 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, click the NakedBiblePodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heiser's approach to the Bible, click on New Start Here at NakedBiblePodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 89, The Book of Life. I'm your layman, Trey Strickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser. Hey, Mike, how you doing this week? Very good. Good to hear your voice again. Yeah, welcome back from Colorado. How was that? It went well. I mean, we had, I'd say, well, estimates 50 to 70 people over the course of two nights, each night. So, nice crowd. People asked good questions. They were real attentive. We've met lots of people, so it was fun. That sounds good. So, this week, we're going to be talking about some heavenly books. Yeah. Yeah, this is, again, we're continuing sort of, if you can call a string of unrelated topics a series. This would be the latest installment of our topical items. And this one comes from, you know, their number of passages actually that actually make reference to things being written in heaven or heavenly books and specifically the Book of Life. So what I want to do is I want to go at least read these passages and then talk about where this idea comes from and sort of how to think about it, how to parse it. Again, how an ancient person would have perceived this sort of language and what it all meant, or at least could have meant. Could have meant. I mean, there's more than one option here because the language is actually used in different contexts, as we'll find. But just to give people an idea of what it is we're talking about, in Luke 10.20, for example, we read this. Jesus says, nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, again, the disciples that he sent out had power over demons. He said, don't rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. So there we get this writing language that somewhere there's some record in heaven of their names. You get the same idea in Philippians 4-3, where Paul writes, yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the Gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the Book of Life. Very clear reference there. A number of these are in the Book of Revelation. Revelation 3-5 says, the one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the Book of Life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. Revelation 13-8 and Revelation 17-8 are kind of close in what they say, close conceptually. But 13-8 says, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, this image of the beast in the context. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain. And then Revelation 17-8 says, the beast that you saw was and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast because it was and is not and is to come. Few more of these. Revelation 20 verse 12 says, and I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books, plural, were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the Book of Life, and the dead were judged by what was written in the books, apparently the first group, according to what they had done. And later on in that same passage in verse 15, it says, if anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. And lastly, Revelation 21-27 says, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. So again, in this final vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, we have another reference to the Book of Life. Now there are more than these. There are actually a number of these kinds of things in the Old Testament, and we're going to be getting to them. But what I want to do is sort of start with the ancient Near East and work our way into the Old Testament, and then a little bit into the Second Temple Period, then we'll come back to this point in the New Testament and talk about this sort of language. Again, conceptually, how all this would have been parsed, what it means again for our interpretation. So to start off in the ancient Near East, this idea actually does have a very ancient precedent. Now there are a couple of scholars who've made studies of this, one such article, just to pick one at random here, Shalom Paul wrote a book in the Columbia University Ancient Near Eastern Society Journal called The Heavenly Tablets and the Book of Life. And what Paul's article talks about are Sumerian and Mesopotamian parallels, or I should say precursors, to what we'll see in the Old Testament and of course what you see later on. So in the Ancient Near East, in the Mesopotamian, the Sumerian Mesopotamian material, their notion of this was that the gods were considered the determiners of people's destinies. Again, that's not really a foreign idea, not something that would be unexpected. But the gods would write their decisions for someone's destiny on what the Keneiform material refers to as, quote, tablets of destiny. So the idea here is not so much, at least in most of the references, not so much a predestined life in terms of the specifics. You'll get up, you'll eat breakfast, you'll turn left and you'll turn right, you'll go to work and this and that will happen. Rather, the idea is how long a person's going to live, the length of their life, when it will end. So the tablets of destiny idea in the Ancient Near East, again, is really focused on that kind of thing. Again, length of life, how long you'll live, so on and so forth. It gets a little more granular because there's also a record of what you do, good and evil, good or evil. So there are tablets that record misdeeds, errors, crimes, oaths that you break, and also good things that you do. So the gods, again, are recording what happens during your life. But there's also this idea that the gods have sort of determined how long you're going to live. If we think about it, I mean, we have this notion now, there's nothing theologically aberrant about it where we say, well, God knows how long I'm going to live. God knows when it's my time. God knows when my time is going to be up. Well, of course he does. So that idea, again, is not unfamiliar. But the notion that that is sort of recorded or written down somewhere is very, very ancient, even prior to what we think of it. Again, what we have is our own Testament. The issue, again, that isn't so clear is while the gods know how long you're going to live and they record, notice I'm using these terms deliberately, they know how long you're going to live while you're going to die and they record what you're doing. How do those things accord or not with a notion of predestination? And honestly, that is not so clear, even in the ancient Near Eastern material. Now, there's another thing to say here that in the ancient Near East, this idea, at least in terms of anything that's really specific, is sort of focused on kings. And again, this isn't surprising because most of the Sumerian Mesopotamian literature that was written and that has, of course, survived is about the gods and about the people that the gods install as kings. Because the kings are the ones that pay the scribes and the scribes, their royalty is the patron of the scribe, the scribal trade. And so you don't get scribes running around Mesopotamia recording everybody's