They are lists of the living and of the dead.
True life is in fellowship with God. The other is the register of the
burials in a graveyard.
They are lists of the citizens of two cities.
The idea is that the one class have relations and affinities with the
celestial, are 'fellow-citizens with the saints,' and have heaven as
their metropolis, their mother city. Therefore they are but as aliens
here, and should not wish to be naturalised. The other class are
citizens of the earthly, belonging to the present, with all their
thoughts and desires bounded by this visible diurnal sphere.
They are lists of those who shall be forgotten, and their works
annihilated, and of those who shall be remembered and their work
crowned.
The names written on earth are swiftly obliterated, like a child's
scrawl on the sand which is washed away by the next tide, or covered up
by the next storm that blows about the sand-hills. What a contrast is
that of the names written on the heavens, high up above all earthly
mutations!
In one sense oblivion soon seizes on us all. In another none of us is
ever forgotten by God, but good and bad alike live in His thought.
Still this idea of a special remembrance has place, as suggesting that,
however unnoticed or forgotten on earth, God's children live in the
true 'Golden Book.' Their names are in the book of life. 'Of so much
fame, in heaven expect the meed.' Ay, and as, too, suggesting how brief
after all is the honour that comes from men.
Also, there will be annihilation or perpetuation of their life's work.
Nothing lasts but the will of God. Men who live godless lives are
engaged in true Sisyphean labour. They are running counter to the whole
stream of things, and what can be left at the end but frustrated
endeavours covered with a gloomy pall?
Is your life to be wasted?
They are lists of those who are accepted in judgment, and of those who
are not.
Rev. xx. 12, 15; xxi. 27.
The books of men's lives are to be opened, and also the book of life.
What is written in the former can only bring condemnation. If our names
are written in the latter, then He will 'confess our names before His
Father and the holy angels.' And He will joyfully inscribe them there
if we say to Him, like the man in _Pilgrim's Progress_, 'Set down my
name.' He will write them not only there, but on the palms of His hands
and the tablets of His heart.