"He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name."

In a further fraudulent wonder, the False Prophet gives breath to an image. This mimics God who breathes life into the Two Witnesses. Since the basic interpretation of the 'image of the beast' is a false religious system, the False Prophet will 'give life' or inspiration to a system of worship that incorporates 'the deep things of Satan.' Such a counterfeit church could even worship 'Christ,' but it would certainly not be the Christ of the Bible.

BEASTLY MARK

The mark on the hand and forehead is a demonic counterpart to God's seal. The Jews wore phylacteries on the forehead and leather straps on the arm. These showed that they worshiped Israel's God. In Revelation, a person is marked by whomever they worship, becoming like the one they worship. "But their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men... Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them."

Many Christians think the mark of the Beast is a future, physical mark. It has happened in the past. At different times in history people were literally and outwardly marked. The Jews have been especially targeted in the past and required to carry a mark of identification. In Maccabees, Ptolomy IV demanded that Jews offer pagan sacrifices and sacrifices to their own God. On the feast of Dionysus, the Jews were compelled to walk in bacchanalian procession with their heads crowned with ivy. Those who refused were reduced to the condition of serfs and outcast from all that society offered.

Nazism furnishes a more recent example. The Jews were compelled to wear a yellow Shield of David. This was a revival fo the medieval Jewish badge, which was itself a Mohammedan import. In the Seventh Century Pact of Omar, the Mohammedans established a code of laws by which Jews and Christians who remained in their conquered lands were forced to live and dress. The aim of the code was to make it perfectly clear that Jews and Christians were inferior to Mohammedans. The Roman Church reintroduced this requirement for Jews in the pontificate of Innocent III, during the Fourth Lateran Counceil (1215 A.D.). Any Jew above the age of thirteen was to wear a mark, usually a yellow patch, front and back, on the outer garment. It was reasoned that without such a badge the Jews were not distinguishable from the Christians. The badge, however, was really a mark of shame to force them to convert to the Church of Rome or drive them out of European society.

Although all such edicts are beastly, I understand the mark to be invisible, like God's seal, and thus far more subtle and dangerous. God tells His people to "Keep these words that I command you today in your heart...Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead." Such was not meant to be physical. This fact is bolstered by the Hebrew parallelism of the verse where the second line reinforces the sense of the first line. "Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes." C.F. Keil says, "These words are figurative, and denote an undeviating observance of the divine commands."

The right hand signifies fellowship or partnership in a common cause. The mark on the forehead signifies related thinking or a similar mindset. God's children have an invisible mark and it is presumptuous to expect a visible mark on unbelievers. The next chapter begins with these words: "Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads." The mark of the Beast is the antithesis to the seal of God. It displays worship of the Beast in the realm of the spirit.

BUYING AND SELLING

Beast worship also has an economic component. Connecting worship with a mark to buy and sell is part of the worldly system of the False Prophet. According to Erwin W. Lutzer's "The Third Reich," the Nazi party used a sign to buy and sell. "If you did not say, "Heil Hitler!" when you entered a business establishment, you would not be served." Some scholars say a mark was also part of Caesar worship, so that only those people who received a certificate might enter the market place.

It is true that every transaction of buying and selling in the Roman Empire meant the handling of imperial coins that bore the image and blasphemous titles of Caesar. "Whose image is on the coin." These coins bore the image and name of the Emperor, often pictured as a good, and more than one emperor had his title "lord and god."

Concerning what Revelation intends by the mark of the Beast as it relates to buying and selling, interpreters point to everything from Roman coins to electronic implants; John tells us there is also a number that identifies him.

BEAST HAS A DISTINGUISHING NUMBER - 666

"This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number o f the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."

A call for divine wisdom is often associated with the end of the age. Daniel says, "Those who are wise will understand...the abomination." Jesus says, "The abomination...let the reader understand...flee to the mountains." Wisdom calls for a response not mere speculation. The number of the Beast, however, has generated more speculation than any passage in the entire Bible but little action. What does this number signify? Is the "name of the beast," equal to the "number of his name?"

666 QUESTION

We need godly wisdom to rightly interpret this passage. Many assume that 666 is the numerical value of a specific person's name. This is based on the fact that the Hebrew and Greek alphabets were used for counting. The identification of a specific name with a number led to the possibility of making play with the numerical equivalent of names. Deissmann tells of a legend scribbled on a wall in Pompeii. "I love her whose name is 545." Many claim when the Beast's name is translated into the Greek or Hebrew languages that it will equal 666.

Others claim that 666 is simply a symbolic number. Since the number seven speaks of perfection, six fall short of seven and represents imperfection. Six is thus seen as a sinister number to the Jews. Just as the number thirteen is for people today. Skyscraper buildings have no 13th floor, hotels have no room number 13. So for the Jews, 666 stands for great evil, and is eminently suitable to characterize the Beast and his followers, for it implies falling short of complete perfection in 777. Early on, Christians realized that the name Jesus in Greek totals 888. Manifestly, the contrast between 666 and 888 strikingly conveys the difference between the Devil's 'Antichrist' and God's Christ.

Is 666 the number of a certain, historical person or institution? Or is it symbolic? The words of the text cannot answer this crucial question. Although the New Revised Standard Version says, "it is the number of a person," others translate the clause, "it is a human number."

Those who take 666 as the number of a specific, historic person vary greatly. There are over one hundred different interpretations among modern British writers alone on the identity of 666. The number among American writers is far greater. Personally, I have read well over a hundred books on these verses. Every solution advocated falls into one of three categories:

(1) A world leader in the past or in the future with the Roman Caesar Nero heading the past list, while the future person is yet to be known for obvious reasons. (2) A world empire or religious power in the past or in the future: Pagan and Papal Rome feature in the past views, and the E.U., U.N., W.C.C., Islam or some institution to emerge are the future prospects. (3) A symbolic significance that points to Man's fallen sinful nature.

To consider more fully these possibilities and how scholars have understood the worship, mark, number and name of the Beast, let us carry on with this study by looking at seven different interpretations in the next chapter.