There is an old question that runs under a lot of folklore: somewhere there is a book with names in it, a name can be blotted out of it — and if that is so, what about Satan? Was his name blotted out of that book, erased so completely that it is no longer even spoken? It is a striking idea. But when you lay it beside Scripture, the picture sorts itself out quickly, and it turns out the book and the devil’s name have far less to do with each other than the lore supposes.
A real book — and whose names are in it
The Bible speaks of this book plainly and often, and it gives it a specific owner. It is the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 13:8; 21:27) — the Lamb’s, because the blood of Jesus Christ is the whole reason any name belongs in it.
- Jesus told His disciples where their true joy should lie: “rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
- Paul speaks of “my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life” (Philippians 4:3).
- At the final judgment, “the dead were judged… according to their works,” and “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:12–15).
- Only what is written there enters the city: “there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth… but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation 21:27).
So who is written there to begin with? Here Bible-believing Christians hold two views, and this site leans to the first. One view — the one we hold — is that every person begins written in the book of life, and it is a life of sin and the final rejection of God that blots a name out. The other is that only the redeemed are ever written in, so the book is from the start the roll of the saved. We lean to the first because of the way the Bible speaks of blotting out — language that only makes sense if the name was already there.
Written in — and the warning not to be blotted out
Every place the Bible speaks of blotting a name out, it speaks of a name that was already there. When Moses pleaded for Israel after the golden calf — the scene above, at the mount where God gave the law to the whole nation — he cried, “blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book,” and God answered, “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book” (Exodus 32:32–33). You cannot blot out what was never written. The psalmist prays of the wicked, “let them be blotted out of the book of the living” (Psalm 69:28). And the Lord Jesus makes the overcomer this promise:
“He that overcometh… I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.” — Revelation 3:5
Read it closely. The promise is that the overcomer’s name will not be blotted out — which means the thing it guards against is real: a name can be removed. Revelation even warns that God will “take away his part out of the book of life” from the one who corrupts His word (Revelation 22:19) — and a man cannot lose a part he never had. Put the verses together and they say the same thing: your name is written in, and what you do with God decides whether it stays. That is exactly why the New Testament calls, over and over, to endure, to hold fast, to overcome.
In honesty, there is one weighty passage read the other way. Revelation 17:8 (and 13:8) speak of those “whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world” — which some take to mean certain names were never written in at all. Those who hold the view on this page understand that as God’s foreknowledge: knowing from the foundation of the world who would, in the end, remain His. Faithful believers land on both sides. But notice what the two readings agree on: the stakes are real, the warnings mean exactly what they say, and the only way a name is made secure is to come to Christ and endure in Him.
The beggar who was named
There is a quiet detail in one of Jesus’ parables that says everything about how heaven’s register runs. A rich man “fared sumptuously every day,” and at his gate lay a beggar — and Jesus gives us the beggar’s name: Lazarus. The rich man He leaves nameless (Luke 16:19–25). In the world’s book the rich man was somebody and the beggar was no one. In heaven’s book it was the other way around. The man everybody knew is anonymous forever; the man nobody noticed is named for all eternity. That is the book of life in a single story: it does not record who was important, but who was His.
So what about Satan’s name?
Now the question that started us. Has Satan’s name been blotted out of the book of life, and is that why it is “no longer spoken”? The answer is no — on both counts — and the reason is simple.
First, the book of life is for the redeemed in Christ. Satan is a fallen angel, not a human being bought by the blood of the Lamb, so his name was never written in that book to begin with. You cannot blot out what was never entered. The whole frame of the question quietly assumes something Scripture never says.
Second, the Bible names him openly and constantly. Far from treating his name as erased or unspeakable, Scripture calls him Satan (the adversary), the devil (the accuser), “that old serpent,” “the great dragon” (Revelation 12:9), Beelzebub, Belial, “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The idea that it is dangerous to say his name, or that his “true name” is a hidden secret, is superstition — it comes from folklore, not from the Word of God.
What about “Lucifer”? That word appears in Isaiah 14:12 in the King James Version, rendering a Hebrew term meaning “day star” or “shining one” — which reads more as a picture of former glory than a personal name. Many take the passage as a portrait of Satan’s fall; others read Isaiah 14 first of all as a taunt against the king of Babylon, with Ezekiel 28 aimed at the king of Tyre and the adversary standing behind both. Either way, the name was not “erased.” What changed is that his glory became shame — a shining one brought down.
The one name that is never silenced
Here is the contrast the whole subject is driving toward. The adversary’s names are spoken freely, because there is no power in them. The name that heaven guards, that hell cannot silence, and that every knee must finally bow to is the name of Jesus:
“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” — Philippians 2:10–11
The demons know that name and tremble at it (James 2:19; Acts 19:15). It is the name in which there is salvation — “for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). And it is the name that writes yours into the Lamb’s book.
Getting your name written in
Which is the only part of this that finally matters about you. Not whether you can recite the devil’s titles — but whether your own name is in the book. And the way it is written there is the way it has always been:
“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” — Acts 2:38
Earth’s book will forget the most famous name within a century or two. The Lamb’s book keeps the least of His forever. Make sure yours is in it.