Revelation 5 uses the metaphor heavenly books. This is common in both the biblical and apocalyptic materials and is a stock image drawn from a court room scene. In Dan 7:10, for example, thrones are set in place and the Ancient of Days takes his place at the head of the court. Once the court was seated, “the books were opened.” Based on the content of these books, the blasphemous “little horn” is thrown into blazing fire. So what is the content of an “apocalyptic book”?
Sometimes these books record the names of the redeemed; or conversely, the names of the wicked are “blotted out” of the books. This is probably based on Exodus 32:32–33. In this non-apocalyptic text, the Lord says “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.” The Psalmist asks God to blot out the names of his oppressors from “the book of the living” (Ps 69:28). Originally this meant a name carved in stone that would be obliterated if the named-person offended the king. Perhaps this was based on a citizenship roll or something of the sort, but the idea a text exists containing the names of those who are part of the kingdom. Isaiah 4:3 some people have been destined to survive in Jerusalem, “everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem.” In 2 Baruch 24:1, the opened books contain both the righteous deeds of the righteous and the wicked deeds of the wicked. These books are opened after a period of oppression, “When horror seizes the inhabitants of earth, and they fall into many tribulations and further, they fall into great torments” (2 Baruch 25:3) after which the messiah comes.
In other apocalyptic contexts books contain hidden secrets sealed up to be revealed at the appropriate time. In Daniel 12:9-10 there are secrets sealed up in a book “until the end of time.” In Rev 10:4 John was prepared to write down what the seven thunders said, but he is told to “seal it up” and not writer it down. The seven thunders are therefore some hidden secret not to be revealed at that time. There are examples of this phenomenon in other apocalyptic books as well. In 1 Enoch, the seer has a great deal more revealed to him that he is permitted to write at that time,.
1 Enoch 81:1-2 Then he said unto me, “Enoch, look at the tablet(s) of heaven; read what is written upon them and understand (each element on them) one by one. So I looked at the tablet(s) of heaven, read all the writing (on them), and came to understand everything. I read that book and all the deeds of humanity and all the children of the flesh upon the earth for all the generations of the world.
In an expansion on the biblical story. Jubilees 32.20–22, at Bethel Jacob is given seven tablets determining everything that would happen to his sons in the future.
Jubilees 32.20–22 And Jacob watched until he went up into heaven. And he saw in a vision of the night, and behold an angel was descending from heaven, and there were seven tablets in his hands. And he gave (them) to Jacob, and he read them, and he knew everything which was written in them, which would happen to him and to his sons during all the ages.”
But more commonly the books contain the sins of the person under judgment. In Jude 4 the judgment against the false teachers was written down (προγράφω) long before they secretly crept into the churches. In the Animal Apocalypse, the names of the good and bad shepherds are carefully recorded in books for future judgment (1 Enoch 89:62; 90:14-22). In 1 Enoch 104:7 sins are investigated and “written down every day.” In Jubilees 5:13-14 sins are carefully written down and judgments are “are ordained, written, and engraved.” Describing the judgment awaiting the sins of Lot’s daughters, the writer of Jubilees says:
Jubilees 16:9 “And behold it is commanded and it is engraved concerning all of his seed in the heavenly tablets so that he will remove them and uproot them and execute their judgment just like the judgment of Sodom and so that he will not leave seed of man for him on the earth in the day of judgment.”
Bringing this back to the throne room in Revelation 5, the scroll functions similarly the last category in that the opening of the scroll subjects the world to judgment. The final judgment is the coming of the Messiah to set up thrones and render justice (Rev 20:1-6). By taking the Hebrew Bible as the immediate background and tracing the development of a metaphor in the Second Temple Period apocalypses, we are more likely to understand the metaphor as John intended.
Growing up I have always known about the book of life, but I never thought about the names of the wicked would be blotted out. And the verse in Exodus that says, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book” (Exodus 32:32-33). What falls into sinning against God? Is that blasphemy? It is amazing how much information can come out of the books such as Enoch and Jubilees, each book aids in the understanding the book Revelation.
