Listen to this articleIMPORTANT: I hereby renounce all forms of violence and all forms of incitement to violence. Let nothing that I say here be construed as support for or tolerance of the targeting of any person or group or institution to commit acts of violence against them.
This is paramount. What I say in this article is that the mark of the beast comes down to this:
Will you worship the beast . . . or the Lamb?
Only Jesus Christ — the Lamb who was slain — is worthy of our worship. And we worship him when we become like him.
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain . . .
Blessing and honor and glory and power
Be to Him who sits on the throne,
And to the Lamb, forever and ever! — Revelation 5:12–13
For centuries scholars, students, pastors and priests have taught, preached, written and speculated about the cryptic scriptures of the Book of Revelation. So why bring this up now? What more could possibly be said? Isn’t this just more speculation and muddying of the waters?
I hope not.
I’m writing about the mark of the beast because it’s more relevant now than ever in the era of COVID-19. So many now are wondering if the mark of the beast might be true – and if it is, what could it possibly mean? Does it really have bearing on what’s happening here in the year 2020?
The central purpose of this series of articles is to answer the question:
What is the mark of the beast?
or
What is the meaning of the phrase: ‘the Mark of the Beast’?
If you’re eager to hear what I believe the mark of the beast is, go here (part 2) and scroll to ‘the mark of the beast’ section. But I encourage you to go through the biblical work of getting to that conclusion.
To answer the question properly and because this is a biblical concept, we have to look at the larger context of how the term mark of the beast is used. The mark of the beast cannot be understood in isolation.[1]
So before we get to the mark of the beast we need to explore at least five related-in-context subjects:
- the dragon
- the beasts
- the image of the beast
- the worship of the beast’s image
- the 144,000
After we dive into these five things we’ll go into the mark of the beast, including the number of the beast, 666.
Of the three primary methods of interpretation used to interpret the book of Revelation:
- the historical
- the future prophecy
- the ‘timeless’
I’ll take the timeless approach. By timeless, I mean that John’s vision is a vision of the enduring struggle of Satan and the powers of earth against the Lamb’s people and God’s ultimate triumph. Yes, John’s description is surely inspired by his experiences with the Roman imperial power (he has, after all, been exiled to the island of Patmos for his testimony of Jesus Christ by the Roman authorities, see Revelation 1:9), but as Jacques Ellul says in his treatise on Revelation, Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, he claims that John uses the present as a springboard to envision a universal truth.
In other words, John writes, not for his time only, and not just for the end of time; he writes for all time and for all people – all believers in every age.
The dragon
The dragon is first mentioned in Revelation chapter 12 and only occurs in chapters 12 and 13, a total of nine times. Here are the verses that describe who the dragon represents:
And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. — Revelation 12:7–9
It’s quite obvious then who the dragon symbolizes – ‘the Devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.’ This dragon was cast out of heaven to earth and then turned to make war on the woman who gave birth and ultimately to her children — the saints — ‘who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (12:17).’
We will see shortly that in the section on the Beasts, that the dragon is the spiritual engine behind the earthly beasts’ power and influence and that that power and influence comes through the dragon’s mouthpiece, the second beast (Rev 13:11). As we will see, Satan is fluent in the language of propaganda imagery.
This is the prequel to the main attraction in Revelation 13 where the two beasts appear. The warring dragon is the back story that explains the rage that the beasts express toward the saints. The beginning of chapter 13 says this clearly:
So they [all the world] worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” — Revelation 13:4
We will talk about the worship of the beast and its image, but here the whole world directly worships the dragon itself.
Where does the beast’s power and authority come from? from the dragon. What could be clearer? What we will see is that Satan is the power and the driving force behind the state’s claim to absolute political power. Satan wants to dominate, intimidate and control you and a primary way he does this is through political machinery. John said it plainly enough at the close of his first letter.
We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. — I John 5:19
The Beasts
The Greek word therion — beast, wild animal, creature.
This word is used elsewhere of Jesus being in the wilderness with wild beasts, of Peter’s vision of unclean animals let down in a sheet, and of the snake that bit Paul on the isle of Malta. The first mention of therion in Revelation is Revelation 6:8, describing the fallout from the appearance of the pale horse, which represents Death and Hades and the power to kill by means of ‘the beasts of the earth.’ We can’t go into the full meaning of the two witnesses here but as Ellul says, they represent both the human and the divine nature of Christ.
There’s also a second mention of therion before Revelation chapter 13:
When they [the two witnesses] finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. — Revelation 11:7
This beast ascends out of the abyss and makes war on the two witnesses and kills them. Who killed Christ? Ostensibly, it was the governmental powers, both the Jewish and the Roman political powers.
