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Can a person be blotted out of the Book of Life?

  I read one of the answers to one of the questions, and you said no one is ever mentioned as being "blot out of the book of life", if so, could you explain 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. I know it doesn't say "blot out" but it says "take away his part out."

  Revelation 22:18,19 says, "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 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." Anyone who would take away from the Bible, was not really saved in the first place.

Notice that it does not say that God will take his "name" out of the Book of Life, but his "part." That is important, because Revelation 13:8 says, " 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." Also, 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."

It appears that the people that God knows will accept the Lord Jesus Christ, have their names written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world. This does not make them saved before they actually accept Christ, but it simply means that God knows who will accept Him, and who will not, before they die. It must be that way, because in the two above verses, it clearly states that the names of the lost never appeared in the Book of Life.

I once heard a preacher try to explain how God gives everyone a chance to be saved. And to prove it (that preacher said), "God writes every person's name in the Book of Life when they are born. If they die without receiving Christ, then God blots out their name from the Book of Life." That is what that preacher said, but the Bible says the opposite. The Bible teaches that the people who go to heaven, have their names written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world. And the people who die lost, never did have their names written in the Book of Life.

This can be a rather misunderstood position, because when you state it, some people immediately think that you are a Calvinist, and think that lost people are "predestined to hell," and that saved people are "predestined to heaven." I am not a Calvinist. I do not get all hung up on this "predestination" problem that people make of this. I believe exactly what the Bible says, "And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 22:17). All people can come to Christ and be saved. And all people who reject Christ will end up in hell. The Bible clearly teaches that man has a free will, but it also teaches that God knows everything. Psalm 147:5 says, "Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite." If God knows everything, then He knows down through all of history who is going to accept Him, and who is not. So He can put their names down in the Book of Life any time that He wants (and He chose to do it at the foundation of the world) because He already knows.

This does not detract any from man's responsibility to personally accept Jesus Christ to be saved, any more than this would detract from Jesus having to actually die on the cross. Back to 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." God knew it as a fact, from the foundation of the world, that Jesus Christ was going to die on the cross. Acts 15:18 says, "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." But Jesus still had to actually go through with it all and die for our sins. That is in the same verse (Rev. 13:8) that talks about people not being written in the Book of Life. God knows who will receive Him and who will reject Him, but that in no way removes them from having to actually repent of their sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. Very simply, God just knows ahead of time everything that will take place. No one is saved, until they repent and believe.

Back up to 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." If this verse said "his name," then this verse would be much harder to understand, because as we have already seen, lost people's names were never written in the Book of Life. But it just says "his part." In other words, the person who would dare to take away from the Word of God, is going to have no part in the Book of Life, no part of the holy city, and no part of the good things which God has prepared in heaven for those that love Him. By taking away from God's word, they show their true heart's condition, that they never were saved. And thus they will have no part of heaven.

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