Blotters in Heaven?  (Part 2 of 2)

4.  The Editable Book

Traditionally, once a book is published, it is fixed.  If you wanted to make an amendment, it would be in a subsequent edition, which does not withdraw all previous copies with the old texts.  Similarly, some tapes are designed only to record.  Once done, the information they carry is sealed.  It cannot be edited or erased. The Book of Life is different.  It is constantly being updated, depending on the lifestyle of each one whose name is there, as they overcome or are overcome by abominations that defile garments.

5.  The Books and the Book

There are “books,” and there is “the Book.”  The books keep a record of everyone’s deeds, providing a basis for appraising them.  The Book has the list of names of overcomers.  The dead, after they have ceased to exist on the earth, step into in the next phase where the books are opened, and they are judged “according to their works, by the things which were written in the books” – not the Book.

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books (Revelation 20:12).

The books record works, the Book records names, specific names. Heaven keeps a record, because “God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love” (Hebrews 6:10). Paul also referenced that Book in connection to his partners on Heaven’s assignment; “true yokefellow” who “laboured with me in the gospel …  whose names are in the book of life” (Philippians 4:3).

6.  The Testimony of Moses

Before Apostle John and Jesus in the New Testament, earlier prophets had referenced the heavenly Book many times. For example, Moses, while interceding for his guilty nation, pleaded thus with God:

31 … Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.

32 Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin–; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.

 33 And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of MY book (Exodus 32:31-33).

Moses was aware that God in Heaven kept a book in which names were written, any of which names could be blotted “out” by the same Hand that wrote the name. God not only confirmed that but announced that the book was His property.  He called it “my book.”  Moses also acknowledged it as “THY BOOK which THOU hast WRITTEN.”

The blotting out of any name from that book is not an action of the divine Writer’s arbitrary discretion; it is determined by the daily lifestyle of each one on the list.  Essentially, sin is what threatens anyone’s name there, for “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of MY book.” God has blotters.

In Deuteronomy 9:14 and 29:20, it is shown that even earth takes note when Heaven blots out anyone’s name.  The blotting out is apparently published so universally that everywhere “under heaven” notes it and responds to that person accordingly.  That was one thing that even bloody Cain feared (Genesis 4:14).

God blots out sins (Psalm 51:9; Jeremiah 18:23), but He also blots out names from His book.  When a present state of persisting sinfulness contradicts the previous penitence that guaranteed a name in the Book, the blotters in Heaven may be activated (Ezekiel 3:20).

7.  Once Written, Always Written?

When Pilate wrote over the cross of Jesus, “KING OF THE JEWS,” the Jews protested, requesting him to edit what he had done, but Pilate replied that what had been written had been written (John 19:19-22), but not so about the Book of which we speak.  Its contents are constantly being updated, by the same Hand.  There are theologies that argue otherwise, insisting that once a name has entered that blessed Book, no matter what one does thereafter, that name cannot be erased.  For them, the names are written with indelible ink.

In the Old Testament, Moses not only showed awareness of that Book but also noted that names in it could be blotted out if the choices of a listed person should deviate from the values that qualified that name on that list in the first place.   In Luke 10:20, Jesus cautioned His disciples about their misplaced celebration and advised that they should rather rejoice that their names were in Heaven, suggesting that names could as well be removed.  If that were not the worry, then Jesus’ caution makes little sense.

In case that was not clear enough, the Author of the Book repeats in Revelation 3:5: “He that overcometh … I will not blot out his name out of the book of life.”  Clear language.  Blotting out is a possibility, otherwise Jesus was wasting words again.  Jesus was not there speaking to sinners in Babylon; He was speaking to a Church, to people already saved; people in a verifiable church at a verifiable location.

