The Book of Life

DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

THE BOOK OF LIFE

Rev 20:11-15

11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

NIV

It could mean a lot of things if we were to see this metaphorically as some scholars are in a habit of doing since they insist on viewing this historically, but when the Earth and sky fled from his presence it surely means there was no place for them. If we tried to look for them they would not be anywhere. All there is left is the throne of God, his presence. At the time the earth and sky vanish, that is the whole of the universe is gone, all the dead great and small are standing before the throne of God. Here is where there is some need to expand. These dead, these people both great and small are the ones who had not yet been resurrected. They were not part of the first resurrection as the believers in God were. We just were told in the preceding portion of this revelation. We saw the believers being resurrected, but we were told the rest of the dead were not.

Rev 20:4-6

They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5(The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection . 6 Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection . The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

NIV

 There also is somewhat of a different take on this. We need to understand a few things that might seem a bit confusing, but are not. If we consider these two passages along with this portion of the revelation we might get a better picture.

1 Thess 4:16-18

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage each other with these words.

NIV

2 Cor 5:6-10

 6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 We live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

NIV

Those of us who are part of the first resurrection, those who are the great multitude that John sees standing by the crystal sea, and those who are riding on white horses clothed in fine linen, the righteousness of Christ, coming with him in the clouds to rule and reign for the thousand years have already left our bodies and are present with the Lord. It may be that we are in the spirit and our bodies are still in the earth. That is possible, yet those who are still alive are caught up with those who have already died to meet him in the air during that first resurrection, we call the rapture. We also know the rest of the dead had not been raised. So now the earth or the grave gives up the dead bodies, the sea also, those people who died at sea and had no grave, but only the sea, are now raised. As far as death and hades giving up the dead that were in them, we have to consider a few things. Could this mean the souls or spirits of people who died refusing to accept Christ have their bodies still in the sea or the grave, but their spirits are in hades or hell for keeping until the final judgment? This would give some credence to the Catholic idea of purgatory, a holding place until the judgement. We believers when we die, as Paul reveals to us, leave the body behind and are present with the Lord wherever he is. If the first resurrection is of the dead and those who are alive, then we are, in fact, reunited with our bodies, in a glorified state, such as Jesus was after his resurrection. He was able to pass through closed doors, appear and disappear at will. This is the condition we will have. There are other reason for us to believe we will be reunited with our bodies. For one, we will be riding on white horses clothed in fine linen. A spirit needs no clothes nor, in addition, needs to ride a horse. We also will see we will have some type of abode or living space in the new city of Jerusalem on the new earth under the new universe, which will be extremely different than the existing one, which we will see when we get to those passages.

Now as to each person being judged, we have several ways to look at this. First we could see this as some have in the sense that all our deeds have been recorded, all the good deeds as well as the bad deeds. If this were so, then we would have to consider there is a scale of sorts to determine if our good deeds outweighed our bad deeds. Then our admittance to heaven would depend on which the scale tipped in favor toward more good deeds than bad. That almost sounds ludicrous. Again it would be much like that movie, defending your life, by Albert Brooks. This judgment is in accordance with what each person had done, but is also in the context of finding or not finding their name in the Book of Life. Combined with all we know about salvation, about it being a free gift of God and that we are saved through faith, least any man boast, we have to conclude the deed for which all people are judged is the deed of accepting or rejecting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. If we were in fact judged by the deeds of our life, who of us could ever gain entrance? Who of us would be in that Book of Life based on our actual living deeds? The scripture is absolutely clear about even the smallest of the smallest sin being equal to the whole of all sin. Although the Lord through James is talking about the Law, the same principle applies to sin.

James 2:10-11

10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it

So we are left with the simple truth that those of us who did the deed of accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior will have our names found in the Book of Life. Those poor people who did the deed of refusing Jesus Christ will not have their names found in the Book of Life. The result of each deed is rewarded. We who have our names in the Book of Life will enter into the new City of Jerusalem, which we will see later. Those whose names were not in the Book of Life simply means they will not experience eternal life, but they will be thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. This is the death of both the body and the spirit or soul. This is what the word perish means, as John so clearly stated in his gospel.

John 3:16

16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

NIV

The opposite of eternal life is perish. The Greek word used as perish means to fully destroy, complete destruction, that is nothing, no part of a thing remains. This means neither the body or the soul or spirit of a person remains. They cease to exist in any form.

We could go back to the time of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they were thrown into the fiery furnace that was fired up so hot that the soldiers who threw them in were burned up immediately by the blaze. Yet Shadrach, Meshach and Adednego had not a hair harmed on their heads, nor their garments scorched as there was a fourth in the fire with them, it was Jesus.

The truth we have here is that we will not suffer the second death, at all, but eternal life. Those who are thrown into the burning lake, the fire, will be without Jesus to save them as they rejected him, and thus they will perish.

Once again we are faced with a dilemma of sorts. We know people who, at present, if they were to die in the condition or attitude about Jesus, or simply have not actually heard the truth about Jesus yet, would be among those who perish. Although the Spirit is always at work convicting people of their sin and need to repent and accept Jesus, we are also called to go out into the world and tell them about Jesus, testifing about the gospel message. How can we do this? How can we explain in a way they will listen? Can we do that just by showing them the love of God? Or do we need to use words as well? We can praise God for because of our deed of accepting Jesus our names are in the Book of Life. But as the same time we can feel a certain sadness if those we know do not do that same deed. It is all about the Book of Life. God says we can have life, we can have our names in the Book of Life, it is free, and it is our choice, choose wisely.