There is a dramatic scene portrayed in Rev. 20. It’s a judgement scene, and God is seen seated on a great throne and the Book of Life was opened (Rev. 20:12).
Some people desperately want their name in the Guinness book of Records – it’s their claim to fame, their little piece of immortality. I remember reading of one man who got his name in the record books and said, It may be only one line but it sure beats being invisible. I’m not convinced of his statement. Getting my name in the Guinness Book of records doesn’t interest me but I sure do want my name in the Book of Life – now that sure beats being invisible. There has been a lot of conjecture over the years as to how much the ancients knew about life after death. They knew there was a heavenly home – Moses knew about the book of life (Ex. 32:32).
Would you want to look at your personal file? Not interested, because it couldn’t tell you a thing about your life you didn’t already know since you have been present all your life? Afraid of what you might find – ie. How much does the Government know about me?
Imagine if we had access to the Lambs book of life – what if we saw our name written there? What if we didn’t see our name there? The fact is we don’t have freedom of information to that record. The reasons are fairly obvious. If we saw our name there the temptation might be to slacken off in our faith and obedience, believing we must be going to be faithful till death (let him that stands take heed lest he fall – besides, who cares, my name is there therefore I’m going regardless). One could suggest that the encouragement of seeing our name there would be so great that we would sacrifice anything for the cause of Christ knowing that in Heaven we had a home waiting for us. But would that be sufficient? God has provided both the terror of Hell and the beauty of Heaven to motivate man, so therefore man must need it. To look and find our name there today would not guarantee that we would go to Heaven – God says He can blot people’s names out of the book (Ex. 32:33). “Once saved – always saved” is not true.
Besides, if having access to the Book of Life was a present reality, what would it do to us to not see our name there? Would one just give up in despair? Would one continue in the Christian life knowing that blessings come from righteous behaviour? Would one adopt the view I might as well go for a sheep as for a lamb and live a life of wild abandon? Would one question what one had believed to do in order to be saved? Some people wants their friends to look at their exam results for them – some won’t look it up on the WEB but rather wait for the letter and then get someone else to open it.
The fact of the matter is there are those that live life convinced their name is in that book and there are those who are convinced their’s is not, freely admitting they are Hell-bound. Quite apart from the fact there will be many shocks on Judgement Day (Matt.7:21-23), it is possible to have confidence in the record (Luke 10:20). But Rev. 20:12 also mentions that there are other books that are opened in judgement – books, plural.
These are the books of the Bible. If we did not know this we would be forced to this by the very fact there are no viable alternatives to the question “What books?”. (cf. John 12:48; 1 Cor. 14:37) But are the books opened now? In Deut 4:8, Moses staggered at the blessing of the law. That being so, we should stagger at the blessing of the entire Bible.. In Deut. 30:12,13, Moses told the children of Israel that the law was not some strange system, unattainable and unknowable. Israel didn’t have to climb to heaven or dig into the depths to get the law – God came down and gave it on Sinai (though men will go to great lengths to search for other treasure). Paul appropriates the language in Rom. 10:6-8 and applies it to the New Testament. God has done the work in sending and sacrificing Christ, the Spirit has done His work in revealing and preserving the truth, and it is up to us to respond to what God has given as a gift. How many Bibles are open? How many of us take advantage of the Freedom of Information?
God has told us so much: I don’t call you servants but friends – all things I have heard of the Father I declare to you (John 15:15). God has freely given us all things Rom. 8:32). He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His glory and virtue (2 Pet. 1:2-4). The faith which has been once and for all delivered to us (Jude 3). You shall know the truth (John 8:32). What if, in judgement, God opens Genesis and begins with creation, not evolution? How many will be embarrassed by the fact that God is perfectly capable of revealing an evolutionary theory as He is a creation history, if indeed that were the true origin of man? The Bible writers wrote about many complex issues. But the point is I can open Genesis now. I can know who I am – not a heap of molecules in motion that happened by chance and has no purpose, but a creature made in the image of God with an eternal purpose (Col. 1:16; Rev. 4:11). I can learn that I am a sinner (Rom. 3:23), which is in accord with what I know about myself, and I can learn that death entered into the world because of sin. I can learn there is a penalty for sin (Rom. 6:23), but I can also learn that death is not the end (Heb. 9:27).
Imagine a Judgement Day scene: you’re standing in line awaiting judgement and you’re seeing people in the line ahead of you being judged: you see God open the book of life and the books. You see an ex-prostitute go into Heaven after hearing Jesus say, Well done, good and faithful servant. You see a tax-gatherer go into Heaven. You see an ex-murderer go into heaven. You see an upright middle-class citizen departing to the left after being told, I never knew you. Likewise you see a man with a back-to-front collar exiting stage left. What do you think? There’s more truth to this imaginary scene than might be imagined for Jesus described something similar to this in Matt. 21:31.
Do you think that these books have some things to say that are different from what I think? (Isa. 55:8,9) One of the persistent fallacies is that men go to Heaven by their goodness – that they stand on the right side of the ledger because they were respectable and were never in jail. Gal. 2:21 denies this. Christ died for all because all needed dying for! That includes you and me.
We need to open the books before the great day of Judgement. Two of my university friends used to bone up on past papers and prepare for questions that hadn’t been asked for a while, anticipating that the lecturer wouldn’t go to the trouble of preparing new questions. Many times they would guess right. We don’t have to do that with respect to the greatest exam of all. We have freedom of information and it will be an open-book test.