Can a Believer’s Name Be Erased from the Book of Life?

Rest on God’s Faithfulness The precious biblical truth that the saints will persevere in faith to the end and be saved is relentlessly opposed, generation after generation.1 Nevertheless, the truth endures, resting firmly on the sovereign faithfulness of God to complete the salvation of his elect. He planned it in eternity, purchased it in Christ’s death on the cross, and is applying it through the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:30 says, “[Those] whom He justified, He also glorified.” In other words, between the event of justification by faith at the beginning of our Christian life, and the event of glorification at the resurrection of our bodies (Phil. 3:21), there will be no dropouts, bailouts, or pushouts. “[Those] whom He justified, He also glorified”—all of them. God will keep and sanctify those whom he has justified and make sure they keep the faith and endure to the end and are saved. First John 2:19 describes how we should understand the apparent dropouts: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not really of us” (AT). In other words, the failur...