Suddenly, without any warning, Moses refers to the Book of Life in Exodus 32:30-34, in the context of the sin of Israel with the Golden Calf: “Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. So now I will go up to the Eternal; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” Then Moses returned to the Eternal and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin–but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” And the Eternal said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book. Now therefore, go lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you, Behold, My Angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment on them for their sin.””

This passage invites a lot of questions and commentary. For one, where did Moses hear about the Book of Life in the first place? This particular conversation as a whole, where the immense sin of idolatry and rebellion merits being blotted out of God’s book, is the first indication in the Bible of there being a Book of Life at all. Whether God had told Moses of this Book previously in one of their conversations, or whether the knowledge of the Book of Life had been passed down (but did not end up in the Bible before), we cannot be sure. And yet both Moses and God speak of that Book of Life, in which are written the names of believers, as a certain thing, evidence (if any were necessary) that we cannot judge the importance of an item merely by its first appearance in scripture, while assuming that either its knowledge or existence before that time is in question.

Curiously, we also find that Paul was of the exact same mindset as Moses when it came to the fate of his people, as Paul writes in Romans 9:1-5: “I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. F or I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.” Here we see that just like Moses, Paul was willing to wish himself damned so that his people could be saved by God from the consequences of their act of rebellion in rejecting Jesus Christ.

Speaking of the wicked, David himself (as we might expect) also shows awareness of this book in Psalm 69:27-28: “Add iniquity to their iniquity, and let them not come into Your righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.” Whether God had told him directly, or whether he knew it from another place, David knew as well that God had a book in which the names of the righteous were written down. Interestingly enough, David seemed to know his own place in the Book of Life, as he wrote in Psalm 139:16: “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” David himself recognized that God had taken care and concern for him from the womb, from before his birth, placing David according to His will and His plan before David even drew breath, similar to the way that God knew who He would choose between Esau and Jacob before their births and that He had called Jeremiah as a prophet before His birth as well [1]. These references seem to indicate that some aspect of our character (and perhaps our receptiveness to God?) are known from the womb, before we draw breath, an inference from scripture that would have serious implications if it means what it appears to say.

The foreknowledge of God in terms of resurrecting the blessed dead at the return of Christ had a notable implication in that they disproved one of the major tenets of Saduccee thought that there was no resurrection of the dead, when Jesus spoke in Luke 20:37-38: “But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.” The implication we get from both David and Jesus Christ is that the placing of a name into the Book of Life begins even before birth and that God counts those dead who will be resurrected in the future into the resurrection of the blessed as already alive because their resurrection is sure. In both cases, the Book of Life looms as an artifact of considerable importance as the record of those who are followers of God, a record which can be taken away through rebellion.

There are, of course, a few other references to the Book of Life scattered throughout scripture. Daniel 12:1 reads: “At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. At that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book.” Luke 10:19-20, in referring to the seventy who went out to preach about the Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ says: “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” Philippians 4:3 also refers to the Book of Life, saying: “And I urge you also, true companion [2], help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.”

In all of these cases biblical figures are knowledgeable about the Book of Life and have some confidence about who is in them. From the previous references, it would appear that a great many Israelites in the time of Moses lost their places in the Book of Life, and it would appear that the righteous remnant of the people of Judah would all be included within the Book of Life and be delivered at the time of the end. The fact that references to the Book of the Life are generally brief and relating to salvation in a very clear way, it is unclear just how exclusive a membership there is in the Book of Life. As a whole, it can be said that the few references to the Book of Life in the scriptures provoke many questions and provide few of the answers to those obvious questions, such as how the existence of the Book was first communicated to mankind, and what sort of knowledge people have about its contents here and now.

Unsurprisingly enough, the Book of Revelation references the Book of Life, and does so in a way that provokes even more questions. Revelation 3:5 says of the Church at Sardis: “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life, but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” Revelation 13:8 reads: “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Finally, Revelation 20:15 says of those in the Great White Throne judgment, who were not a part of the resurrection of the blessed: “And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”

These references from Revelation give us more details. For one, those who did not worship the beast were all “saved” and all took part in the first resurrection. Everyone, regardless of their faith or lack thereof, who was not a part of the saved, will end up worshiping the beast in some fashion. Also, even those who are not saved until the resurrection of the unjust will have their names too written in the Book of Life. Anyone, no matter at what time they are saved, are saved through Christ (for the Book of Life is of the Lamb) and they are included in the Book of Life as adopted children of God to whom the gift of eternal life has been given.

As a student of books, there is clearly no book where it is more important to be named than the Book of Life. God (and Jesus Christ, apparently) blot out the names of those who rebel against God’s ways from the book, and add names as they repent and are justified. Obviously there are a great deal of questions one would like to know about the Book of Life, but that the Bible does not answer. Its first appearance in scripture is abrupt and a bit of a mystery, but apparently in depth knowledge about the Book of Life, as fascinating as it is, is not necessary for one’s name to be in it. Let us hope that we are all fortunate enough to have our names written in that book and not blotted out.

[1] http://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011/06/18/before-you-were-born-i-knew-you/

[2] There is some question about whether this refers to a true companion within the congregation of Phillipi or an person with the unusual name of Syzygos.