life or tablets of destiny stories about them, but it's really focused on the destiny of the king and what the king does or not, which of course is going to, in Mesopotamian thinking, is going to determine whether the gods are happy or not, whether that king's dynasty is going to survive and bad things happen in the kingdom and so on and so forth. So a lot of the material that you get from the ancient Near East is focused on the royal figure. And I want to read an excerpt just as an example. This is from Andrew George's article. Andrew George might be familiar to some listeners. This is the guy who produced the latest critical edition of the Gilgamesh tablets. And you can buy his translation in the Penguin Classic series, his English translation of Gilgamesh. But George in an article in the Iraq Journal entitled Sennacherib and the Tablet of Destinies writes about a particular text named labeled K61-77 and K88-69, again, those are the tablet numbers. And he writes this, the tablet of destinies, the bond of supreme power, dominion over the gods of heaven and underworld, and the kingship of the Igigi and the Anunnaki, the secret of the heavens and the netherworld, the link of the canopy of Anu and Gonsir, the leash of the multitudes, which Asher, the king of the gods, took in his hand and held at his breast. Okay, so this is how, again, how this particular tablet is introduced. This is George's translation. And it goes on, it says, Asher, the king of the gods, took this in his hand, held it at his breast. This was the replica of his proper appearance. There was, this is me now breaking into this, but on this tablet, there's actually an image, a seal of Asher, again. So that's what the reference is here, too. He, Asher, grasped in his hand the leashes of the great heavens, the bond of the Igigi and the Anunnaki. In front of the representation of Asher, his lord, Sennacherib stood a representation of Sennacherib, king of the entire world, king of Assyria. So now, again, George is, again, just describing the nature of this object. And we have here on statements like, O Asher, father of heaven, king of the gods, determiner of destinies, you alone hold in your hands the tablet of destinies of the gods. Look after the reign of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, and determine as my destiny a fine destiny, a destiny of good health and kingship. So Sennacherib is appealing in this text to this particular god, Oshir in this case, asking the determiner of destinies to give him a good destiny. And so, again, there's a bit here in this text, at least in terms of the king of asking that something be done, is this predestination or not? Well, kind of in sort of, but if it was predestined, when did it already exist? Here we have Sennacherib asking for a good destiny. You could also read it as he's asking for help and the gods are up there thinking, well, okay, do we like this guy or not? So in other words, it wouldn't be predestined if you look at it that way. And the reason I'm getting into the whole predestined or not, is this just, is the idea behind these tablets or these books in heaven? And we're gonna go into the Old Testament, of course, on through into the new, but is the idea of a predestined account or a predestined fate? Is that what these tablets or books are about intrinsically or not? And as we're gonna see, the context vary just because these books exist and are referred to. And these are, I'm not arguing that we get to heaven someday and we're taken to a big library and God pulls out a book, so here's your record. But again, this is a metaphor for the fact that God keeps track and God knows, again, what our destiny is. God knows how long we're gonna live. God knows what we do. So the easiest way, again, in an ancient culture, whether it's biblical or pre-biblical, is to convey that idea. The easiest way to do it is the scribal trait because that's what scribes did. So again, when we see these things mentioned in scripture, the overarching point that the biblical writers want us, want the readers to get is that there's nothing that you do, good or bad, that goes unnoticed by God. He is omniscient. He knows all things. He knows what you're doing, what you didn't do, what you should have done, all that sort of stuff. And he knows when you're going, he knows the extent of your life. In some cases, it's clear that he knows your birth. He knows when you're going to die. But again, is that just knowledge that God has or does that knowledge require the idea of predestination? Now, for those who have read Unseen Realm, again, you know, I can't remember exactly what chapter it is, five, six, seven, something like that. I refer people to passages like 1 Samuel 23 where it's very clear that the fact that God foreknows something does not require that that thing was predestined. For the simple fact that in that chapter, you have two things that God foreknew that never happened. So by definition, foreknowledge did not necessitate predestination there. Now, it can. There are passages like that, obviously in the Bible as well, but it's not a foregone conclusion. And that same ambiguity is going to apply with respect to the idea of heavenly books. And it actually, again, is present in even earlier material with heavenly tablets. So in some cases, there might be some predestination going on. Other cases, there's not. And it's not parsed out for us. Now, again, the fundamental ideas here that enter into this are concepts of sovereignty, foreknowledge, omniscience, so on and so forth. Now, a lot of Christians who are listening to this, a lot of other people who are listening to this, they may not be Christians, sort of have a preconceived idea, a preconceived way that they think of sovereignty. And what I've already said at this point might even be in conflict with that. In fact, it probably is, because we sort of assume that foreknowledge requires predestination, but it doesn't. Again, we wanna be cautious and allow for sort of both directions as we proceed through the text that I'm gonna bring up here. And as they play out, especially in the Second Temple period, you're actually going to get the idea used in a variety of contexts. And not all of them require predestination or even have predestination or anything like that in view. So let's just proceed here with some Old Testament passages. I think, again, the variety here will become apparent. The concept is a lot wider than God predestinating something. So if we go, let's just start in Exodus. In Exodus 3232, this is a passage that probably will occur to many people listening to this. We have Moses saying to God in response to God's anger against Israel, but now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written against. So there's this notion that Moses' name is in a book. Again, it's not called the book of life here, but we can sort of presume that it is because in the context, it's a life or death issue. It's annihilation versus not being annihilated by God in his anger. So Moses is sort of offering to trade places. Annihilate me, get rid of me rather than this people. And if we could go back to the passage and Moses has some other things to say about why