Thoughts on Revelation 20

 Today's reading: Deuteronomy 18; Revelation 20

It is super common to hear people talk flippantly about Heaven and Hell. People will make comments about parties in Hell, or that Hell better be ready for them, etc. I don't think many people who say these kinds of things have honestly considered an eternity in Hell and think they are going there though or they would probably look at their lives with a little more gravity.

But as much as people will make flippant jokes about Hell, people make equally flippant assumptions about Heaven. Ask people if they think they are going to Heaven and you're very likely to hear answers like, "I think so, I've lived a pretty good life," or, "Yeah, there are a lot worse people than me out there." The problem is that most people who would answer like this are sincere, but have never stopped to ask what the Bible actually has to say about it and whether or not they can expect to get to Heaven on their own merits.

What we see in our reading from today though in Revelation 20 is that nobody apart from Jesus Himself will ever get to heaven on the merit of their works.

The second half of Revelation 20 is about the books being opened. John doesn't tell us what books are opened at first, just that after the books are opened, the Book of Life is also opened. So what are the other books? They are the books of works done by the people of the earth. John doesn't need to clarify because this is a common motif in the prophets and was very popular in second temple literature (non-canonical books written by the Jews for the few hundred years before John is writing). What we see is that God sends His angels throughout the earth to record the deeds of the people, and then people are judged based on what is written in those books. John also tips us off that he is following this same trajectory when he says that, "The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books."

So we have two sets of books in play, the books of people's works, and the Book of Life, which records those who have placed their faith in Jesus for salvation. And when the people are judged according to their deeds recorded in the books, John makes a really important statement, "Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire." Everybody whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was given a fair shot and judged according to their deeds, and every single one of them came up short. The only ones who could avoid being thrown into the lake of fire, which is the second death, were those who had placed their faith in Jesus and had their names written in His Book of Life.

This is why Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Because even though you can choose to be judged for entrance to Heaven on your own merits, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3), so all who choose this path will come up short and be thrown into the lake of fire. It is only by the grace of God that comes to us in Jesus that we will stand on that day, not on the basis of anything written to our credit in the books of our deeds, but because our names are written in the Book of Life.