What is the mark of the beast?
The 'mark of the brute' in Rev 13.18 is the most notorious and talked-about aspect of the volume.
[The animal from the land] too forced all people, great and pocket-size, rich and poor, costless and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, and then that they could not buy or sell unless they had the marker, which is the name of the beast or the number of its proper noun. This calls for wisdom. Let those who have insight summate the number of the fauna, for information technology is the number of a homo. That number is 666. (Rev 13.16-xviii)
The 'mark' is clearly an important term in the book, occurring 7 times (Rev thirteen.sixteen, 13.18, 14.9, 14.xi, 16.2, xix.twenty and 20.iv).
At that place are a few things worth noting here immediately. The start is that John is non hither offer an esoteric and mysterious code which requires secret knowledge to unlock. The phrase 'this calls for wisdom' is echoed afterwards in Rev 17.ix, when we are told about the identity of the Bully Whore of Babylon: 'The seven heads are 7 hills on which the adult female sits.' This is a clear reference to the 7 hills of Rome; information technology is not a secret! In the same way, it is reasonable to assume that John expected his readers to understand clearly what he was referring to.
This leads to the second observation. Quite a few commentators argue that we should non try and work out what the number stands for; it is symbolic, and its threefold 'half-dozen' suggests a falling short and imperfection, in contrast with the number vii which is associated with God. In fact, 7 is a number of completeness rather than holiness, and the problem with this argument is that it contradicts the apparently sense of the text, which in fact tells us to 'calculate', to work it out (the verb ispsephizo, so you might imagine I have an interest in it!).
Thirdly, another matter which is oft missed by commentators is that this mark cannot be interpreted separately from making sense of the 'seal' which is put on the foreheads of the 144,000 servants of God in Rev seven.3 (though the human activity of this sealing is never in fact recounted). Chapter 14 offers two juxtaposed scenes—of the 144,000 who have been sealed enjoying the presence of God, and the rest of humanity who have the marking of the creature facing the judgement of God. In other words, the two marks or seals split humanity completely into two distinct groups, the saved and the judged. You either have the seal of God, or the marking of the beast; you cannot take both or neither. This is part of the text's general strategy to raised the stakes in terms of the readers' human relationship with their culture; it is ofttimes less about comforting the oppressed, equally much equally challenging the comfortable to realise that they cannot compromise in their discipleship.
To read either of these responsibly, we need to consider what John and his readers might have understood by them, rather than randomly associate them with something in our gimmicky world. For some time, there has been a strong scholarly consensus that 666 refers to Nero by means of a numerology known as gematria or isopsephism—adding the value of the letters in a discussion so that every word has a value, and equating two words with equal value. We know that Nero'south name was sometimes spelled with a final -due north; 'Neron Caesar' when written in Greek, merely transliterated into Hebrew letters adds up to 666 (see the prototype to the right for the sums).
There are several significant pieces of supporting show for this. First, when you lot write the Greek for 'animate being',therion,in Hebrew letters, you also go far at 666, making it articulate that 666 is the number of 'the beast'. Secondly, when you lot practise the same with 'angel' in Rev 21, you get the number 144. Third, an early manuscript from Oxyrhynchus in Arab republic of egypt corrects 666 to 616, which yous would do if you understood the gematria, simply idea that 'Nero' should exist spelled without the terminal n. (There isn't really any other plausible explanation for why this variant should arise.)
In that location has besides been discussion about what the marker or seal might look like in Rev 7.3. The passage reuses imagery from Ezekiel 9, where a remnant of the citizens volition be seal to protect them from coming sentence:
"Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a marker on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the insufferable things that are washed in information technology." (Ezek 9.3)
The word for 'marking' here is the aforementioned equally the Hebrew letter tav, and the equivalent in Greek is the letter tau, which looks similar a truncated cross in the aforementioned was as our letter T. And then some have speculated that this is to practice with the sign of the cantankerous; it is the habit of Egyptian Coptic Christians to have a cross tattooed on their wrists as a sign of their faith. However, Rev vii does non acquit this term over, but instead uses the normal word for 'sealing'. There is some connection, perchance, with Paul's language of the 'seal of the Spirit' in 2 Cor ane.22 and Eph 1.xiii.
These discussions might aid u.s. with thinking about the reference of the 2 terms, but they don't really address the question of their significance. Whilst writing on Rev 14, I was struck past the fact that the 'seal' of the 144,000 has at present become the name of the lamb and 'his Father's' proper name. This is the just time in the torso of the vision that the term 'Male parent' occurs; the names appear to accept get duplicate, just as the worship of the lamb has merged with the worship of the One on the throne; and the merging of names has echoes of Paul's hymn in Phil two, where Jesus is give the name above every proper noun, which is the proper noun of God.
But of course the significance of 'name' is that is reflects someone's character and reputation. So the ii groups of people, the saved and the judged, are in fact 'marked' by the character and reputation of the ane that they worship. This links these ideas dorsum to an important them in the OT: we go like what nosotros worship.
But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.
They take mouths, only cannot speak, eyes, simply cannot see.
They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot odour.
They have hands, simply cannot feel, feet, simply cannot walk,
nor tin can they utter a sound with their throats.
Those who make them will be like them, then will all who trust in them. (Ps 115.4–8)
In other words, whichever system of worship nosotros 'buy into' will shape who we are. This will exist visible to those around usa, and volition demonstrate our allegiances. The option of whether to receive the marking of the beast, or the seal of God, is and then less about existence given a secret sign as near choosing how we alive our lives. The choice is the same one that Paul describes in Romans 12:
With optics wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, every bit an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living cede, consecrated to him and adequate by him. Don't let the world around you lot squeeze you into its own mould, simply let God re-mould your minds from within, so that yous may testify in do that the plan of God for you lot is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of truthful maturity. (Romans 12.ane–2, Phillips)
This might then take us back to the 'seal' equally cantankerous-shaped and related to the seal of the Spirit. The Spirit of God works in us in order to create the cruciform life in simulated of Jesus himself.
It looks similar Revelation, rightly interpreted, is preaching the same gospel as the rest of the NT after all.
(For your amusement, I offering this image which 'proves' that Walt Disney is the animal:)
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