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 16: I Will Never Erase His Name: Revelation 3:5.

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In the same way, the one who conquers will be dressed in white clothes, and I will never erase his name from the book of life but will acknowledge his name before my Father and before his angels (Rev. 3:5 CSB).

While the words of Jesus to the faithful in Sardis are comforting reminders of God’s preservation of the saints, we must acknowledge that many passages of Scripture speak of names being erased, or blotted out, of certain books, including the book of life. Following is a sampling of such verses; brief commentary follows.

Exodus 32:32-33 – “‘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.’”

This conversation between Moses and Yahweh occurs after the golden calf incident at the base of Mount Sinai. Sensing God’s wrath against the idolatrous Israelites, Moses offers to perish with his fellow countrymen – an offer the Lord refuses.

By “the book you have written,” Moses means, at a most basic level, a record of the living – that is, those who are alive at a particular time in history, as distinguished from those who have died. In the context of Exodus 32, this means a record of living Israelites. But there’s more. The registry to which God refers as “my book” is also a record of the redeemed. 

To have one’s name blotted out of the book of life is a consequence of having offended God through lack of faith and rank disobedience. The one whose name is erased from the book of life has crossed a line God has written in the sands of his abundant grace, only to pass a point of no return.

Deuteronomy 29:20-21 – The LORD will not be willing to forgive him. Instead, his anger and jealousy will burn against that person, and every curse written in this scroll will descend on him. The LORD will blot out his name under heaven, and single him out for harm from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

Israelites who abandon God’s covenant are in view here. More to the point, Moses has in mind those who say they’re committed to the Lord but have rejected him in their hearts. Some think they are exempt from the curses of the covenant, simply by nature of being Israelites. Moses depicts them as boasting, “I will have peace even though I follow my own stubborn heart” (Deut. 29:19). 

Clearly, those whose names are blotted out are not true followers of the Lord.

Psalm 9:5 – You have rebuked the nations: You have destroyed the wicked; you have erased their name forever and ever.

This psalm of David is a celebration of God’s justice. The Lord is seated on his throne as a “righteous judge” (v. 4). People and nations that declare their hostility to God and reject his sovereignty are enemies who come to “eternal ruin” (v. 6). They fall into “the pit they made,” and their feet are caught in “the net they have concealed” (v. 15). They are snared by the work of their own hands (v. 16). And they “return to Sheol — all the nations that forget God” (v. 17).

In contrast, the righteous, particularly those who are oppressed, find the Lord to be their refuge and vindication (vv. 9-12).

Psalm 34:15-16 – The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry for help. The face of the LORD is set against those who do what is evil, to remove all memory of them from the earth.

David recounts the days he was on the run from Saul and fled to Gath. The servants of King Achish exposed David, warning that he is the mighty warrior who has killed tens of thousands (see 1 Sam. 21:10-15). Afraid for his life, David feigns insanity. The king dismisses him, and David takes refuge in the cave of Adullam.

In this psalm, David extols the goodness of God toward the righteous. Yahweh answers their prayers, rescues them from all fears, and sends the angel of the Lord to encamp around them. As for the wicked, the Lord cuts off all memory of them from the earth. While this is not a specific reference to the book of life, David makes it clear the Lord distinguishes the righteous from the unrepentant wicked.

Peter quotes this passage to encourage faithful believers in his day: “… because the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do what is evil” (1 Pet. 3:12). A similar message is found in Proverbs 10:7: “The remembrance of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.”

In another reference to his terrifying days in Gath, David writes, “You yourself have recorded my wanderings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” (Ps. 56:8; cf. 1 Sam. 21:10-11; 22:1). 

These two Scriptures – Psalm 34:15-16 and Psalm 56:8 – seem to refer, not directly to the book of life, but to God’s record of our deeds, sometimes called the book of works. 

Psalm 69:28 – Let them be erased from the book of life and not be recorded with the righteous.

Like “the book you have written,” as well as “my book” (Exod. 32:32-33), the book of life in this psalm is a record of the living. David clearly asks for divine wrath to remove the wicked from the earth; that is, to execute his enemies. He’s also asking them to be removed from the surviving community of God’s covenant people.