God, why you shouldn't do this because what will the nations say and all that sort of thing. But again, for our purposes here, there's this reference to a book. Again, this book that's written. We see it in Isaiah 4. We read, he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy. Everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem. Now, again, early in Isaiah, the book is gonna be about the impending exiles, plural, and so we have this notion of God knows who's going to be left alive in Jerusalem. So there's this book, there's a record of it. Again, it's a metaphor for the fact that God knows this stuff. Isaiah 65, verses six and seven, behold, God says, it is written before me. I will not keep silent, but I will repay. I will indeed repay into their lap both your iniquities and your father's iniquities together, says the Lord, because they made offerings on the mountains and insulted me on the hills, so on and so forth. They'll be repaid for their deeds. So here we have a reference again to a quote unquote book or person's sins being written down. Again, the idea being that God knows what you did and you're gonna be held accountable for it. Jeremiah 17, 13, we have this recorded for us. Oh, Lord, the hope of Israel. All who forsake you shall be put to shame. Those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water. Now, what's out about this is this phrase, written in the earth. Now, there's a reference to writing. Those who turn away from you shall be written, but in the earth, what does that mean? Well, interestingly enough, this is another verse. And again, if you've read Unseen Realm, you're gonna be familiar with this idea that I'm gonna talk about here. The word earth here is erets, which can also, it's one of the words used for the underworld. Again, the realm of the dead. So if you look at it that way, then the verse makes sense. Those who turn away from you shall be written in, again, the bad place in the underworld, in the realm of the dead. It would be a reference to people being left in shield as opposed to the righteous, whose hope was to be with the Lord. Those who turn away from the Lord, nope, you're gonna go to the realm of the death, the realm of the dead, and that's where you're gonna stay. So again, it's a negative thing, but again, for our purposes here, it deals with, again, this sort of written account. Psalm 69, 28, let them be blotted out of the book of the living. So now we get a book called The Book of the Living and let them not be enrolled among the righteous. So again, there's a record of the righteous versus the unrighteous. Daniel 7, again, this is, again, gonna be a familiar passage to a lot of listeners. This is Daniel's vision known mostly for the appearance of the Son of Man coming with the clouds and so on and so forth. But the scene is a divine council meeting where the fate of the beasts that are described in Daniel 7 is gonna be determined and, of course, carried out. But we read this in verse 10, describing, again, God's throne, a stream of fire issued and came out from before him before the ancient days. A thousand thousands served him and 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him. The court sat in judgment. There we have the reference to the divine council idea. The court sat in judgment and the books plural were opened. So again, God has this record. We get a similar idea in Daniel 10 in verse 21. Again, this is the chapter with Michael, and the Prince of Persia, the Prince of Greece. Michael, again, the Archangel, the Prince of Israel. We read in verse 21, I tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth. There is none who contends by my side against these, the Prince of Persia, the Prince of Greece in context, except Michael, your prince, again, speaking to Daniel. So again, we get this reference to a book, heavenly book, Daniel 12, one, another one. At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people, and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time, your people shall be delivered. Everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. Malachi 3, 16. Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord pay attention and heard them. And a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. Psalm 56.8, you know, it's surprising that there's so many references to this idea. Psalm 56.8, you have kept count of my tossings. Again, the Psalmist is talking about, again, something that's disturbing him, a troubling him. You have kept count of my tossings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Again, a reference to a heavenly book. And lastly, here for the Old Testament, Psalm 87, verses five through seven. Of Zion it shall be said this one and that one were born in her. For the most high himself will establish her. The Lord Yahweh records as he registers the peoples. This one was born there. Verse seven, singers and dancers alike will say all my springs are in you. So it's this reference to a record of, again, who's going to be in Zion or who's associated with Zion and who's not. Now, all of these references, again, refer to some type of book, some type of record, things being written down. And again, what I'm suggesting to you is that this is a very, I think, powerful metaphor for the idea that God does keep a record in his head or whatever because he's omniscient. He's not gonna forget something. But God knows our destiny. He knows the course of our life. He knows what we do good and bad, all that sort of thing. And again, this is not unfamiliar theology. In fact, it's very familiar, but it's actually associated, again, with this sort of record keeping idea. Now, in the Second Temple period, there are a number of references to, again, the same idea of heavenly record keeping and whatnot, specifically in books like First Enoch and the Book of Jubilees, things like that. I'm just gonna read a few references to this idea. In the Book of Jubilees, in Jubilees 19, in verse nine, we read this. He did not say a word concerning the rumor, which was in the land that the Lord said he would give to him, he's talking about Abraham and Sarah here in context, he's talking about Abraham. He didn't say a word concerning the rumor, which was in the land that the Lord said he would give to him and to his seed after him, but he begged a place there so that he might bury his dead because he was found faithful and he was recorded as a friend of the Lord in the heavenly tablets. Now, if you remember this episode from the Old Testament, Abraham, of course, buys a field in a cave of Machpila from the Hittites there to bury his dead. It becomes the ancestral burial place, but there's no reference to heavenly tablets in the Old Testament account. But here in the Book of Jubilees, commenting on that episode, we get this phrase, he was recorded as a friend of the Lord. Now, that comes out of the Old Testament, Abraham being the friend of God, but here we have it's, he was recorded as a friend of the Lord in the heavenly tablets. So you get a reference to this idea. Again, that there's this heavenly record, so to speak. So Jubilees 30, again, we get another reference to this idea. Jubilees 30, we'll start around verse 