SCRIPTURE Exodus 32:30–33 “And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.  And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.  Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.  And the Lord said unto Moses, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.”  

COMMENTARY We learn elsewhere in Scripture that these Israelites coming out of Egypt were believers (Exodus 4:31).  They believed God would deliver them, putting the blood on their doorposts.  That is why their names are in the book.  The book appears to be God’s book of [spiritual] life (called “the book of life of the Lamb” in Revelation 13:8).  When God did what he told Moses (blotted them out of the book) it reflected their spiritual death, something that cannot happen if the doctrine of guaranteed, unconditional eternal security is true.  Some would claim that this is a different book; that it is a “book of the living.” Yet we only know of one book.  But being struck from a “book of the living” is of no punishment if one goes to paradise (Abraham’s bosom) for almost all died (under the Old Covenant of course).  No, the threat here is spiritual death.  Again, we have a choice.  We can believe what God told Moses according to Scripture, or we can believe the man-made doctrine of guaranteed, unconditional eternal security.