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Revelation 13
8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been killed. 9 If anyone has an ear, let him hear.
whose name has not been written
We will look more at what the Book of Life is about, but first I want to look into how, why and who is involved in whether or not names show up there as well as why they remain there or not.
Names involve identity and character as we have pointed out previously. When Moses asked to see God's glory up close and personal, it was His name that God declared, yet the words He used described what His character is like, not about physical characteristics or titles. The same applies to God's reflectors. What is most significant us, far beyond our physical condition or even our behavioral conformity to rules, is the condition of our spirit. It is in this way that we were designed to closely reflect and resemble God, for God is Spirit, and worship always involves our spirit.
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:24)
Our identity is perceived in our spirit, and the origin for our reflection is to be our Creator. This is how we worship Him in spirit and in truth, but it needs to be the truth about God that Jesus reveals. We must receive His truth about God before we can in turn reflect that same truth. In the process of reflecting the real truth about God seen most explicitly in Jesus Christ His Son, the likeness of God – a matured character like God – can become our permanent condition through the indwelling presence of God. Our condition/character/name, then comes to match the identity of what we experience as true about God. This is the same identity as what Jesus matured that perfectly reflected God's character, and our name/character is to be transformed to be the same as His.
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is. Everyone who has this hope set on him purifies himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 3:2-3)
Yet who determines in the end whether or not our names are found in the Book of Life? In the verses we have examined previously, we learn that everyone's names are enrolled in the Book, for it is a record book of all humanity that God predestined as collective reflectors of His image, the purpose and reason for what it means to be a human. A name written in the Book of Life then simply means existing as a human reflector of God. So if we consent for God's Spirit to dwell in us, our name remains in that book as evidence of our willingness to continuously reflect God's glory.
What is unavoidably obvious however is that humans are not reflecting the true image of God but our lives are much closer to reflecting the character of the great apostate and accuser of God. So how do we reconcile this with what God designed for us to do but has been hijacked at the fall when our first parents chose to embrace a different identity/family name from what they were created to be? What principles were manipulated by Satan to subvert the design of God and turn it into a weapon against Him to amplify lies about God rather than reflect the true glory of God?
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in God's likeness. He created them male and female, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. Adam lived one hundred thirty years, and became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. (Genesis 5:1-3)
This summary description has a discrepancy that is important to sort out in light of the underlying principles involved. Notice the difference from the original account in Genesis 1.
God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion...." God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
How do we reconcile that apparently differing accounts? My perception is that the description found in chapter 5 may well be better understood as referring to the principle involving character development as well as the strong generational impact that character has to ensuing generations. In the Hebrew there is no word to be specifically translated as 'in' for the phrase made him in God's likeness. It seems clear enough in first account of this creation that the likeness was glaringly absent in verse 27 describing the actual activity of creating Adam while it was clearly the intent stated by God in the planning stage. For me, understanding the meaning of the passage in chapter 5 would mean viewing it as intent or the operative principle embedded into our very design that involves our participation in developing our own likeness/character by continuing to reflect God's true image.
This key operative principle is always present and active in all of our lives and is generational. The character, disposition and habits of thinking we cultivate and allow to shape our personality and character are unavoidably passed on to our children as a foundation from which they begin their own additional development. This may at first sound terribly unfair when we consider the horrific effects of the curse passed down to all of us by Adam's choice to join in Satan's rebellious spirit against heaven. The examples of babies born with predispositions toward alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual perversion and every other evil influence inherited from evil traits developed in our ancestors, all tempt us to feel resentful that such should be our state from no fault of our own. Yet it is part of the design of humanity for a reason, and that reason is more important than the ill effects of the curse it has become in plunging the entire human race into the abyss of evil propensities inherited from all the bad choices of generations before us.
This statement that Adam became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image is an acknowledgement of this principle that both sin and desires for good are impossible to avoid being passed on to our children. The parents of Seth passed on their disposition, both good and bad to their children. Keep in mind that this came after the story of Cain and Abel, so that also impacts the meaning of this statement at this point in the narrative.
Cain and Abel also received predispositions from their parents. How much Cain's spirit of resistance to God's love was a result of the disposition of his parent's at the time of his conception may be very significant, but we don't have the information to know what condition of spirit Adam and Eve had at the time of Cain's conception except that they were experiencing extreme remorse for all the tragic developments ensuing from their choice to eat from the forbidden Tree as well as losing much of their authority to govern the world to Satan.