Yet, it’s more than mere physical death the psalmist seeks. Because the wicked have rejected God’s grace and have persecuted God’s people, they’re not worthy of everlasting life – a gift God readily supplies the supplicant sinner. Therefore, to be erased from the book of life means physical and spiritual death.

Finally, the wicked were once listed in the book of life, but their sinful rebellion has resulted in the removal of their names. While God keeps a record of the living and provides everlasting life through the Messiah prophesied in Psalm 69, he blots out names only when they pass a point of no return – a point at which forgiveness, if offered, would be refused.

Psalm 109:13-15 – Let the line of his descendants be cut off; let their name be blotted out in the next generation. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and do not let his mother’s sin be blotted out. Let their sins always remain before the Lord, and let him remove all memory of them from the earth.

David writes his most impassioned imprecatory psalm here – meaning a psalm that calls upon God to destroy the enemies of God’s people. David prays for divine action and divine justice. He maintains his attitude of praise, prayer, and public worship, and even reports his unrequited love for his enemies. 

Nevertheless, these rebellious ones have proven themselves to be God’s foes, so David requests a guilty verdict against them in the courts of men and God. The king has chosen not to retaliate. Rather, he entrusts judgment to God, who is the ultimate target of hatred and malice against Yahweh’s anointed leader. 

While David asks the Lord to end wicked people’s line of descent – “let their name be blotted out in the next generation” – he also commends final judgment to the Lord, which may include eternal separation from God and God’s people. 

“I will never erase …”

Let’s return to Revelation 3:5 and Christ’s promise to the one who conquers: “I will never erase his name from the book of life.” The Greek in this verse is emphatic: “I will not by any means erase his name …”⁵ It’s clear the book of life in this letter is a record of the redeemed, those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:14). 

We should note that Jesus addresses two groups of people in the church at Sardis. The first group consists of the faithful remnant who, Jesus says, “will walk with me in white, because they are worthy” (Rev. 3:4).

But in verse 5, Jesus exhorts a second group. Perhaps, these are the church members he admonished in verses 1-3 for complacency, barely clinging to life in a dying church. “Be alert and strengthen what remains, which is about to die,” Jesus tells them, “for I have not found your works complete before my God. Remember, then, what you have received and heard; keep it, and repent” (vv. 2-3). 

The one who responds positively to Jesus’s warning is a conqueror who “will be dressed in white clothes, and I will never erase his name from the book of life but will acknowledge his name before my Father and before his angels” (v. 5).

Jesus is calling the pretender – the one who’s spiritually dead while active in the church at Sardis – to repent and believe before it’s too late. He’s also calling the complacent believer to wake up before the final embers of life in the church at Sardis go cold. Those who slough off the false teachings and dead practices of the church, embracing the Lamb of God, may rest assured their names are written in his book. Those who persist in pretense are at death’s door.

In addition to secure entry in the book of life, Jesus promises the conqueror he will “acknowledge his name before my Father and before his angels” (v. 5). This echoes what Jesus tells his listeners in Matthew 10:32-33: “Therefore, everyone who will acknowledge me before others, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever denies me before others, I will also deny him before my Father in heaven.”

In Scripture, the Greek verb exaleipso – “I will blot out” – often is used of a name “erased” from a written record. Consider the verb’s usage in the Septuagint, or Greek Old Testament (see Deut. 9:14; 29:20; Isa. 48:19; 56:5 LXX). Exaleipso became a metaphor for removal or destruction. Those in Sardis who remain unspotted by their pagan surroundings are promised eternal reward in the presence of Christ. The Lord urges them to stay faithful, while assuring all believers their names remain securely in the book of life.

