In 2 Timothy 2:15, the Apostle Paul writes under the inspiration of God:
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
The Greek term translated “rightly dividing,” ὀρθοτομοῦντα (orthotomounta) is a hapax legomenon (once said or used) in the New Testament. It does appear in the LXX (Proverbs 3:6; 11:5) in the sense of making a straight path. The image is of a craftsman — a stonemason cutting stone, a farmer plowing a straight furrow, a tent-maker (Paul’s own trade) cutting leather accurately along a line. The present participle indicates continuous, ongoing action — the workman always cuts straight. The straight cut demanded by this word has several non-negotiable implications for handling the whole Bible.
Right Division of Scripture
Much could be said on this subject, but I’m relating it to “blotting out” passages, as pertaining to eternal security. Scripture is not a flat book randomly arranged. The text says what its words mean only within their linguistic context. Also, “the word of truth” (τὸν λόγον τῆς ἀληθείας) itself is a unified whole. Rightly dividing is not dismembering a verse or passage — it is cutting accurately so the parts also relate properly and proportionately. As this applies to “blotting out,” the perversion of those verses or passages occurs by means of the dismembering that proceeds from not conforming them to the cohesive oneness of all scripture.
The right and wrong hermeneutic (view or method of interpretation of scripture) one might compare to a mathematical analogy: division, the right hermeneutic, and addition, the wrong one. Division obviously corresponds to Paul’s “rightly dividing.” Thomas and Alexander Campbell, the 19th century restorationists who said, ‘speak where scripture speaks and silent where scripture is silent,’ read their preconceived understanding into places where it is not in fact ‘speaking.’ Rather than dividing the scripture to fit the whole on the nature of salvation, they added everything into an incongruent mix to alter their thinking on eternal security.
Denominations That Reject Eternal Security (and Therefore, Salvation by Grace Alone)
Quite a few denominations, who embrace adding works to grace or works salvation, reject eternal security.
- Wesleyan Traditions — These represent the largest and most theologically consistent body of Christians who reject eternal security, rooted in the soteriology of Jacob Arminius (1560–1609) and John Wesley (1703–1791):
- United Methodist Church — salvation can be lost through persistent, willful apostasy
- Church of the Nazarene — Wesleyan-Holiness; believers can “fall from grace”
- Salvation Army — Wesleyan in doctrine; genuine apostasy is possible
- Free Methodist Church — same Wesleyan framework
- Wesleyan Church — explicit rejection of “once saved, always saved”
- Church of God (Anderson, IN) — Holiness-Wesleyan tradition
- Church of God In Christ — salvation lost through intentional unholiness, persistent backsliding, and total abandonment of faith in Jesus Christ
- United Pentecostal Church International — continuous obedience and faithfulness required to remain saved.
- Assemblies of God — Pentecostal but Arminian; official position is that salvation can be forfeited
- Church of God (Cleveland, TN) — Pentecostal-Arminian
- Foursquare Church — Pentecostal, Arminian soteriology
- Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox — Both reject eternal security, though for reasons distinct from Arminianism
- Roman Catholic Church — mortal sin severs the state of grace; the sacrament of penance restores it. Final perseverance is a gift not guaranteed to any individual.
- Eastern Orthodox Church — salvation is a process (theosis) that requires ongoing cooperation with grace; apostasy is genuinely possible.
- Restoration Movement
- Churches of Christ — generally hold that a saved person can apostatize through sin or unbelief
- Christian Church (Independent) — varies, but many hold the same position
- The Radical Reformationists
- Mennonites — generally reject eternal security; faithful perseverance is expected and possible to abandon
- Amish — similar to Mennonites; assurance of salvation is actually viewed with suspicion as presumption
- Anglican / Episcopal — the 39 Articles are ambiguous and the tradition contains both views; the official formularies lean against unconditional security, though many Anglican evangelicals hold it.
The “Blotting Out” Passages and What They Mean
- Revelation 3:5 — “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and 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.”
- This is a litotes—a figure of speech where an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary (e.g., saying “not bad” to mean “very good”).
- Jesus isn’t warning that He might blot names out; He is giving an absolute, ironclad promise that He never will.
- In the ancient world, a city registry (a “book of life”) was where citizens’ names were kept. If you committed a crime or died, your name was removed. Jesus is telling the believer that their “heavenly citizenship” is permanent and immune to the earthly threat of erasure.
- “I will never blot you out” is a rhetorical way of saying “Your name is permanently engraved.”
- Psalm 69:28 — “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.”
- The Book of the Living (earthly existence) and the Lamb’s Book of Life (eternal salvation) are not the same book.
- In the Old Testament, being “blotted out of the book” almost always refers to physical death. David is praying an imprecatory prayer, asking God to judge his enemies by ending their lives prematurely so they can no longer harm the righteous.
- This isn’t about losing salvation; it’s a plea for the wicked to be removed from the land of the living. Since they were never “enrolled among the righteous” to begin with (as the second half of the verse suggests), they aren’t losing a salvation they never possessed.
- Exodus 32:32–33 — “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.”
- Moses offers his own life (and potentially his soul) as a substitute for Israel’s sin. God responds then with the blotting out verse.
- Like the Psalm above, this refers to the register of those allowed to live and enter the Promised Land, so God is refusing Moses’ substitution and declaring that the generation that sinned will die in the wilderness (physical death).
- Moses is using hyperbolic language of intercession (similar to Paul in Romans 9:3).
- God’s response is a decree of temporal judgment on rebels, not a statement that a truly justified person can become “un-justified.”
- Revelation 22:19 — “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
- Taking away “his part” or a share in the tree of life communicates that the person loses the opportunity or the inheritance they claimed to have. The word “part” distinguishes what it says from saying that someone has his name removed or erased.
- Those who “take away” from God’s Word are not true believers to begin with, so their “part” is their professed part in the community, which is proven false by their rejection of the Word. Again, the word “part” is crucial to this.
- One should consider the idea of someone being removed from the holy city, once in the holy city, which is the New Jerusalem, if this is about losing salvation. To be consistent, he could also continue with the possibility of losing salvation even after he lives in the New Jerusalem. That’s not what it says.
Summary of Rightly Divided View or Answer
Some of the books in this realm of the book of life refer to physical life on earth, not eternal soul-security. In Revelation 3:5, the mention of blotting out is a comfort, not a threat—it emphasizes the impossibility of a believer being removed. If the names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life “before the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8), it would imply a mistake in God’s omniscience if He later had to reach for the eraser. The “Book of Life” is a record of those God will save, saves, and then continue to save, and because that choice is based on His grace rather than our merit, the ink is indelible.
The permanent writing of a name in the Book of Life harmonizes with the way salvation reads in the New Testament. God is doing the saving and if we need to do something to stay saved, it would then be us doing the saving. This is the way scripture reads about it.