This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 5: The Book You Have Written.

---

Two previous posts [read #1; read #2] explored the first Old Testament reference to the book of life:

So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Oh, these people have committed a grave sin; they have made a god of gold for themselves. Now if you would only forgive their sin. But if not, please erase me from the book you have written.” The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will erase from my book” (Exod. 32:31-33).

So, how might we summarize Moses’s conversation with God about “the book you have written”? 

First, at its most basic level, the book of life is a record of the living – that is, those who are alive at a particular time in history, as opposed to those who have died. In the context of Exodus 32, this means a record of living Israelites. But there’s more.

Second, the book of life is a record of the redeemed. As Douglas Stuart remarks:

The Book of Life is a record of those going on to eternal life as opposed to those who by their own decisions have rejected God and his salvation (cf. John 3:19-20). To have one’s name in the Book of Life is to have persevered in faith and obedience until the final judgment of the earth.

In contrast, to have one’s name erased from the book of life is a consequence of having offended God through disobedience or lack of faith. The one whose name is erased from the book of life has crossed a line God has written in the sand of his abundant grace. In effect, that person has stepped beyond a point of no return.

Third, it appears everyone starts out with his or her name entered in the book of life. All who come into the world have the potential for eternal life, according to God’s will (1 Tim. 2:3-4; 2 Pet. 3:9). This human freedom doesn’t violate God’s sovereignty or negate his foreknowledge, election, and predestination. But it does acknowledge that God endows all people with an ability to make choices for which he holds them accountable. 

But many people reject God’s self-revelation in creation, conscience, Scripture, and Christ. In so doing, they express their desire to live on their own terms, apart from the loving embrace of their creator. Thus, their names eventually are blotted out of the book of life.

None of this surprises God. He doesn’t arbitrarily enter and erase names in the book he has written. Nor does he generate a list of the redeemed without regard for the free will he bestows on all people created in his image. His eternal attribute of omniscience encompasses all his decrees with respect to human existence, as well as all human choices. 

So, we may rightly say the book of life is not for God’s sake, but for ours. It’s to show the redeemed, who attained righteousness by faith in Christ, that we are warmly welcomed into his eternal kingdom. And it’s to prove to the unrepentant wicked they have no one to blame but themselves for everlasting separation from God. Unbelievers demand life on their own terms, and God ultimately grants their wish.

Fourth, the Bible isn’t clear as to when names are blotted out of the book of life. It could be at physical death, when there’s no longer any chance of repentance (Heb. 9:27). Or it could be at some point prior to physical death, when it may be said that a spiritually hardened person passes a point of no return.

While a future post addresses the subject of people crossing this line, a brief mention now may prove helpful. In particularly graphic terms, Peter describes apostates – those who have received the knowledge of the truth but willingly and decisively reject it – as dogs returning to their vomit, and washed sows returning to wallow in the mud (2 Pet. 2:22). 

Further, the writer of Hebrews says it’s impossible to bring apostates back to the point of repentance; they cannot return because they refuse to return (Heb. 6:4). Jesus and Paul at times speak of an apostate’s measure of sin that, once full, brings a swift and certain end to mercy, as well as the full weight of divine wrath (Matt. 23:31-32; 1 Thess. 2:16). And Jude speaks of the apostates’ damnation as having, in some sense, already been secured (Jude 4).

The point is, regarding “my book,” the Lord is neither capricious nor fatalistic. That is, he doesn’t arbitrarily enter and erase names from the book of life based on whim, as if he were some fickle god. Neither does Yahweh act in a manner by which his election of certain persons to salvation denies all people a common dignity as God’s imagers, endowed with an ability to make real choices and experience the real consequences of those choices. 

God knows everything human beings think, say, and do. He’s always known everything, and he never forgets. The redeemed are foreknown and loved by God from eternity past. At the same time, the wicked are marked out for everlasting separation from God before they’re even conceived. Their damnation is not fated, however. It’s the mystery of that tension between God’s sovereignty and human freedom. God’s omniscience can’t run counter to his other attributes, which include holiness, justice, wisdom, faithfulness, and goodness.

Fifth, the book of life is a record that reveals both the eternal mind of God and the result of free human decisions exercised in real time. 

