We have electronic mail from listener Charles Dazel in South Africa, Pastor John.

I love listening to the podcast each day.

If I'm correct, the Bible mentions the phrase, the book of life, about 14 times.

And quite a few of those passages mention getting blotted out of the book of life.

How does this not mean losing your salvation?

What would you say, Pastor John, to Charles?

When it comes to the doctrine of eternal security or perseverance of the saints, we need to

speak with precision.

And I think it's not quite precise to say, as Charles does, in quite a few of the scriptures

it mentions, you can be blotted out of the book of life.

I don't think it ever says you can be blotted out, at least not in the sense that sometimes

God does it.

It says, we will be blotted out if we fail to meet certain conditions.

Now whether that ever happens or in God's sovereignty can happen is another question.

I don't think so and let me try to show why.

The book of Revelation is the book that refers to this most often and it's the book that

has the text that sounds most problematical, I think.

So Revelation chapter 3 verse 5 says, he who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments

and I will not erase his name from the book of life and I will confess his name before

my father and his angels.

Now some say, well that's a foolproof text against the doctrine of the perseverance of

the saints or eternal security.

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