The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
But you do have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and because they are worthy, they will walk with Me in white. Like them, he who overcomes will be dressed in white. And I will never blot out his name from the Book of Life, but I will confess his name before My Father and His angels.
Earlier text
Psalm 69:28BSB
May they be blotted out of the Book of Life and not listed with the righteous.
Psalm 69:28 is David's imprecatory prayer that his persecutors be "blotted out of the book of life" (yimmahu missepher hayyim) and "not be listed with the righteous." This psalm — one of the most frequently cited in the NT — establishes that the "book of life" is a register of the living righteous, from which the wicked may be erased. Christ's promise in Revelation 3:5 engages this same concept but from the opposite direction: rather than cursing enemies with blotting, He assures His faithful ones that their names will never be removed. The double allusion to both Exodus 32:32-33 and Psalm 69:28 shows how the "book of life" concept developed across the OT canon. The Psalmist's prayer for judgment on persecutors becomes, in Christ's hands, a promise of security for the persecuted — a fitting reversal for the suffering church in Sardis.