Yahweh God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. (this us is translated from Elohim meaning the gods or the supernatural ones. This could potentially include Satan as well as Satan had now become the god of this world and certainly was into both good and evil) Now, lest he put forth his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever..." Therefore Yahweh God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man; (compare the Holy Spirit who drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. See Mark 1:11-12) and he placed Cherubs at the east of the garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
The man knew Eve his wife. She conceived, and gave birth to Cain, and said, "I have gotten a man with Yahweh's help." (Here we see the seeds of our penchant toward trying to save ourselves with God's help rather than resting totally in His love and care for us) Again she gave birth, to Cain's brother Abel. (Notice too how Cain is the reference point rather than Abel having a standalone identity) Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. (Genesis 3:22 – 4:2)
Cain was conceived when his parents were experiencing possible the greatest feelings of remorse possible. Additionally there were likely feelings of wanting to blame each other that began immediately when God came to the garden right after they sinned. Adam and Eve find solace in sexual intimacy which is one of the most powerful patterns repeated throughout history, and the resulting impacts on the babies conceived under such circumstances are far greater than most people realize.
In chapter 5 we are told that Seth was conceived in Adam's likeness and image. This is in contrast to Adam originally being created in God's image with potential to develop God's likeness. What this also alerts us to is that Seth inherited from Adam a partially formed character that was already defective because it was infected with the elements of selfishness and sin unlike how his father was created. Yet by this time after the tragic experiences involving the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, the realization of their need for redemption from heaven likely became much more clear in the parents of Seth and this helped to predispose the direction of his life toward more loyalty to God that was also passed down generationaly from him all the way to Noah.
This moves us into the next phrase of this passage in Revelation as to the meaning of what is meant by the foundation of the world. What world? Whose version of our world?
Start here
from the foundation of the world
What kind of foundation is this? Merely a physical one? Not entirely. What about the conceptualization of our world in God's mind and heart and executed as described in the first two chapters of Genesis? More likely. The foundation of our world includes God's foreknowledge of everything that would happen as the outgrowth of His creation. So as far as timing, when might this refer to? Let's gather more clues to see what might distill out of them.
Brace yourself like a man, for I will question you, then you answer me! "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding. Who determined the measures of it, if you know? Or who stretched the line on it? Whereupon were the foundations of it fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:3-7)
Jesus spoke all these things in parables to the multitudes; and without a parable, he didn't speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying, "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world." (Matthew 13:34-35)
Then the King will tell those on his right hand, 'Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; (Matthew 25:34)
Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified. What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who didn't spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? (Romans 8:28-32)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ; even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without blemish before him in love; having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely bestowed favor on us in the Beloved, (Ephesians 1:3-6)
This predestination is not about God preselecting some and pre-rejecting some as many mistakenly imagine. Our destiny by creation design is to reflect God's glory just as did Jesus while He lived as a human here on earth. His life defines our true identity we too may experience if we will only consent.
Sin defaces the image of God in us, yet our true identity does not come from our behavior, either good or bad, but is given us by the One who created us to develop a character reflective of His. The only way any name can be removed from the Book of Life then is when heaven has to respectfully acknowledge the determined choice to lock onto an identity foreign to the image of the God reflected by Jesus Christ. Thus the Book of Life is not composed of arbitrary selections by God of who will be saved, but it is simply reflective of the choices of each human deciding for themselves whose image they have chosen to shape their character and set it for eternity.
For we who have believed do enter into that rest, even as he has said, "As I swore in my wrath, they will not enter into my rest;" although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. (Hebrews 4:3)
The world as God designed and created it was very different from the hijacked world redefined and distorted through sinister mischief of the throne of iniquity.
Therefore also the wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets and apostles; and some of them they will kill and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; (Luke 11:49-50)
For Christ hasn't entered into holy places made with hands, which are representations of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place year by year with blood not his own, or else he must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:24-26)
knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a faultless and pure lamb, the blood of Christ; who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of times for your sake, (1 Peter 1:18-20)
The ransomed of Yahweh shall return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy shall be on their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. I, even I, am he who comforts you: who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who shall be made as grass; and have forgotten Yahweh your Maker, who stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and fear continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he makes ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor? The captive exile shall speedily be freed; and he shall not die and go down into the pit, neither shall his bread fail. For I am Yahweh your God, who stirs up the sea, so that the waves of it roar: Yahweh of Armies is his name. I have put my words in your mouth, and have covered you in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and tell Zion, You are my people. (Isaiah 51:11-16)
This brings a fresh perspective to the instruction of Jesus.
Nevertheless, don't rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. (Luke 10:20)
