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The Book of Life


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Exactly, so He can use a book if He wants to. To say anything else is limiting God's ability.


No one said he wasn't using a book. I said, "is it not possible . . ." And while I do believe that in this instance, "book of life" does not refer to an actual bound group of pages, it is of course more than possible for it to mean that. It's just as possible that it is figurative.
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No one said he wasn't using a book. I said, "is it not possible . . ." And while I do believe that in this instance, "book of life" does not refer to an actual bound group of pages, it is of course more than possible for it to mean that. It's just as possible that it is figurative.


Well, David believed it was literal.............I think I'll stick with his view. Psa 69:28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.
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Well, David believed it was literal.............I think I'll stick with his view. Psa 69:28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.


Or David could have simply been speaking in a figurative sense. It just seems to me that when the Bible applies human conditions to God, the writer is merely doing the best he can to relate things in terms humans can understand. For example, I don't necessarilly thing there will be "streets of gold" or even streets at all, in heaven. I see that as a human doing the best he can to describe the grandness of heaven by using something (gold) that we as humans see as grand. Now, I could be absolutely wrong and there could be mile after mile of golden paved streets in heaven. But, I don't think we can even comprehend how marvelous heaven will be.
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Or David could have simply been speaking in a figurative sense. It just seems to me that when the Bible applies human conditions to God, the writer is merely doing the best he can to relate things in terms humans can understand. For example, I don't necessarilly thing there will be "streets of gold" or even streets at all, in heaven. I see that as a human doing the best he can to describe the grandness of heaven by using something (gold) that we as humans see as grand. Now, I could be absolutely wrong and there could be mile after mile of golden paved streets in heaven. But, I don't think we can even comprehend how marvelous heaven will be.


Well, which do you think is more reasonable, that David is writing a song to help his fellow humans related to God (as if he's a superior human thinker and he NEEDS to help them "understand" or "relate")or that it is GOD who is trying to relate to mankind directly by utilizing things (in this case, a book) that they are familiar with? Hmmm, do you think that what God told Abraham that I quoted in my previous post was "figurative", too? BTW, you have done a superior jOB highjacking my thread!
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Well, which do you think is more reasonable, that David is writing a song to help his fellow humans related to God (as if he's a superior human thinker and he NEEDS to help them "understand" or "relate")or that it is GOD who is trying to relate to mankind directly by utilizing things (in this case, a book) that they are familiar with? Hmmm, do you think that what God told Abraham that I quoted in my previous post was "figurative", too? BTW, you have done a superior jOB highjacking my thread!


Exactly.
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Let me be clear right from the start that I'm not trying to argue, and that I'm trying to understand this position clearly from God's Word--before I start asking questions. I don't want anyone accusing me of anything other than looking for the Truth. If it is true that all the names of humankind are written in the Book of Life, then at what point are the ones who are not saved blotted out? (My friend who told me this did not have enough background to explain it, only the fact she took the teaching at face value. I want Scripture.)



Yes, lets be clear, Hold on a moment, you asked a question, I replied, nothing more.

If I thought you were going to have an attitude, I would not have replied. Why so touchy?
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I could only speculate, guess, at the point and time ones name is blotted out of the book of life. I do not believe we are given the point and time this happens.

Perhaps it is at the point a persons heart has harden so hard that they will never accept Christ as Savior. Them perhaps its at the person death who died having rejecting Jesus as Savior.

One thing seems sure, that all who stand before Jesus at the great white throe judgment have been blotted out of the book of life.


I might add this, I disagree with Mr. PTwild much of the time, yet I don't see why y'all are giving him such a hard time about the book of life. I've heard many who have asked, "Could it be there is not really a 'book of life?'" That God is using this as a figure of speech for our benefit? For we know that God can keep up with everything without writing it down in a book. Yet I must say, with the language used in Revelation 20:15 and other verses I feel it is a real book and it is for our benefit.


I might add, the Mormons keeps a book and within the pages they've got all their members names. Plus they believe in being baptized for the dead, and so they include those too. While claiming the 1st thing God will do on that day is go pick up that book, and only those names that are written in their book will be saved.

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Yes, lets be clear, Hold on a moment, you asked a question, I replied, nothing more.

If I thought you were going to have an attitude, I would not have replied. Why so touchy?


You are simply reading into something that isn't there, Jerry. I try and give people the benefit of the doubt, as my mother always taught me, but others do not, so I stated my reasons for asking the question right in the beginning because of that fact. Some people come right on and pick a hard topic to just stir the pot and make people mad. I've not been here in quite some time, and I realized that there are many people on the board now that I am not familiar with and vice versa. I wanted to make sure that they knew where I was coming from. I did not have an attitude either when I said that I was waiting for a reply from you. I was actually looking forward to hearing what you had to say on the topic because you are a pastor and should be able to help explain what my friend told me better since you followed the same interpretation. I do have some knowledge of Scripture, but I am not well learned, nor have I been in an IFB church all of my life. I have never heard this topic preached in the IFB churches that I've attended as of yet, and it made sense to me to inquire of those here to see what the general consensus was, since, this is of course an IFB board.

