And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.
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11 Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. 12 He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast
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16 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, 17 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.
18 This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666. Revelation13:1-18
Here we get to one of the chapters in Revelation that has caused much wild speculation and has caused much confusion. Let's look at this briefly:
We are in the section in Revelation that overviews the drama of history of the church, and these visions are firmly rooted in John's own historical experience.
Yesterday we saw how the dragon (Satan) tried to destroy the Child (Christ) but failed. Now he is trying to destroy the woman (the church.)
The dragon calls forth two beasts: one is a figure of authority. The other is the religious system that serves the first beast. In John's historical context, the first beast was Caesar who declared himself as god, and the second beast was Roman culture and military that enforced emperor worship. Christians could be required by law to burn a pinch of incense before the statue of Caesar and bow down before his statue. Failure to do this resulted in exclusion in the marketplace at the very least and being thrown to the lions in the arena at the worst.
The "mark of the beast" is symbolic. If seven is a symbol of God's holiness and perfection then six is to fall short of that. 666 is a trinity of imperfection. It is a "man's number" and Paul reminds us that as far as humankind goes "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 666 is a human god-wannabe. Wearing the mark of the beast is to worship a god-wannabe.
Many conspiracy theorists have panicked about the barcodes on food, arguing that it is a 666, but the point is that you don't get the mark of the beast by accident, you get it by worshipping the first beast through the system of the second.
A nice example of how this repeats itself through history would be the way Hitler (first beast) set up the Getstapo (second beast) to establish the state church where people sacrificed true faith for obsessive nationalism (the 666).
Throughout history we have seen and will see these beasts and their mark.
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