19. Now, let's go back to 18. This is about Levi being chosen for the priesthood. The seed of Levi was chosen for the priesthood and Levitical orders to minister before the Lord always, just as we do. And Levi and his sons will be blessed forever because he was zealous to do righteousness and judgment and vengeance against all who rose up against Israel. Verse 19, and thus a blessing and righteousness will be written on high as a testimony for him in the heavenly tablets before the God of all. And we will remember for a thousand generations the righteousness which a man did during his life in all of the appointed times of the year. And it will be written on high and it will come to him and his descendants after him. And he will be written down as a friend and a righteous one in the heavenly tablets. Get a very clear reference to the tablets idea. In first Enoch, let's just get one from Enoch here. In first Enoch chapter 47, we'll just start at the beginning and read what it says there. In those days, the prayers of the righteous ascended into heaven and the blood of the righteous from the earth before the Lord of the spirits. There shall be days when all the holy ones who dwell in the heavens above shall dwell together. And with one voice, they shall supplicate and pray, glorifying, praising and blessing the name of the Lord of the spirits on behalf of the blood of the righteous ones which has been shed. And that sounds very similar to things going on in the book of Revelation. That's not a coincidence or it's not our topic for the day, but I thought I'd point that out. Their prayers shall not stop from exhaustion before the Lord of the spirits. Neither will they relax forever until judgment is executed for them. And here's verse three. In those days, I saw him, the antecedent of time or the ancient of days and other translations. Vnoch, while he was sitting upon the throne of his glory and the books of the living ones were opened before him and all his power in heaven above and his escorts stood before him. Sounds again, very similar to Daniel 7. The hearts of the holy ones are filled with joy because of the number the righteous has been offered so on and so forth. So again, a pretty clear reference to the heavenly book idea. But you get the idea. There are some references to heavenly tablets and books in this material. Now, I picked those references for a specific reason because they convey different ideas. Now, there are actually more references to heavenly tablets and books in Second Temple material. So if you read through that material, you're going to find a lot more than these. But a lot of the references that you find in Second Temple Jewish material actually refers to the tablets of the law. So the Jews had this idea. At least one stream of Judaism had this idea that the Torah, the tablets of the law were sort of eternal. And they occupied space in heaven before they were given to Moses. And then they went back to heaven, that kind of thing. So excluding those references and that idea of what I want to focus on here are passages like the ones I just read to you where there's some record keeping of our lives going on. Now, in Jubilees 19 and 9, I mean, let's just think about some of the things that we just read. If we go back here, just going to go back to our Jubilees reference and pick up again or just allude to comment on a few things. In Jubilees 19 here, again, in verse 9, we have Abraham was recorded as a friend of the Lord in the heavenly tablets. And again, in the context, it reads as though it's after the fact. So you couldn't read. I mean, I suppose you could. You could force it in there. But the most sort of natural reading of this is that Abraham lives his life, does these things, obeys God, responds properly to what God wants him to do. And then it's recorded in this book that he was a friend of the Lord. So this is sort of, again, a reference to record keeping and not predestination. And it doesn't, there's no hint really that this is sort of predestined, but it's recorded after the fact that Abraham was a friend of God. He was a good guy, that sort of thing. And you get the same feel, again, for what was said about Levi in Jubilees 30. Again, so we don't have to have the notion of predestination going on either in Old Testament references, Second Temple references, and then we're gonna take this eventually to the New Testament and talk about what we see there. Let's go back though, before we hit the New Testament and think about a few of the passages that I read in both the Old Testament. And again, I'm gonna try to sort of make some categories here of what's being talked about and how we can see this in the Old Testament. It's gonna be reflected in Second Temple material. And then when we get to the New Testament, some of the same categories are gonna apply. So in the Old Testament, there were some clear references to the idea that there's a heavenly record of good and evil. And probably the most obvious reference for that was the one we read from Isaiah 65. Just to read that again to you, Isaiah 65, 6 and 7. Behold, it is written before me. I will not keep silent, but I will repay. I will indeed repay into their lap both your iniquities and your father's iniquities together says the Lord. Again, so there's this written record of iniquity. And God says, you're gonna get repaid. Again, the idea being, I know what you've done. I know, again, the iniquities of in this case, Isaiah's audience, God knows all about the idolatry, all about what has caused the whole situation that he either has brought or will bring the exile. So that's one category, that's one notion. God knows good and evil, there's an accounting, there's a record, there's a memory, might be a better way to say it, of human good and evil. In Malachi 3.16 and Psalm 56.8, there's a slightly different idea. So Malachi 3.16 says, then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another, the Lord paid attention and heard them. And a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. In Psalm 56.8, you have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? So this idea is not so much a record of good and evil, as it is sort of a memory of human life, of the things that happen to us in our life, on an account of suffering, an account of good things, an account of things that trouble us. Again, the messaging, the theological messaging here is that God knows what's happening to us. God is fully aware of this. None of it is going to happen that will escape his attention. Again, that's the larger theological point. Now we move from that to just passages where God clearly knows destiny. And so the question is, do we have God knowing destiny or predetermining destiny? So let's look at a few of the references in the Old Testament. Again, Jeremiah, the Jeremiah passage, 1713. Oh, Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame. Those who turn away from you shall be written in the Arets, again, in the Netherworld, I think is the best reading of that. Arets, again, referring to the realm of the dead. So now this sounds like it wasn't predetermined, but everyone who does forsake you will be, again, recorded or will be allotted or