I am quite perplexed, though, how some people come on the board propagating false religion and heresy and people will debate with them all day long, even sometimes sympathize with their position, but when someone asks a genuine Bible question, they are treated quite the opposite. I am not a heretic, and I am not here to argue. I was just looking for some answers backed up with the Word of God.
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I could only speculate, guess, at the point and time ones name is blotted out of the book of life. I do not believe we are given the point and time this happens.

Perhaps it is at the point a persons heart has harden so hard that they will never accept Christ as Savior. Them perhaps its at the person death who died having rejecting Jesus as Savior.

One thing seems sure, that all who stand before Jesus at the great white throe judgment have been blotted out of the book of life.


I might add this, I disagree with Mr. PTwild much of the time, yet I don't see why y'all are giving him such a hard time about the book of life. I've heard many who have asked, "Could it be there is not really a 'book of life?'" That God is using this as a figure of speech for our benefit? For we know that God can keep up with everything without writing it down in a book. Yet I must say, with the language used in Revelation 20:15 and other verses I feel it is a real book and it is for our benefit.


I might add, the Mormons keeps a book and within the pages they've got all their members names. Plus they believe in being baptized for the dead, and so they include those too. While claiming the 1st thing God will do on that day is go pick up that book, and only those names that are written in their book will be saved.


Do you believe that the "blotting out" is permanent? ie. that God will never write it back in?
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When you say "living sinners who are punished by death", what do you mean exactly?

These verses:
Exd 32:32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
33 And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.

Psa 69:28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.

The Israelites who did not believe died in the wilderness. They were not numbered with true Israel. I suggest that in that sense it is different from the "book of life" comprising the redeemed, & is being used in a figurative sense for living under God's providence. They die under God's condenation.

Had God started a new dynasty with Moses, Moses saw that he would be breaking his promises to Abraham. As it was, that generation was blotted out.

Psa 95:10 Forty years long was I grieved with [this] generation, and said, It [is] a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:
11 Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

That is used as a warning in Hebrews.
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I have heard it said that there is the Lambs Book of Life - the one in which all of those who are saved will be written - and that there is a book of life. The book of life being the living. *shrugs*


HC, you got any idea where I can research this? At first, I didn't understand what Covenanter was saying, but, it does not say Book of Life in the verses in OT he quoted....it says "book of the living". I hadn't thought about that. I'm sure someone out there is screaming "Does it REALLY matter?? Get saved!" Yeah, well, I think it does matter. Brother Matt posted a thread in which he asked whether or not young children/babies would be taken in the rapture, and also others brought up in the same thread about the age of accountability and such. If ALL names are written in the Book of Life right from the beginning then all little children's names would be there due to that reason. This could make this an easy explanation. However, I find the blotting thing prOBlematic for my thinking, though, and maybe it is just how I'm currently perceiving it, I don't know. If all children's names are written there from birth, then at that "age of accountability" what happens? Is it blotted if they do not accept Christ as their Savior right then? That doesn't make sense to me because many people get saved even as elderly people. If it is at death, it wouldn't make sense to me either because you have a verse in Revelation 17:8 and Rev 13:8 where there are people on the earth whose names are said NOT to be in the book. Once a name is blotted, can it be re-written? Confusing.
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HC, you got any idea where I can research this? At first, I didn't understand what Covenanter was saying, but, it does not say Book of Life in the verses in OT he quoted....it says "book of the living". I hadn't thought about that. I'm sure someone out there is screaming "Does it REALLY matter?? Get saved!" Yeah, well, I think it does matter. Brother Matt posted a thread in which he asked whether or not young children/babies would be taken in the rapture, and also others brought up in the same thread about the age of accountability and such. If ALL names are written in the Book of Life right from the beginning then all little children's names would be there due to that reason. This could make this an easy explanation. However, I find the blotting thing prOBlematic for my thinking, though, and maybe it is just how I'm currently perceiving it, I don't know. If all children's names are written there from birth, then at that "age of accountability" what happens? Is it blotted if they do not accept Christ as their Savior right then? That doesn't make sense to me because many people get saved even as elderly people. If it is at death, it wouldn't make sense to me either because you have a verse in Revelation 17:8 and Rev 13:8 where there are people on the earth whose names are said NOT to be in the book. Once a name is blotted, can it be re-written? Confusing.

I don't, but I can find out.
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