QUESTION: Please explain “I will not blot out your name from the Lamb’s Book of Life.” A man who I have been listening to says no name can be added, but your name can be blotted out?
ANSWER: That is erroneous, it comes from mistranslation. This is contained in the message to the church ages in Revelation 3:5., to the church of Sardis: ‘He that overcometh the same shall be clothed with white raiment and I will not blot his name out of the Book of Life. I will confess his name before my father and before his Angels.’ This is a positive statement. In the Ferrar Fenton version it says: ‘To he who overcometh I give white raiment of righteousness because his name is written in the Book of Life from whence it can never be erased.’
This King James Version is still positive but the Ferrar Fenton says it can never be erased. And we believe it can never be erased because in the Book of Romans we have this: ‘Those He did foreknow He did predestine to conform to the image of the son.’ So He started a positive program. Chose the elect before the foundation of the world, and His children where destined to arise in His own image and eventually in the climax of this age they were to put on His righteousness. So to say that anyone can have his name erased out of the Book of Life would be very foolish.