The first time that I heard about the book of life was actually during a Billy Graham sermon. I remember the driving force behind the book of Life is that we want to be in the book of life when judgment day occurs. The Exodus 32:32-33 passage is very interesting because sinning against God technically would mean that any sin would be a sin against God. The Jubilees verse is also very interesting as it makes true reference to the book of life directly. The last line in verse 22 reading “in all ages” intrigues me the most. It’s cool to know that our names are in the book of life and that the angel of the Lord will one day read our names and accept us into the kingdom of God.
It’s an interesting visual to me to imagine that all of a person’s sins are practically logged. I remember when my first grade teacher said that some of us were going to have bigger books of sin than others. Mrs. Blaine was a charmer, I’m sure I’ve done her proud.
I’ve compared God to being the “ultimate author” before, and these kinds of metaphors — both in context of John and the Old Testament, further my image of that, especially in the context of “blotting out” ones names. It just goes to show how much the Old Testament can tie our understanding of the New Testament together.
It is very easy to be intimidated by the book of life, and have a record of wrongdoings. But I think that it is important to remember the life that comes from it, and that we do in fact inherit life from having our name recorded.
This blog post from P. Long is absolutely helpful and educational in better understanding both Biblical and other apocalyptic literature’s examples of heavenly texts. P. Long brings to attention various examples throughout the Bible to display all possible contents of heavenly texts, using passages such as Daniel 7:10, Exodus 32-32-33, Psalm 69:28, and Isaiah 4:3.
I often have wondered, even at a younger age, what all does God’s library contain and looked upon those passages with great curiosity. I imagined these heavenly texts as some type of old, holy literature like something from Star Wars, like those heavenly texts were some type of ancient Jedi text. And in some ways, perhaps that analogy works. However, I really appreciate the clarification P. Long provides in this blog post on what those heavenly texts truly contains.
The area of biblical books and texts is always interesting to me because there are always so many theories as to what is said on the inside, and it is hard to figure out which one is the most accurate. We see all over the Bible being talked about the Book of Life (Rev. 13:8, Rev. 21:27, Phil. 4:3) and our names being written down once we are saved, so naturally that is the theory I would tend to believe. The book represents Gods list of everyone who has come to know Him and it sort of becomes the list of who will all be entering Heaven one day. However, there are more than one book mentioned in the Bible. In Revelation it talks about scrolls a few times and in P. Longs post as well as other articles I have read talk about the various theories on what that text said. A couple of the main theories are the book represent the list of those who have been redeemed through salvation. Another is that the scroll contains hidden secrets that will be revealed at the right time such as apocalyptic and end times. Another common theory is that the scroll contains the sins of all humans and will be used for judgment. These are all interesting to me and I can see all of them being accurate and it helps me understand the passages a little better.
This has always been something that I have had trouble with understanding. One thing that really gets me is about how of the stuff that I am reading is to be taken literally or is to looked at as a metaphor. When it comes to the apocalyptic books and the ones mentioned in the post are they something that when I read like the one in the beginning of the post saying “I will blot it out of my book” is that mean something deeper or is it to be taken at a deeper value. Being able to know read through more and more of the passages have given at least a sense of understanding to where I have began to understand a little allowing me to gain some clarity on the subject and helping me to feel like a fish out of water. This has also helped me to when I don’t understand anything I know that I have the trust that I will either figure it out later or it wasn’t meant for me to complete comprehend.
the book of revelation is always being comprised of words and messages that confused me. sometimes reading scriptures in revelation i found myself questioning whether or not God meant that in a literal sense or metaphorical sense. As I learned more about the bible,understanding the context of revelation helped me see when there was use of metaphors or when it was being literal. Interestingly I found the context of scripture becoming easier to read as we dive deeper into the text and see the connect that were made by other authors. In the same sense it make me think when he stated ” I will blot out of your name” that meant this in a literal sense because this can be seen in other text.(Acts 3:19)