assigned. In other words, the memory of being forsaken, when God remembers that this XYZ person forsook him was disloyal, rejected the offer of salvation, rejected the notion of worshiping the true God, that's going to be remembered. And then, again, the record sort of will be made and sealed as to their fate. So you could certainly read that, again, in a non-predestinarian sense. Again, I'm not saying you have to, but you certainly can. Psalm 69, 29, though, we get this. We get this reference to being blotted out of the Book of the Living. Now, that one could certainly be read as though there was a sort of predetermined register. But even this, though, doesn't have to be read that way. In other words, the idea of being blotted out of the Book of the Living, does that mean, here are three possibilities. Is it a reference? Is it sort of a colorful way of saying to be killed? In other words, once you're dead, you're no longer among the living, now you're among the dead, and so your category sort of changes. You're no longer alive, you're dead. So is it a reference to just losing life, to just being killed? Is it a reference, number two, to being disqualified from, again, being with the Lord? Or is it a reference, number three, to being removed from a record that had pre-existed? The short answer is we can't really be sure. I mean, all three of these are possibilities. In fact, let's just go to this passage. And we have here in Psalm 16, now let me just read the wider passage here. I had verse 29 reference, but let's just go back and sort of pick up with more of the context. The Psalmist is talking about, again, evil doers, and he says, let's go all the way back to verse 22. Let their own table before them become a snare, and when they are at peace, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out your indignation upon them and let your burning anger overtake them. May there can't be a desolation. Let no one dwell in their tents for they persecute him whom you have struck down, and they recount the pain of those you have wounded. Add to them punishment upon punishment. May they have no acquittal from you. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living. Let them not be enrolled among the righteous. Now, again, is what the Psalmist is describing, saying simply, kill them off. It's number one. Blot them out of the book of the living, get rid of them, kill them. Is this sort of an imprecation, an imprecatory Psalm that that, it just goes no further than that. The Psalmist wants their lives to end. Is he saying, let them be disqualified from the afterlife, you know, from being with you. Okay, let them not be enrolled among the righteous. Let them be disqualified. Is that what he's saying? Or is he saying, let them be removed from a record that already exists. In other words, it was a predestined idea. I would suggest you can look at that passage and go any of those directions with it. And you're gonna get other passages that have the same sort of ambiguity. Let's go back to Daniel 10, 21. Again, I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth. There is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince. Now, is this book of truth a sort of pre-extant plotting out of human history that, oh, let's go look up and see what's gonna happen. Or is it a record that's made as things happen? Okay, again, there's some ambiguity there. Psalm 87, look at that again, of Zion it shall be said, this one and that one were born in her. Okay, when it says we're born, again, that's sort of looking back at the past for the most high himself will establish her. The Lord records as he registers the peoples. This one was born there. So is the record happening in real time, so to speak? As people are born, the record is made. You know, in other words, God sees and then of course we'll remember permanently. Or does it refer to predestination? Again, you could go either way. There's ambiguity to it. Daniel 12, one though on the other hand, it seems a little stronger. At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people and there shall be a time of trouble such as never and such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time, your people shall be delivered. Everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. Again, that language, that verb tense, makes it seem like, well, the names were written in there previously. And you could certainly read it that way. Again, what I'm getting to is that there's ambiguity in the Old Testament texts. We talked about the same thing happening in the ancient, wider ancient Near Eastern world where we can't really nail it down. And the answer is probably, yeah, both. It just depends on the passage, on the context. Both can be true. And for those of you who have read Unseen Realm, again, you know that I'm comfortable with that because that's ultimately sort of where I land in the book that since foreknowledge does not necessitate predestination, again, we can't assume that foreknowledge requires it, but we also can't dismiss it. So in other words, things that do happen, some of them could be predestines. Some of them aren't predestined. It could go either way. And this is, again, how the reflection of how sort of life works in relationship to God's knowledge. God can do what he wants. He can predestine things if he wants, but we can't conclude that everything that happens was predestinated because, again, there's no necessary link here. And so you get these references to things being recorded and written, people being enrolled in or blotted out. Some of those passages actually, again, are ambiguous as to this whole question of is it a record that pre-existed or is it a record that's being made, quote unquote, in real time? It's hard to tell. As an example, I think that you have both things going on in the book of Daniel. And let's just go back to Daniel 7, 10. And I'll try to illustrate, again, both ideas being present in the same book. So if you go back to the divine counsel scene, the court sat in judgment and the books were opened. Now, does that mean that they're being judged, again, according to a record of the badness, again, that the beasts, that the badness that they've already done, and now we're gonna judge them? Well, if you go back early in the chapter, and if you correlate Daniel 7 with Daniel 2, this is actually speaking of future empires. Okay, so there's this ambiguity in that, well, maybe this had already been all recorded in the mind of God before these empires even existed. But the alternative is also possible that God knows what they will do. And so that is why there's a record, not that God forced them to do what they did or predestined them to do what they did, but that God knows it. So again, we don't have a terribly strong link. But then on the other hand, earlier in the book of Daniel in chapter four, when the holy ones, the watchers, one of them comes to Daniel and gives them, gives Daniel the ability to understand this dream that Nebuchadnezzar have about Nebuchadnezzar's impending insanity. There you do have a specific reference to this is a decree of the watchers, of something that is going to happen. It's a little stronger and you don't