Mark of the Beast
This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of
Revelation 13:18, ESVaman, and his number is 666.
There’s probably not a concept in scripture that is more hotly debated than the meaning of the mark of the beast and I’m finally going to weigh in on this subject. I’m sure that this will generate lots of hate mail, but please think about this and reflect on it first. You can always hate on me later.
The Fundamentalists teach that when you interpret scripture, you must first do so literally. I’ve always been a believer that God wrote the scriptures to communicate to us. There is research to be done, for sure, and revelations to be found, but the major doctrines of scripture are going to be clear and self explanatory in the passage they’re in.
John, in this verse, tells us two things about the mark of the beast. First that it takes a little wisdom to understand this, and second that it’s the number of man. (The translator added the article. Like in Neil Armstrong‘s proclamation, the ‘a’ doesn’t appear in the original text.)
The Number of Man
If you’d like, google bible numerology 6 and every hit you find will tell you that the number six means man and, often, fallen man. God created Man on the sixth day. John tells us that this is the number of man.
What we miss in English translations is something any reader of Ancient Hebrew would understand. Hebrew doesn’t have words like holier and holiest. When you want to say something is more holy than something else in Ancient Hebrew, you say, “holy, holy.” If you want to say something is most holy, you say, “holy, holy, holy.” This is why…
And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
Revelation 4:8, ESV
So, the Revelation of Jesus Christ is telling us this: If you want to know what the mark of the beast is, it is the number of fallen man to the worst possible degree.
At the time of this writing, the corona virus COVID-19 is dominating the news. People are hoarding up supplies and others are price gouging people for these supplies that are now scarce. That is the mark of the beast, the worst nature of the heart of man.
The good news is that in our hearts is also the nature of the Christ. The battle that rages on is between these two forces in our hearts. The more we yield to the one, the less the other will dominate our destiny.
So, it’s your choice. Who’s going to win the battle of your heart?