When the wicked appear before the great white throne and books are opened (Dan. 7:10; Rev. 20:12), their names are absent from the book of life because they have chosen to live on their terms, thus rejecting God’s design for them. Their rebellion against God means their voluntary disqualification from the book of life. It means eternal existence apart from God in a place he prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). Their destiny is the lake of fire, or the second death (Rev. 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:18). 

Moses’s reference to “the book you have written” certainly applies to God’s record of the living (Exod. 32:32). But because it’s tied to unrepentant sinful rebellion against God and his covenant with Israel, it carries everlasting consequences. It seems biblically faithful to say that those God blots out of “my book” not only die physically, like the three thousand at the hands of the Levites in Exodus 32, but experience the second death also as unrepentant sinners (Rev. 20:14-15).

Final instructions

We close this look at the first Old Testament reference to the book of life with God’s instructions to Moses at the end of Exodus 32:

“Now go, lead the people to the place I told you about; see, my angel will go before you. But on the day I settle accounts, I will hold them accountable for their sin.” And the LORD inflicted a plague on the people for what they did with the calf Aaron had made (Exod. 32:34-35).

The Lord instructs Moses to continue with the exodus (see Exod. 3:8, 17). In other words, Moses is to resume leading the Israelites to the Promised Land. “My angel” is a reference to the angel of the Lord, or the preincarnate Christ.

The idolatry of the people at Mount Sinai grieves God, but it doesn’t alter his promise to Abraham to give his chosen people a nation, land, and a redeemer, just as Moses prayed (Exod. 32:11-14). God spares the Israelites for the sake of his name, and for the glory of his divine purpose to bless all people through a stiff-necked nation.

The end of verse 34 – “I will hold them accountable for their sin” – speaks of a future time. This may be the death of Israelites over the age of twenty (except for Joshua and Caleb) as they fall during forty years of wandering in the desert. Or looking further into the future, it may be the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities of the 8^th and 6^th centuries BC, respectively, when God exiles the people into the pagan nations around them: Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Rome.

The plague in verse 35 is not the fulfillment of the threat of judgment in verse 34. Rather, it’s an immediate punishment for sin and a sample of future wrath. As one commentator notes, “God does many things as small samples of bigger things to come” (cf. Matt. 24:8; 1 Cor. 15:8; 1 Tim. 1:6; 2 Pet. 2:6; Jude 7).

The generation that dies in the wilderness does so because of unbelief (Deut. 1:35). When Israel proves itself unfaithful, the Lord responds in judgment. As Alan Cole points out, had the Israelites been allowed to enter the Promised Land in this state of rebellion:

… they would not have had the necessary faith to overcome the Canaanites, so that the mere entry of Canaan would have done them no good. It could be said that God is actually sparing them, in allowing them to remain in the desert, just as he had previously spared them by not leading them along the Philistine Road (Exod. 13:17).

We’re not told how many die in this short-term plague, or even if the plague results in any deaths at all. God executes judgment in a manner that matches the offense, and as a means of warning his people that more severe judgment is held in reserve for those who refuse to honor their covenant promises. 

As a final thought, consider the distinction between God’s wrath and divine discipline. God’s wrath is his response to human sin and disobedience. It falls upon the unrepentant wicked, resulting in their damnation, and often in their immediate physical death as well. It is consistently directed towards those who reject God’s will, for example, by embracing idolatry or unbelief (e.g., Ps. 78:56-66; Deut. 1:19-46). 

Old Testament prophets spoke about a future “day of wrath” in which God deals fully and finally with sin – a theme the New Testament writers pick up (Zeph. 1:14-18; Rom. 2:5-11). Fortunately for us, because Jesus suffered the wrath of God on our behalf on the cross, believers are granted everlasting life and thus are not appointed to wrath (John 3:14-21, 36; Rom. 5:9; 1 Thess. 5:9).

Divine discipline, on the other hand, is God’s loving correction of his children. His rebuke may be gentle or sharp. In extreme cases of unfaithfulness, it results in the physical death of the Christian, but not his or her damnation (1 Cor. 11:27-32; Heb. 12:7-11). Divine discipline is designed to put us back on the path of good works God laid out for us in eternity past – a path that enables us to lay up treasure in heaven (Matt. 6:20; Eph. 2:10).

It appears in Exodus 32:32-33 that God’s wrath falls on unrepentant Israelite sinners, whose names are erased from the census of Israel and, likely, blotted out of the roster of the redeemed.

Next: The Book of Life (Psalm 69:28)