have to read predestination into it, but it feels a little stronger because you have this decree sense, decree of the watchers. And later on in chapter four, it's also called a decree of the Most High. So it seems like God has planned and predetermined something to happen to Nebuchadnezzar for a specific reason. In other words, to humble him. So it's just hard to tell. Now let's take this and go into where we started, the New Testament idea and see again, whether we have one idea or a few ideas that are possible. So what are the sort of categories we have at this point? We have heavenly tablets, heavenly books as just being a record of good and evil deeds. Again, God knows what people do. We have tablets that sort of record the circumstances of life. Again, God knows all the things that happen to you. He's not surprised or unaware. And that's a good thing because again, when we pray, we expect God to understand and be sympathetic and be responsive and whatnot. And then we also have ideas though of book of destinies, either things that are happening in real time or that will happen. And again, the possibility exists of some sense of predestiny as well. So let's go back to the New Testament and just look at a few of these. Luke 10, 20, we read this. Again, keeping all this in mind. Nevertheless, Jesus says, do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. The question comes up, well, when were they written down? Were they written down when they responded to the call of Jesus and embraced him as who he said he was, the Messiah? Or was that all predetermined? Again, we're not actually told in the verse. And the concept, here's the point, the concept of this being recorded or known in heaven doesn't require based on these earlier references in the Old Testament. It doesn't require that we read Luke 10, 20 in an exclusively predestinarian sense. You could, but there's nothing in the text that requires it. And there's nothing in Old Testament antecedents to this idea that requires it. It's a possibility, but that's all it is. It's a possibility. It's an interpretive option. And it's not a required perspective. Philippians 4, 3, let's go back to this one. We have here Paul writing and he says, I ask you also, true companion, help those women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. Again, the same question. Are the names in the book of life because that was predestined or were they recorded, again, quote unquote, in real time when they believed? We're just not told. And we know from earlier antecedents, earlier examples that you could go either way with that. Revelation 3, 5, again, the reference to the whole blotting out. Same idea. The two most, I guess, difficult verses, if you recall from the way we began the episode, are Revelation 13, 8, Revelation 17, 8. And these verses are often used for a really hard and fast predestinarian perspective. But let's just go back there and read them. Revelation 13, 8, again, again, talking about the image of the beast. Verse 8 says, all who dwell on earth will worship it, the image of the beast. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world. Now, here we get an added detail. In the book of life of the lamb who was slain. So again, you look at that and you have, oh, well, we have a reference here to before the foundation of the world. That sounds predestinarian. And Revelation 17, 8, let's just go there quickly, has very similar language. The dwellers on the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast because it was and is not and is to come. Now, here's the question. Is the phrase from the foundation of the world, does that refer to the book that exists? In other words, does it refer to the memory of God? Which of course exists before the foundation of the world. Or does it also refer to the act of writing the names? Again, you might think, well, that's just kind of splitting hairs. Well, actually it's not. These are legitimate questions because if this is a metaphor for God knowing things, well then, of course, God always knows things. He knows all things real and possible. Again, He knows what's going to happen, what could happen. He knows all this. But the fact that He foreknows everything, an event that will happen versus an event that won't happen. By definition, you can't have a hard and fast line to predestination there because of the things that don't happen. Now, the things that do happen, yeah, they could be predestined. Some of them, some of them, maybe not, I mean, it can go either way. So when you read a verse like Revelation 13.8, Revelation 17.8, just the fact that there's a record mentioned. Again, that doesn't require predestination because you have to ask yourself, well, if all of this refers to God's memory, well, it has to be around before the foundation of the world. So then the second option, the second question becomes important. Well, is this also a reference to a person's destiny in the eternity past, so to speak? Or is God making a record when things happen? Because we've seen from other passages that that is the feel you get for this recording idea. When things happen, then things sort of get entered into the book or they become part of the basis for how God is going to judge you. So it's, again, hard to know. Even in a passage like this that has this qualifying phrase before the foundation of the world. Again, we can't necessarily tell what precisely it refers to, especially again, if this is a metaphor for God's knowledge, because the fact that God knows something ahead of time doesn't require that it be predestinated, but it could mean that. And so we're sort of left again with this ambiguity. Last thought with respect to these two verses, again, those whose names are not written before the foundation of the world. Does that statement refer to all people who have ever lived? Or does it refer to the people in view in this passage? In other words, when these events start playing out with respect to the beast and the image of the beast and taking the mark of the beast and all that sort of stuff. Is what's written here in Revelation, does it refer to those people at that time, in that place, in that circumstance? Well, it has to at least refer to them. But does it refer to anyone who's ever lived? Well, again, you can read it that way and many have, but the question arises, does it have to be read that way? And the answer to that is no, it doesn't have to be read that way. So we're left again with a bit of ambiguity going on in there. But again, to wrap up, let's just go to Revelation 20 and verse 12, which is again, the passage that we sort of think about this. I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. The books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done. Now, there are some, again, well, I'm not gonna retreat back into the whole predestination or not issue, because here we have a different issue. There are some who read this passage and say, well, this teaches that you get to heaven or not based upon your works. Again, we don't have to read it that way. And frankly, we shouldn't read it that way because of a hundred other passages in the New Testament that talk about salvation by grace through faith and not of works. If you actually look at the passage and again, think about some of the Old Testament precedents for this. I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. The books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books. Now, look who gets judged. Okay, I'll read it again. The books were opened, books plural. