Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #15 of Revelation chapter 20 and we are going to read Revelation 20:12-13:

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

In our last study we saw that the “books” that were opened pointed to the Word of God, the Bible, which is made up of many books.  In the books of the Bible God has His laws and the laws of God must be obeyed.  It is not just an option for people to obey a law or to not obey a law.  We are creatures created in the image of God and created with a responsibility to obey God.  We are subject to Him and to His law and God has given many laws throughout the Bible.  The Bible is a law book and mankind has broken the everlasting covenant and transgressed the law of God.  God says that if we keep the whole law (if that were possible) and, yet, offend in one point, we are guilty of breaking the entire law.

All throughout history as people committed sin, there was an ongoing and continuous judgment against mankind and that is why man was condemned and under the wrath of God while he lived and was judged when he died and ceased to exist.   Yet, the Lord has set aside an official day or an appointed day, as Acts, chapter 17 tells us – it is an appointed Day of Judgment.  God is the same Judge who opened the Book, the Bible, and all mankind that have ever lived is judged by what is written in the books.  All sins are discovered because men have failed to live up to God’s holy and perfect standard of righteousness.  His commandments were not kept and that is why the Bible says, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” and, therefore, the law condemns every sinner.  It condemns all mankind.  That was the purpose for the law of God.  In the book of Romans, God told us that the law was given for this reason.  It says in Romans 3:19-20:

Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

The law served the purpose of showing mankind his sins and transgressions and it also condemned man for those sins: “The wages of sin is death.”

So we read that the “books were opened” and we also read that another book was opened, as it says at the end of the verse in Revelation 20:12:

…and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

In His law, God has discovered the guilt of man, but now He opens the “book of life” and we read last time that the “book of life” must be understood in two different ways.  First, it must be understood from the creation perspective, as we read in Revelation 22:19:

And 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, and from the things which are written in this book.

This can only be the “book of life” from the perspective of when God created mankind, which He created “good” and He created them to live.  So it was as if every man’s name was written in the “book of life” from the creative perspective.  But Adam and Eve sinned and mankind sin and when man sins, God says that He will blot their names out of the “book of life,” as it says in Exodus 32, verses 32 and 33 or in Psalm 69, verse 28.  The person that sins is removed from “the book of life.”   This has to be from a creative perspective because it cannot be true of the salvation perspective.  When God grants eternal life to one He has saved, he or she cannot lose that eternal life.  They cannot commit a sin that has not been paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, cause God to remove their name out of the “book of life” from a salvation perspective.  The only explanation the Bible allows when it speaks of blotting someone’s name out of the “book of life” is that God has written (in a figure) everyone’s name in the “book of life.” 

The second way the “book of life” can be viewed is from the salvation perspective.  There are numerous Scriptures and we will look at a few of them, beginning with Daniel 12:1-2:

And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Everyone found written in this book are delivered and this is speaking of the elect that were chosen to salvation from the foundation of the world.  Jesus bore their sins at that time when He died for the elect and rose victoriously, justifying them and cleansing them from all sin.  Their names are written in this book.  It is the book we read about in Philippians 4:3:

And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life.

Here, it is speaking of the “book of life” from the perspective of salvation.  We also have a few references in the Book of Revelation.  It says in Revelation 3:5:

He that overcometh, 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.

We can look at this statement in a couple of different ways.  God is saying that when it comes to one of the elect, that name that was written in the book from a creative perspective will not be blotted out because that person’s sins were blotted out by Christ; the “handwriting or ordinances that was against us” is blotted out because Christ made the payment and satisfied the law’s demand.  Therefore, there is no sin that can be “seen” to blot out that person’s name from the book of life from the creative perspective.

