What’s the Deal with the Mark of the Beast? Part 1
(Part #1 of 4 examining the four approaches to Revelation 13:16-18)
Revelation 13:16-18 - 16 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”
There are four different approaches to the Book of Revelation. It’s important to understand “How” to approach reading it before we do, so that we can better grasp John’s vivid imagery. Here is a brief description of each approach:
Historicist View - This approach sees parallels between current events and biblical prophecy. Not too many folks hold this view any longer.
Idealist View - This view is primarily a symbolic description of the ongoing battle between God and the devil, between good and evil. This view is truly a practical approach to the book of Revelation.
Preterist View – In this, prophecies of Revelation were fulfilled in AD 70 when Titus and his Roman army overran Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple. There are two sub-views to this: Partial and Full. The full view is difficult to justify because it literally leaves NO ROOM for the return of Christ. The partial view is understandable and widely held, even as part of the Idealist view.
Futurist View - The futurist approach holds that most of the events described in the book will take place in the end times, just prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ, or after a rapture, or “removal” of the believers.
Those are the four approaches. The Scripture that we referenced at the beginning is the much-debated passage. So, pertaining to the “Mark of the Beast”, I will reference it each week. This week, I want to concentrate on the futurist view of John’s prophecy because it’s the most common. I do not personally hold to the futurist view (although I used to), as I do not believe it is how to properly interpret the Book of Revelation. However, I do have friends and colleagues that do. I share my issues with it as I continue.
The Apostle John is essentially predicting that some future form of technology will be utilized by Antichrist to dominate and control the world’s population, according to the Futurist view. According to Peter and Paul Lalonde, “The Bible says that the mark of the beast and its accompanying technology will be installed by the antichrist–not as an end in itself, but as a means of managing the new world order that is even now being created.”
The futurist approach to Revelation is misguided because it pushes off into the distant future what was already a serious threat to Christians in the first century (emperor worship), by ignoring the historical context for the visions of Revelation 13 and 17. Instead, John’s comments about the mark of the beast should be seen against the backdrop of the imperial cult and the worship of the Roman emperor. The emperor’s blasphemous image was everywhere in John’s world (Asia Minor), from coins to statues identifying various emperors as deities in most major cities. John’s reference to the mark being placed upon the back of the hand or the forehead makes perfect sense in light of the wide-spread first century practice of branding or tattooing slaves–a mark of shame and subjection.
The significance of this practice of marking slaves is simply that those who have this mark of the imperial cult are property of the beast–followers and servants who do his will. In other words, this mark identifies those who worship and serve the beast. And this mark indicates that whatever John means by it is directly tied to the state’s “god” complex of that time and the attempted ownership of that authority and honor which belong to God alone.
John has already encouraged the persecuted Smyrnaeans in the second chapter of Revelation, “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” - Revelation 2:10. After its original context, we know that this encouragement extends beyond the Smyrnaeans to Christians in every age. This is why we know the bible is absolutely applicable today.
As for the number of the beast (666), some historical background would be helpful here as well. The Greco-Roman world did not use Arabic numbers as do we, so instead, letters were assigned numeric value. Using the sum totals of the numerical equivalent of letters to identify words or persons is commonly known as gematria. And if we were to use this formula, the most obvious candidate derived from the numbers 6-6-6 is Nero Caesar, since the Greek form of Nero’s name when transliterated into Hebrew may indeed total 666. This is not an unreasonable conclusion and is widely accepted by many theologians and biblical scholars.
Kim Riddlebarger says, “This attempt to calculate the identity of the beast with this degree of specificity is disputed on a number of grounds. This does not involve the exact use of Hebrew letters and Caesar is not the only title for Nero. None of the church fathers, apparently, were aware of this connection.”
In fact, it was not until 1831 that the specific identification of these numbers with Nero using gematria was first suggested by four German scholars. Besides, John the Apostle says, this requires wisdom, not knowledge, to calculate. In other words, spiritual insight is required, not cleverness or skill in math. The attempt to calculate the number of the beast using gematria can also be problematic because this kind of methodology can be manipulated to refer to almost anyone, in what has come to be known in certain circles as the “pin the tail” on the Antichrist game. Actually, Ronald Wilson Reagan was once identified as the beast because his three names each have six letters. And so on.