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. Okay, the ones who are judged are actually being judged not by the book of life. They're being judged on the basis of the books plural, what was written in the books. And that is a record, again, as we've seen from Old Testament precedent, that's a record of their sin. God knows your sins. So it's true that those who are not written in the book of life are going to be judged on the basis of their sin. Why? Because salvation is by works? No. They're judged on the basis of their sin because their sin has not been covered. Their sin has not been erased. Their sin has not been removed. I mean, think of what Paul says in Colossians 2. In Colossians 2.14, this is the reference where Paul talks about the canceling of the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This, Jesus, God set aside, nailing it to the cross. Okay, if you don't have the benefit of, again, I'll use just a sort of an evangelical aphorism here, an evangelical phrase. If you don't have the benefit of having your sins covered by the blood, then they are still outstanding. That record has not been canceled. That record still stands. And that record is the record referred to here in Revelation 2012 because the books plural that are there are the ones that are used to judge the dead. And the dead do not go to everlasting life with the Lord. Those who are in the book of life, okay, have that destiny. But the ones who are not in the book of life, the ones who are in the other books, again, the record of their sins and those sins have not been taken care of. Again, then we know their destiny. And so that's the idea. It's not that, oh, we're saved by works after all. It's that no, if your sin has not been dealt with, again, because of your response to the gospel, then that record still stands and God will not forget it. So to summarize, again, the whole concept of the heavenly books, the books of life, heavenly books, again, provide the basis for negatively not having eternal life. In other words, your sins are recorded. Again, it's a metaphor. God knows that you sin. God knows what we do. And therefore, because he knew that, he sent Jesus. I mean, this is the whole reason for the gospel. Again, maybe not every reason, but the significant, the major reason, is that this has to be taken care of. They will always be on your account until the cross cancels your debt. The only way that can happen is by embracing the gospel. So the book of life, the heavenly books idea reinforces, again, the believer's destiny in one direction and the unbeliever's destiny in the other. Secondly, I would say the metaphor also reinforces the point that God does indeed watch. And take note, not just, not like God's a heavenly accountant, good deeds and bad deeds, but as we read in the one passage in the Psalm, God sees all of the circumstances of our life. He can emphasize with our suffering because he does know the things that we endure. He knows the things that we enjoy. He knows the things that cause us suffering. He knows all of it. And so the whole concept of the heavenly books, the book of life is bigger than tallying sins that can still be held to the unbeliever's account. It's bigger than that. It's that God knows everything. And a God that knows everything is able, again, to respond and sympathize with us. It's not just that God's a cold, calculating, detached accountant. He knows your story and not just a record of little individual acts that you do or things that you fail to do. It's bigger than that. And third, our ultimate destiny, I think that this whole idea tells us, our ultimate destiny is in God's hands. And frankly, we read one passage in the talks that expands this to the nations. Actually, we read a couple passages that expands the whole idea to God knowing what goes on on a geopolitical level, if we can use that term, on a national scale, a nation scale. In other words, nothing happens, whether to the individual person or to people en masse. Nothing happens that is beyond the reach of his own acts and his own decisions, his own judgment and his own sympathy. So all of these things need to be factored into how we think about this notion of a record in heaven. Again, this whole idea of heavenly books. As long as they don't misspell my name, we're good. Yeah, well, that's why I have a redirect on my URL. Trust me, Trey, I feel your pain there. Serious question, though. Mike, what's your thoughts on the people before Christ? We have the luxury of grace through Christ, but what about the people before? Yeah, I wrote about this a little bit in Unseen Realm. I view salvation as being the same across the Testaments. In that, in the Old Testament, you're asked to believe certain things that God tells you about himself. I am the true God, I'm the God of gods, and I love you and I've decided to be in a covenant relationship with you. So, what you're required to believe is that I am who I said I am and that I want to be in a relationship with you. If you believe me that I will pursue this relationship with you because I, as Deuteronomy 7, 7 and 8 says, the Lord shows you because he loved you. Not because Israel was the greatest among all the nations, but he's motivated by love. So, if an Israelite believes this, this is the God who is the God of all gods. I can worship and I must worship no other. I am going to align my faith with him. I am going to align my afterlife destiny with him. If an Israelite did that, by definition, God calls them righteous. They are believers. They are with him. They are saved. The New Testament is actually the same thing because who was Jesus? Well, Jesus is the same God incarnate. It's the same baptism. Again, what you're asked to believe in terms of the Gospel involves more, but it has the same person as the object of your faith. And so, I think salvation is the same across the Testaments. It's not by works. It's not by human merit. And the word works, I think, is misleading, which is why I always say it is not by merit. God never owes you anything. You're not going to be with him unless you had some merit that forced him to give in and let you into heaven. That is never the case. Across the Testaments, it's about God revealing himself to you, asking that you believe he is who he says he is, and accepting by faith that statement and that he wants to have you with him. And if you worship him only, you're not going to be with him. If you commit your eternal destiny to him and no other. Again, if you are loyal, if your faith is loyal, we talk about loving loyalty. If your faith is loyal to him and no other, he will accept that. He will accept you because that is the standard, that is the basis by which your afterlife relationship is determined. And all of that is wrapped up and incarnate. When he comes here, he has to do a certain thing to conquer