Is My Name Written?

“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Revelation 13:8

How do you know your name is written in the Book of Life?

You are not asked to scale the heights of heaven and eavesdrop on divine conversations. You are not told to explore the secret counsel of God as if assurance can be extracted from a hidden registry. That book is sealed to both pride and guesswork. And rightly so. The Triune God does not call you to speculation whatsoever.

You also don’t look inward, as though your name is written upon the emotions of your soul. Some take their spiritual pulse: Do I feel enough? Have I repented deeply enough? Is my faith strong enough? But the heart is deceitful. (Jer. 17:9), Assurance will never be stable if tethered to your own feelings. You are not your own foundation.

How do you know your name is written in the Book of Life?

You look outward.

You lift your eyes to Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Because the Book of Life is not something Jesus holds. It’s something He is. “In Him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1:4). Saving life, assuring life. He is our life (Col. 3:4). The Lamb and the Book are not two things. They are one. The living Word. The Person of the Son, given for us, in whom the names of the elect are eternally inscribed.

When the Scriptures speak of the Book of Life of the Lamb (Rev. 21:27), it’s not describing a ledger, it's describing a Person. A living book, opened by a cross shaped key. The names are written in Him, chosen in Him (Eph. 1:4), buried with Him, raised with Him, seated with Him in heavenly places (Eph. 2:5–6). In other words, if you are in Christ, you are in the Book. And if you are in the Book, it is because you are in Christ.

This is not a poetic stretch. It is the very logic of redemption. Revelation 5:6 describes the Lamb “as it had been slain,” standing at the center of the throne. He alone is worthy to open the scroll. Yes, because He is divine, but more so because He was slain. His blood gives Him the right. The slain Lamb is the interpretive key to all of God's decrees, and all of God’s decrees center on Him.

So then, how do you know your name is written?

You do not wait for a vision. You do not decode a providence. You do not wring your hands, asking whether the secret will ever be revealed.

God has already revealed it.

He preached it to you. He called you by name. He confronted you with your sin and brought you to see that apart from Him you are dead and damned. But then, He baptized you into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He clothed you with Christ (Gal. 3:27). He fed you with the body and blood of His Son. He forgave you by His Word, again and again.

These are how the living Christ reveals the names in the Book. When you hear the gospel and believe, when you turn in faith and cling to the cross, when the Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God (Rom. 8:16), you are not hoping that your name might be written. You are reading it. You are seeing your name, not through a glass darkly, but on flesh written in blood.

God the Father has written your name in wounds, not letters. The nail-pierced hands, the thorn-encircled brow, the spear-split side. It’s in these wounds where your name is inscribed. The cross was the pen, His blood was the ink, and the body of His flesh is the scroll.

Before you were born, before you believed, before you sinned, even before the foundation of the world, the Father placed you in the Son. He “chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4), and Christ bore your name before the Father. He came into the world to save you, and to declare who belongs to Him: “I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep... My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:14, 27).

So if you ask, “Is my name written in the Book of Life?” Look at Christ.

Do you hear His voice?
Do you trust Him?
Do you long for Him?

Do you follow Him?

If you do, it is not presumption to say your name is written. It is faith. Not in yourself, but in the One who has made God known (John 1:18).

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). He is the Book. He is the Life. He is the Lamb. And all who are found in Him are written forever.