The key is this… The number of 666 is ultimately deficient in its meaning. God is the number of “completion” - hence 777. If seven is the number representing perfection, then the number six comes close, but never reaches the goal. The number of triple-6 will always be “short” of the glory of God. The beast – Satan himself - will always try to ruin, intercept, pervert and distort our understanding of the redemptive work of Christ. So, in light of the beast’s attempt to do this so as to receive the worship of the nations, the idea that this number is to be understood as the number of fallen humanity makes a great deal of sense. As G.K. Beale points out, “The beast is the supreme representative of unregenerate humanity, separated from God and unable to achieve divine likeness, but always trying. Humanity was created on the sixth day, but without the seventh day of rest Adam and Eve would have been imperfect and incomplete. The triple six emphasizes that the beast and his followers fall short of God’s creative purposes for humanity.”
If Beale is correct, and I think he is, this does not mean that John does not have Nero in mind at all. In fact, some have argued that Nero is indeed the individual who first bears the number 666, but the number also has symbolic meaning as well. According to Beale, “Some believe both that John had Nero in mind and also that the number had a symbolic meaning, which is quite possible… Bauckham has argued that John used the Nero legend not to focus on an individual but to construct a history of a succession of emperors paralleling the death, resurrection and final return of Christ; accordingly, Nero, and the imperial power, are symbols for any state power that overreaches its proper limits by trying to grasp what properly belongs only to Christ and God.”
What, then, is the mark of the beast? Because inquiring minds really want to know!
The beast is manifest to some degree throughout the time after Christ’s ascension, but is restrained until the time of the end through the preaching of the gospel or the providence of God (See Revelation 20:1-10; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12), ending with the return of Christ, or the 2nd advent – “the consummation of all things.” When placed in the larger context of the New Testament, Christians are said to be “sealed” unto Christ in their baptism (Romans 4:11 with Romans 6:1-11). The mark of the beast may be the theological equivalent of the rejection of baptism (in the case of apostasy) or the rejection of Christ’s Lordship through the confession that any political figure is Lord. This goes along with the New Testament’s repeated warnings about apostasy being connected to the final manifestation of the beast. And we are truly seeing that today!
I’ll never forget the horror that went through the room when a video on Nazi Germany was shown in school. German school children in an old newsreel sang with glee, “Hitler is our Savior. Hitler is our Lord.” That is as clear an image of what is means to “take the mark” as anything I can imagine. Surely, Nero is the type of all those wicked and godless leaders who come after him, and who take that which belongs to God unto themselves and who then mock the natural order of things. Such men reject all conventional norms of morality and use power for personal gain and pleasure. This explains why Christians have frequently spoken of a Nero in connection to the beast. It is not that Nero comes back to life, but that what Nero represented will be a fact of life until the end of the age. For it is not until the seventh trumpet sounds that “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever” - Revelation 11:15.
Although the various manifestations of the beast and the false prophet throughout the present age may utilize technological advances to further the cause of the beast and false prophet in their persecution of God’s people, the mark of the beast cannot be tied specifically to new advances in technology apart from a proper theological context. John is not speaking of an event isolated to the time of the end as dispensationalists teach. He is warning the faithful across the ages of the cost of following Christ. There are indeed times when the confession “Jesus is Lord” will enrage some tyrannical leader.
In conclusion, I just don’t see how the idea that all Revelation, after John’s seven letters of the churches, can solely be cemented for a short period of time, at the end of time. It would technically negate the need for 19 chapters of Revelation for the common reader over the past 2,000 years. How is this even contrived? Why would John write a Book, which is full of symbolism, that only applied to folks in a future, some 2,000 years later (if it is indeed a prophecy that hasn’t even come to fulfillment yet)?
I do not agree with the Futurist View of reading Revelation and I hope that I have given you enough reason to understand why.
Next week we will take on the viewpoint of the Historicist.
Pastor Patrick D. Garlock
