Reformed Baptists

[David Lamb]

Actually it is not meaningless. If one thinks they can never be lost, as you say, then how they live becomes meaningless.
Being saved is not a technicality. One is either saved or they are not.

But lets look at this for the other direction, could those who did not have their name in the book of life from before creation be saved?

What you have said is that ones salvation is based on when their name appeared in the book of life not on whether they believed or not. That is the issue that Calvinism wants to overlook.

According to the Bible, how a saved sinner lives is definitely not meaningless. Ephesians 2 says that sinners are saved by God's grace, not of works, but it also says that they are saved for good works which God prepared beforehand that they should walk in them (see Ephesians 2:8-10).

Regarding when the names are written in the book of life, there are eight verses, all in the New Testament, which mention the book of life, but not one of them says when the names were written in it.

 

[David Lamb]

You do not seem able to grasp the truth that if you cannot be lost than you are saved and since you say the "elect" cannot be lost then they are logically saved prior to any faith.

Today is Saturday. Tomorrow will be Sunday. Sunday, by definition, always follows Saturday. However, nobody says, "It must be Sunday already because Sunday must follow Saturday." In the same was (though I'm certainly not claiming that it's a perfect illustration), God's pre-creation choosing for salvation doesn't mean that salvation itself occurs before Creation. Another illustration, this one biblical, would be God foreordaining His Son. We are told:

NKJV 1Pe 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
1Pe 1:19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
1Pe 1:20 He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you
1Pe 1:21 who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

The foreordaining doesn't mean that Jesus Christ actually came to earth to do the work of saving His people before the foundation of the world.