8.  A Lesson from Judas

Jesus called twelve disciples.  Judas was one of them.  Peter remarked, “For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry” (Acts 1:17).  In other words, Judas was whatever any of the other disciples was; no less called than any of them.  When Jesus sent out the Twelve and gave them power over devils, Judas was one of them (Matthew 10:1-4).  When they returned with the testimony of triumphs over devils, and Jesus said that their names were written in Heaven, Judas was one of them.  If that were not the case, and Judas’ name was not included on the list then, Jesus would clearly have stated that Judas was an exception in that declaration.  When Jesus washed their feet in later days when Judas had backslidden and Satan had entered him (Luke 22:3), Jesus clearly announced that although they had all been washed, they were not all clean, and Judas was the exception (John 13:10-11).

Of the fallen Judas, Jesus lamented in dreadful words, in view of the judgment that awaited him: “The Son of Man will die as the Scriptures say he will, but how terrible for that man who will betray the Son of Man! It would have been better for that man if he had never been born!” (Matthew 26:24, Good News Translation).  That is not the kind of statement anyone makes about someone whose name is still in the Book in Heaven; someone entering triumphantly into Paradise.  Judas had fallen into “perdition” (John 17:12).  A name previously in the Book had been blotted out by “transgression” (Acts 1:25), and Jesus was announcing a grief.  Judas got so blotted out that Heaven had to announce a vacancy: “Let another take his office” (Acts 1:20, NKJV), and there were not a few prepared to take his privileged place.

God is never short of replacements. Sometimes the replacements that He finds are despised and apparently inferior candidates, as if to shame their nobler fallen predecessors, like Esther the young orphaned immigrant girl who replaced Vashti the beautiful queen, David the shepherd boy of shameful motherhood who replaced Saul the tall and elegant king, Saul the persecutor and murderer whom God later found in replacement of Peter in the ministry to the gentiles, and a hitherto unheard-of Matthias that took the place of Judas who had cast out devils, whose name on Heaven’s list the Son Himself had announced on earth.

If “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20;15); if that Book is the only list that admits into Heaven; if to be missing from the Book means eternal damnation, then we may well connect the dots on the implications of Jesus’ lamentation over Judas.  In one of His recorded final reports to God, Jesus said this about Judas: “those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition” (John 17:12).  Nothing is “lost” if it was never had.  You do not lose a key you never had.  Nothing dies that was never alive.  Judas could not have been “lost” if he had always been lost even before Jesus had had him.  Lostness is only a secondary condition.

9.  The Blotters on Earth

Jesus strongly warned of the apocalyptic tragedy that would befall the person whose confession does not match his profession; who repeatedly says with his lips, “Lord, Lord” but his actions, what he “doeth,” is contrary to the will of the Father in Heaven (Matthew 7:21).  According to Jesus, in that group of people the ‘works’ of whose hands contradict the words of their mouth, will be three categories of frontline religious figures:  firstly, those that prophesy; then, those that cast out devils; and finally, those that do wonderful works.  And Jesus said they would be “many’ in that disastrous number.  Many is not few at all.

Jesus acknowledges that their works would have been done verily in His name rather than through some occult powers, yet their names having been erased by the blotters of their persisted works of “iniquity,” the Master will announce to them on the final Day, “I NEVER KNEW YOU: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23).  Such an awful pronouncement suggests a name so erased by the blotters of iniquity as if it never was written; so blotted out that there isn’t a recollection of them despite their mighty works and repeated loud proclamations of His name and His lordship.  Supposing that elaborate spiritual activity equalled divine approval, they had condoned and ‘worked’ iniquity, thereby activating the blotters on earth.

10.  Epilogue

Anyone may comment about an author’s book, but the right remains with the author to write or edit his book the way he wants.  Many would wish that names in the Book of Life were not erasable.  That wish has been built into elaborate theologies, but the Author insists that He not only can add to but can also blot out from His Book.  It is His book, after all.  We may argue about it but cannot edit it.  Heaven not only has ink that writes – it also has blotters that erase.

From The Preacher’s diary,

June 17, 2026.