Written in the Book of Life

I cannot resist a good book. What about you? I did a brief look into the history of books and found an interesting article on Wikipedia—where else? I learned that wood was the first medium to take the guise of a book. The words biblos and liber first meant "fibre inside of a tree". In Chinese, the character that means book is an image of a tablet of bamboo.

So now I come to the words of Daniel 12:1-3—"But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the BOOK."

What book? Who wrote it? Who reads it? When was this book written and why?

Read about Moses arguing with the LORD about the inappreciative Israelites after their horrid golden calf idolatry (Exodus 32:31-33),

"So Moses went back to the LORD and said, "Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written."
The LORD replied to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book."

Moses understood that the LORD keeps a record of sins in His book.

King David speaks in similar terms as he prays to the LORD about his adversaries (Psalm 69:28),


"May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous."

One of the frightening things I have learned about Nazi Germany was their ability to keep detailed records of the people they determined should be detained and murdered in their concentration camps. And how were they able to pull that off, especially since we're talking about millions and millions? They did it with the help of IBM. This has been carefully documented in Edwin Black's book, "IBM and the Holocaust." At the heart of Black's argument is that information technology—in the form of IBM's Hollerith punch-card machines—provided the Nazis with a unique and critical tool in their task of cataloguing and dispatching their millions of victims.


Thus they blotted millions and millions of Jewish people from the book of life by keeping records with the then newly developed technology of punch cards, precursor to today's computers. I can distinctly remember punch-card machines.


Using the same imagery, Daniel speaks about another kind of record keeping, the record the LORD keeps of all who put their faith in Him and in the forgiveness won for all mankind by the cross of Jesus Christ. As Jesus said to his excited disciples (Luke 10:18-20),


He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."