'the book,') contains the names of the remnant of Israel. Dan. 12:1.

In Revelation 22:14 we read "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life." But I have no doubt it should be read, "Blessed are they that wash their robes," etc. I believe the book of life is final, and all the devils cannot blot a name out of it. Where it speaks of blotting out, it is like a registry of votes. If it is proved that a certain name has no right there, it is blotted out. Every professor's name is in the book of life: but if God wrote it, it will never be blotted out. A mere professor writes his name himself, but he has no right to be there, unless God has written his name, and it will be blotted out. In Revelation 22:19 it should be "tree of life," not "book of life." God takes away no name that He has written. In chapter 13:8, it should be, I doubt not, "written from the foundation of the world," and not "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world"; and such a name will not be blotted out. I suppose the book of life (chap. 20) is after the names are blotted out, for verse 15 is "whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Although they are there judged for their works, their names were not in the book. Blotting out is, because a man's name was there that had no right to be there. Moses had the same thought. He says, "blot me out."

In Revelation 22:14 we read "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life." But I have no doubt it should be read, "Blessed are they that wash their robes," etc. I believe the book of life is final, and all the devils cannot blot a name out of it. Where it speaks of blotting out, it is like a registry of votes. If it is proved that a certain name has no right there, it is blotted out. Every professor's name is in the book of life: but if God wrote it, it will never be blotted out. A mere professor writes his name himself, but he has no right to be there, unless God has written his name, and it will be blotted out. In Revelation 22:19 it should be "tree of life," not "book of life." God takes away no name that He has written. In chapter 13:8, it should be, I doubt not, "written from the foundation of the world," and not "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world"; and such a name will not be blotted out. I suppose the book of life (chap. 20) is after the names are blotted out, for verse 15 is "whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Although they are there judged for their works, their names were not in the book. Blotting out is, because a man's name was there that had no right to be there. Moses had the same thought. He says, "blot me out."

Note: The New Trans. of ch.22:19 reads, “the tree of life,” not the book of life. The other references to the book of life in Rev. (13:8; 17:8; 20:12), including 21:27, seem to refer to the Divine record of those who are of faith from the founding of the world. This leaves the meaning of this one passage (3:5) to be determined. The reference, I think, is to the same book, and conveys the assurance of what the Lord will not do. Nothing can separate from Him in whose hand are the issues of life and death. There is no need to suppose there are names that will be blotted out of the book of life, as though people could be once saved and enrolled, then finally lost. Why impart this idea into the passage when such a possibility is foreign to the teaching of Scripture? Or why think we are dealing here with a different book (one of mere profession instead of reality) when there appears no intimation of it being different from all the other references? Why then, it may be asked, assert the fact of not blotting out? Just because the false idea that such is possible is the prevailing notion of the Sardis state of the church—the false notion we meet on every hand as a result of departure from the simplest blessed truth of the Gospel. The Lord's word declares the impossibility of being once saved then lost, or blotted out of the book of life in which the name has been once enrolled. It is just such an assurance which would be needed to overcome in the condition which Sardis pictures.

This suggests the promise to the overcomer. "He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before His angels. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches." (vv. 5, 6.) The church of Sardis had become thoroughly worldly, professing to have life while really dead, and thus virtually denying Christ. The overcomer is contrasted with the assembly in these particulars. While it had become a worldly mass, he had kept himself "unspotted from the world;" and therefore the promise is that he "shall be clothed in white raiment." While the assembly had a name to live, but was dead, the overcomer was actually entitled to a place in "the book of life;" and hence the promise is that his name shall not be blotted out. Again, while the mere professors at Sardis had a form of godliness, but denied the power thereof, the overcomer had truly confessed Christ in the midst of the general apathy; and therefore the promise is given, "I will confess his name before my Father, and before His angels."

Some have gathered from the words, "I will not blot out his name out of the book of life," that a person once saved may afterwards be lost; others, that all persons originally have life, but some forfeit it by sin. Both deductions are at once destroyed by a glance at the connection. Sardis is a mass of lifeless profession. But the very fact of profession is a claim to know Jesus as a Saviour, or, in other words, a claim to have life. Now with regard to the professing believers in Sardis this claim was unfounded; they had a name to live, but were dead. Hence the Lord, according to the natural but significant figure, strikes their names out of the book. But the overcomer has a claim which the Lord admits, and therefore his name stands while the others are blotted out. One may compare it with the drawing up of a list of burgesses. Every dweller in the town may claim to be enrolled; all are entered in a book until the revisor sits, when the true claims are allowed to stand, while the fictitious or unsupported ones are struck off the roll. The former alone have the hearing ear, and to them alone the exhortation is addressed.

The second promise to the overcomer here is that his name would not be blotted out of the book of life. This raises the question as to what the book of life is and whether it is possible to have one's name blotted out of it. Careful study will show a distinction between the book of life mentioned here and the "book of life of the Lamb," or "the Lamb's book of life" which Revelation 13:8 and 21:7 speak of. These are two different books or records.

The book of life seems to be a general registry of profession, where a name may be enrolled, but upon investigation the title to such enrolment may prove false and it will have to be erased. Of old the thought of being blotted out of God's book has been expressed. Moses, in a wonderful moment of intercession for sinful Israel, said to God, "if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." To his plea Jehovah replied, "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book" (Ex. 32:32-33). In Psalm 69:28 David requests for the enemies of the Lord, "Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous" (N.Tn). Then in Revelation 22:19 the following warning is given that, "if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city," etc.

All these Scriptures indicate the possibility of the Lord's blotting one's name out of the book of life, which is a general book of profession of divine life. God always takes people up on their profession and holds them responsible accordingly. It is a book of life the Lord is speaking of, and if it becomes manifest that persons are not characterized by divine life, but are dead as the mass in Sardis were, their names may be blotted out as no longer entitled to remain on the register.

Is there not such a thing as being blotted out of the book of life

You refer, I suppose, to what is said in Revelation 3:5. But we must remember that in the city of Sardis there were some who had, as it were, written their own names in the record of the living ones. They had a name to live, as verse 1 tells us, but in reality they were dead. Now if God writes anyone's name in the book of life, it is because that one is truly alive, having been quickened by God Himself. And if God writes a name in that book, He will never blot it out. But if anyone takes the place of being a living one, without ever having "passed from death unto life," it is as if he had inscribed his own name where it has no right to be, upon the pages of the book of life. And all such names God will assuredly blot out. But they are the names, not of backsliding saints, but of false and lifeless professors.

335 The character of the blessing always answers to the difficulty. They had kept their garments unspotted by the world when down here. Therefore they shall walk with Him in white up there, "and I will not blot his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels." Mark how individual this is - "his name," so constantly recurring.

The force of the expression, "the book of life," is evidently that of a general registry of profession, taken from the custom of corporations of cities, where a name may be enrolled, the title to which may prove false, giving at the first blush a prima facie title to something, though on investigation it will have to be erased. Those who were written in this book had a profession, "a name to live." This was very different from "being written in the book of life before the foundation of the world"; because God, in that case, had written them there: it was thus the book of the counsels and purposes of God.