While not explicitly stated, it appears the problem at Sardis is the tendency of the church to compromise its Christian beliefs for the sake of conformity to cultural trends. The fact that the ruins of a Christian church have been discovered next to a pagan temple at Sardis illustrates this point. At a time when there’s a feeding frenzy of persecution directed at Christians across the Roman Empire, the church at Sardis sits cozily in the shadow of a worship center that denies the gospel’s truth. This is why Jesus has nothing positive to say about the church. He may only assure the few faithful that they are secure in their salvation, while he chides those on the spiritual fence to choose this day whom they will serve (cf. Josh. 24:15).

Regarding the book of life, we may note three certainties. First, Christ possesses this book; it is the Lamb’s book of life (cf. Rev. 13:8; 17:8). Second, he assures those who have entrusted their lives to him that their names are securely in this book, never to be blotted out because their names are written in the blood of the Lamb. And third, in the day of judgment, Jesus produces the book of life and confesses the names of the faithful who stand there before God and his angels. 

It’s possible Jesus also confesses our names before Satan and demons, for they, too, stand in judgment one day (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 20:10). But the emphasis is on “his angels” – the holy angels, who for centuries have gazed with great curiosity into the redemptive work of Christ (1 Pet. 1:12).

Jesus makes two positive statements: “… the one who conquers will be dressed in white clothes” and “[I] will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels” (Rev. 3:5). At the fulcrum between these statements stands a most assuring promise: “I will never erase his name from the book of life.” In this context, Jesus assures believers of their security in him. If there is a blotting from the book of life, it is the blotting of the unrepentant whom Jesus never knew (cf. Matt. 7:23). 

Earlier, Jesus tells the seventy-two disciples sent out to preach the kingdom that their names are “written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). The Greek verb is in the perfect tense, which Kenneth Wuest, in his Expanded Translation, renders, “your names have been written in heaven and are on permanent record up there.”⁶ It’s impossible for Jesus to contradict himself at any time, let alone in his letter to the church at Sardis, by now declaring that genuine believers may be stricken from the roll of the redeemed.

The realization that many who profess Christianity are erased from the book of life comes as a surprise to those who are most actively engaged in the trappings of Christianity: the false teacher, false prophet, and false miracle worker. In every case, these counterfeit Christians buy into the lie of the serpent in the garden and seek to carve out their own paths of salvation. When it’s discovered they are shut out of the kingdom of heaven, they protest. But the door is shut and the wedding banquet inside is forever off-limits to them.

Warren Wiersbe explains: 

As unbelievers die, their names are removed from the book; thus, at the final judgment, the book contains only the names of believers (Rev. 20:12-15). It then becomes “the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Rev. 21:27), because only those saved by the Lord Jesus Christ have their names in it. All the others have been blotted out, something God would never do for any true child of God (see Exod. 32:32; Rom. 9:3). It is a book of life, and lost sinners are dead (Eph. 2:1).

Jesus offers no words of commendation for the church at Sardis. Curiously, he points to no doctrinal problems, nor does he mention local opposition or persecution. So, it seems the church has grown comfortable living on its past reputation, much like the once-great city of Sardis. As one commentator notes:

There was reputation without reality, form without force. Like the city itself, the church at Sardis gloried in past splendor, but ignored present decay…. It is when the church’s leaders and members get accustomed to their blessings and complacent about their ministry that the enemy finds his way in.

The one who conquers

Who is “the one who conquers” in Revelation 3:5? The Greek ho nikon may be translated “the conqueror,” or “the overcomer.” This is the person who perseveres and remains faithful amid external pressure from pagans and internal pressure from  “Christian” movements, according to Grant Osborne in his commentary on Revelation. In this context, it means to refuse to accommodate the Christian walk to pagan demands – that is, to soil one’s garments. The faithful in Sardis will walk with Jesus in white garments because they remain loyal to their king (Rev. 3:4). 

“In the same way,” Jesus said, “the one who conquers will be dressed in white clothes” and enjoy the same benefits as the faithful of verse 4 (Rev. 3:5).

For the conquerors, there are three rewards. First, they participate in Christ’s triumphant procession when he returns to sit on the throne of David. Second, as the redeemed, their names are kept securely in the book of life. Third, Christ confesses their names before the Father and his holy angels.

Next: Jewish and Pagan Shadows