death, the Lord of the Dead, by giving his own life as a ransom. But the basis of your destiny is the same person and the same person who loved humanity back in the Old Testament. So that's how I would answer that. They don't have to know about the cross. What they do have to know is that it was an incarnation. But it's the same person and they have to align themselves willingly by faith with that person to have eternal life. But what about the Gentiles in the Old Testament? Same thing. When you decided to join the believing community, what are you saying? I'm turning my back on other gods. I believe that Yahweh of Israel is the God of gods. And that he made a covenant with this people. And I want to join this people. And by doing so, I am rejecting all others. Look at the confessions of certain people in the Old Testament. Rahab, Naaman. Now I know that the Lord is God of gods. It's the same turning. It's turning away from rejecting something and then embracing aligning yourself with something else. It's the same basis. There are no Baal worshipers in heaven. Excuse that in the Old Testament. Frankly, we don't excuse it in the New Testament either. I mean, you must, again, align yourself. God gives you the option with the God of gods. The one who actually does control your eternal destiny. The other ones, no other god controls your eternal destiny. You're not going to be stolen from him and so on and so forth. You have to align yourself with this. Whether you're Jew or Gentile, this is the path to eternal life. You know, we get this whole idea, again, as I discussed in the unseen realm of Israel. Again, from its very beginning, the covenant language with Abraham threw you all the nations of the earth and we blessed and all that stuff. We know how that plays out. We know what the intention is because of other passages in the Old Testament, passages in the New Testament, certainly that this is tied to this person, Jesus of Nazareth. But what you're being asked to believe is God's hands and no other gods. This is the one. You align yourself with him if you want eternal life. There is no other option. And so you respond to that revelation and the object of your faith is the same even though the mechanism or sort of what accrues to it might be different. You get more information as time goes on. But your faith decision is still the same. And again, my last name is L-I-N, not L-E-N-B. Just for the record. Anybody up there listening? Let's be honest. You're saying that for people who email you. No, trust me. I want to get in the right book here. I want to make sure it's spelled right. I don't want any kind of complications. OK. I think you're OK. Thank you for taking care of me. All right, Mike. We appreciate it. That's a good one. We're switching gears here. What's about your upcoming event in Michigan? Yeah, I'm going to be in Hazel Park, Michigan, which is a suburb of Detroit. If you want specific information on the location, just go to drmsh.com slash events or you can go to drmsh.com and then under the about tab, you'll get a link for speaking schedule and you can hit the link for Hazel Park, Michigan so you know where it's at. I'm going to be there at a church on Saturday night doing I'm not sure if it's Saturday night or Saturday afternoon. You're going to have to look up the record anyway for the address because I don't have that memorized, but I'm going to be there Saturday doing an unseen realm event that's going to be several hours in length and then also at the host church on Sunday morning. I'm slated to be the speaker there and so if you're in the area, come on over there. Chat and maybe get book signed or something like that is better on Saturday, but if you're there on Sunday I'll certainly have time for that too. If you're in the area, come on over. That sounds like fun. I think this will be the sixth event for Unseen Realm and people have been enthusiastic which is always appreciated. It's just great to meet people who care about content. Let's be honest. That's why I do what I do. That's why we do what we do here on the podcast. We want to provide content for people who care and it's just great to meet a lot of them face to face at these events. If you're there, please introduce yourself. Take some time. Even if you have to pop in and pop out you can't stay for the whole time, please do that. Speaking of caring for the content, I just want to say thank you for all of the new people who've donated to McWatt in the podcast and we really do need your support, Mike. I think with the new website upcoming there will be new announcements here sooner rather than later and I think this really is becoming a big time ministry here. I know you don't like to say that but I think some of the good things that are going to be coming up really does lend itself to ministry. There are... When the time comes I'll post updates on the blog as well and we'll talk about things here on the podcast like we're doing now after an episode but there are things happening coming out of the woodwork to extend help and expertise to what we're trying to do and so they're... even though you don't see a lot of it on the surface you'll get updates but trust me there are things happening and it's interesting just let me tell you. And I urge and encourage everybody to contribute if you can if you go to our support page on nakedbiblepodcast.com we've got a Patreon page and a PayPal page so it's both support McWatt and I think if you haven't contributed yet things will become a little bit more clear when the new website comes up and it's exciting with everything that's going to be happening here in the future and if you love this content and want it to grow and reach more people please support it and we thank those who already have and without y'all we couldn't do this so... Absolutely, I mean even we're not looking for huge huge donations and there are some people out there who could do that but we are interested in anybody who cares about content even 5 bucks a month I mean it's just amazing how things like that can accumulate and what Trey is talking about really is we're going to plug along here regardless but if you want this to scale and you want new things new content more content it's both a question of more content in terms of frequency and also new kinds of things new areas of content that we can produce this is the key supporting it is the key to making all those things happen Alright Mike, well next week's episode I think is going to get a little hot Yeah you couldn't resist that could you No I couldn't Alright so tell everybody what we're talking about Lake of Fire Where does the idea come from specifically this notion that Hellfire was quote you know for the devil and his angels where does that idea come from where's the Old Testament precedent for that you know because after all that's when we had the rebellions you know Old Testament rebellions back in the garden and other rebellions so what's up with that where do we get those two ideas linked so we'll talk about that next time Alright looking forward to another good episode Mike well with that I just want to thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast God Bless