The Book Of Life

I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. . . . And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:12, 15

WHEN THE APOSTLE JOHN was given a vision of what is to come at the end of human history as we know it, he “saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it” (verse 11). All of humanity was standing before the throne, and the books were opened. John actually saw two kinds of books. The first, the Book of Life, is a record of the names of those God calls his own. It is a list of all whom God chose “in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes” and whom he “decided in advance to adopt . . . into his own family by bringing [them] to himself through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:4-5).

This Book of Life appears throughout Scripture. The first place we read about it is in Exodus when Moses was willing for his name to be blotted out of the Lord’s book in exchange for forgiveness for his people (Exodus 32:32, ESV). The psalmist wrote about the Lord’s book in which the names of those “enrolled among the righteous” (Psalm 69:28, ESV) are found. The prophet Daniel wrote that God’s people will be delivered. And who will those people be? “Everyone whose name shall be found written in the book” (Daniel 12:1, ESV).

But “the books” mentioned in Revelation 20:12 are quite different from the Book of Life. These books are a record of all that everyone has done and failed to do. No one wants to be judged solely on the basis of what is recorded in “the books.” No record of our actions could ever list enough good deeds to save us. What we want is to be judged on the basis of what is in the Book of Life —our names, written by the hand of God in such a way that they can never be erased. As grateful as we are that our children are a part of our family, this family —the one listed in the Book of Life —is the one we long for them to be a part of forever.

Lord, in faith I pray that when you open the books, what you find will not bring condemnation but will be confirmation that ________ is yours. I pray that it will not be a record of ________’s feeble, fleshly works but of the righteousness of Christ, both imputed by grace and imparted through the grace of the Spirit’s sanctifying power.