We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

What is the significance of Revelation 3:5?

“If you conquer, you will be clothed like them in white robes, and I will not blot your name out of the book of life…”

If God is only the God of certainties, it is not clear how he can honestly speak in conditional terms (“If you conquer…”) and it is not clear why he would have to blot anyone’s name out of the book of life. If he has always been certain who will and will not “conquer,” why record the names of those he knows from the start—from all eternity!—will not conquer in the first place (cf. Exod. 32:33)?

Other scriptures describe names being recorded in God’s book of life from the foundation of the world (cf. Rev. 13:8, 17:8; for further explanation of how verses such as these square with Open Theism, see here and here). But no passage states that the names were written at or before the foundation of the world—which is what one would expect if the classical view of the future as exhaustively settled is true.

This verse also exposes the general inadequacy of the classical explanation of verses which show change in God. It explains such verses by saying that they speak to us in terms of how things appear (“phenomenological anthropomorphisms”), not as they truly are. But (however literally or figuratively we take this), when has anyone ever been privy to God’s book of life? The reason why this and many other verses don’t easily square with the classical explanation is that their subject matter lies outside the human purview. They describe what God thinks, feels, intends, or writes in his “private journal,” as it were. If any verses describe God as he truly is and not just how he appears to us, they are these verses!

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics:
Verse:

Related Reading

Don’t Wilberforce’s achievements refute your stance on the separation of faith and politics?

Question: William Wilberforce was a Christian whose passionate involvement in politics almost single-handedly brought an end to the slave trade in 19th century England. Don’t his achievements show the importance of Christians being involved in politics, thus refuting your contention that Christian’s should keep their faith and values separate from politics? Answer: First, while I…

Resisting Evil

The New Testament refers to Satan as the “god of this age” and the “ruler of the power of the air” (2 Cor 4:4; Eph.2:2). In the first century Jewish worldview, “air” referred to the domain of spiritual authority over the earth. The author, Paul, was thus saying that the spiritual environment of the earth…

How do you respond to Ruth 1:13?

Because her husband and two sons had died, Naomi says to her two daughter-in-laws (Ruth and Orpah), “[I]t has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me” (1:13, cf. vs. 20). Some compatibilists cite this passage to support the conclusion that all misfortune is…

Isn’t the World Unsafe If God Doesn’t Control Everything?

If God isn’t in control of everything, the world feels unsafe. If the future is open and if things can happen outside of God’s will, what guarantee is there that there is a point to a person’s suffering? Maybe it’s all just bad luck. My experience has been that many of those who honestly examine…

Dealing With Objections to Open Theism, Part I

There are four major objections to Open Theism. Today we will deal with the first two and then tomorrow the third and fourth. For a basic introduction to Open Theism, click here. Objection #1: The open view denies omniscience. It is often argued that the open view denies the omniscience of God, even saying things…

Topics:

Doesn’t Psalms 139:16 refute the Open View of the future?

One of the passages most frequently cited in attempts to refute the open view of the future is Psalm 139:16. Here David says that God viewed him while he was being formed in the womb (vs. 15) and then adds: “[Y]our eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in…