We can also look at it from the point of view that God has another book that is the Lamb’s Book of Life and that book has the names of all the elect and God will not blot out any of their names because they have overcome (in Christ) and they are clothed in white raiment through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Speaking of the beast (Satan) during the Great Tribulation, it says in Revelation 13:8:

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Here, we get a little bit more information and it tells us that the unsaved have the mark of the beast and they were worshipping Satan in their blindness.  They were not worshipping God, but they were worshipping the enemy of God and these people did not have their names written in the “book of life of the Lamb.”  This is a different book than the book that was written from a creative perspective, so this verse would actually indicate there is another “book of life” of the Lamb in which the recorded names are only those of God’s elect and no one else.  For example, if God saved a literal 200 million people, this book would contain the names of those 200 million and not the rest of the billions of people of the world.  God ties the names written in this book to the time that Christ died from the foundation of the world because that is the time that Christ died for the elect and their names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Again, these “books” are figures of speech, since God does not need to write things down like we write things down because we have poor memories and we would forget them.  Of course, if you are speaking of millions of people, no man could remember even a small part of those names.  A mere man could not remember anything to that extent and that is why we have birth certificates and social security numbers, as we try to keep order and keep things straight among ourselves.  There are so many people there had to be some way of keeping track of them, so man writes or records everything.  So, there is a “book of life” of the world, in a sense.  There are records of birth that indicate that so many people were born at a particular hospital on a particular day and that is done all over the earth.

This is not how it is with God because He is infinitely brilliant and He is able to keep track with perfect understanding and knowledge of all the people He saved and all He did not save.  He knows each one intimately and perfectly.  It is incredible when we think of the enormous capacity God possesses to “know” things.    In order to help us understand, He speaks of a “book of life” and names are recorded there. 

It is the Day of Judgment, so the law of God or the “books” (of the Bible) condemns mankind and if we go to the “book of life” from the creation perspective, all the names are blotted out due to their sins.  Everyone’s name is blotted out, so no one can say that God is not searching out iniquity and seeing if it is possible that someone might be sinless, but when He turns to that book, all the names have been blotted out of it.  No one remains in that “book of life.”

But there is another book, the Book of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  The names in that book “live.”  They remain written there, so we can imagine in a figure that God has brought out this wonderful and glorious book that records the name of Jacob, David, Joseph, Abraham, Isaac and all the saints of God that we read of in the Bible and all the saints of God whose names are not mentioned in the Bible.  They are the great multitude that God saved out of Great Tribulation and it is as though their names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  It is as if God sees the unsaved of the world before Him and he “cross checks” those names.  Is that name in the Lamb’s Book of Life?  No, it is not, so the condemnation continues to be carried out until that person’s ultimate destruction.  Then He goes to the next name and the next name.  There has been no mistake made and no error or miscalculation of any kind.  God has purposefully saved everyone whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, but none of those that have entered into the Day of Judgment and are experiencing the wrath of God are written in that book.

The “book of life” is also mentioned in Revelation 17:8:

The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

This is a similar statement to Revelation 13, verse 8. 

Let us look at one more verse that speaks of the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21:23-27:

And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Here, we find the completion of the whole matter.  It is all the elect whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  They have entered into the glorious, eternal future that salvation has brought to them.  God has given them eternal life and there is no sinner whose sins are still upon him there.  There is no one that works abomination or makes a lie that is able to enter in.  There are only those that are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

At any point in history, the big question for each of us has been this: “Is my name found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life?”  That is an action that God took before this world was ever created.  He elected these people to salvation and, as it were, He wrote their names in the book and in every generation of this world God brought forth the Gospel in order to find each of these souls and bring the Word of God to apply it to each of these souls.  He had guaranteed their salvation.  It was always a Gospel that looked back to the finished work from the foundation of the world and then a current application was made of the Word of God to save each individual.

But in Judgment Day God has already applied the blood of Christ to the souls of these people and He has already saved all the people whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  So we have to look back prior to May 21, 2011 to look at the time of the application of salvation.  It would have had to have happened before then.  And we would have to look back to the foundation of the world to see the names of these that were chosen by God to become saved.