Beast number 1
Starting in Revelation chapter 13 verse one and continuing to the end of the book, there are two beasts: one that rises from the sea and another that rises from the earth. Here is John’s vision of the first beast:
Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. — Revelation 13:1–2
In this case his vision is that political power can and will claim absolute authority, even to eclipse the authority of God himself.
Jacques Ellul:
(For the author [John] . . . the circumstantial is only the occasion to denote a more profound, universal, and fundamental reality.) This [first beast] is an authority which claims sovereign and permanent power, . . . I will not hesitate to say that the first designates authority, political power in the global, universal sense.[2]
Ellul again:
There cannot be any doubt, then, concerning the meaning of the symbol. But already the fact that there is a plurality (seven, ten) also indicates that it is not one particular power which is envisaged. It is, rather, a more general, constant power. It is not Rome; it is what Rome has expressed in its political expansion, in its organization, what Rome has carried to a summit practically never surpassed. This is Political Power in its abstraction (an operation that Rome had been the first to effect), the absolute power of the political.[3]
Thus, the first beast is a symbol of absolute political power[4] – ferocious, ruthless, murderous, blasphemous and, because the beast has a deadly wound that was healed, it is invincible and apparently will rise, even as it were, from the dead. It perpetually and perennially remakes itself, adapts and thereby becomes ever stronger. I could cite dozens of historical regimes that fit this description.
What does the beast do? It makes war on the saints and overcomes them (13:7). The beast’s power is total and absolute; it claims authority over every tribe, tongue and ethnic group. Yet those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will not worship the beast. In other words the saints may be overcome by the beast physically, even psychologically, but they will not worship the beast. Worship of the beast is the dividing point and must be for us a ‘bridge too far’. It is the ultimate goal of the beast.
The beast inspires worship – ‘Who is like the beast? who is able to make war with him?’ (13:4) It presumes to take the place of God; claiming to be the only way. It swells with pride, soaking in the adoration and awe due only to the Father and the Lamb.
I believe the US Government has many if not all of the attributes of the beast. But the US Government is nothing special in this regard; the same thing could be said of many other national governments: Russia, China, India, Australia, the UK. However, all these governments have national/ethnic-heritage boundaries. But what if a government did not have any boundaries — a world government or more likely a world-federated government — a super state? In my view, that would be a significant escalation and fulfillment of this prophetic word.
Look at Revelation 13:7:
It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation.
John describes the beast in absolute terms; its authority is over every tribe, tongue and nation. Yet even the Roman Empire did not have complete control over the entire known world. At its eastern frontier, for example, there were known peoples who posed a grave threat to Rome.
So until the modern era, say since the founding of the League of Nations (the forerunner to the United Nations), global communications networks and transcontinental travel, the possibility of absolute and total world domination by a political power was impossible. Yet now it is a reality. Yes, an officially-recognized world federation of nation-states does not exist, but certainly, primarily through the Internet, global commerce, etc, a coordination of the world is now a reality. This of course is unprecedented in history.[5]
I say all that to make one caveat to the interpretation of the first beast. The beast does represent a universal truth across history of the tendency of political power to become total and absolute within its national boundaries. But if there are no boundaries, this prophecy takes on a significant shift. It becomes a prophecy of the end of time and possibly of our own time. How long the ‘end of time’ will last is of course unknown.
The boundryless beast, the beast with no borders creates an acceleration and a crescendo and a culmination of effects which I believe is beginning in our own day. More on that later.
Beast Number 2
The second beast, also called ‘the false prophet’ in Revelation 19:20, rises from the earth. Here is John’s vision:
Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. — Revelation 13:11–15
The second beast does not have the ferocity of the first. It is characterized by its lamb-like two horns. This beast mollifies, softens the intensity and intimidation of the first beast. It is the ‘public relations firm’ of the first beast, its propaganda arm. It makes an image of the first beast to deceive and seduce people into a worship of it.
Here is Ellul on the second beast:
This second beast is presented under the form of a lamb, but speaks as a dragon; this is fundamental: it imitates the nonpower (since it possesses two horns, which marks the difference); it is benign at first glance; it offers the good, the kind, the realization of values, submission. But its word is that of the dragon, that is, destruction, nihilism, rupture, blasphemy. And it acts by its word. Then it also imitates God in its new way, It acts not so much according to the orders of the first beast, but under its surveillance; that is, with certain independence, but under its control. Its purpose is to persuade men to worship the state (13:12) in bringing miracles to pass, the great works of Power. . . It seduces men by marvels.[6]
Ellul continues:
This beast in addition persuades men to raise up the image of the other, the image of the state. It animates this image and gives it the word. Once more, the great weapon of the second beast is the word. It puts its words in the mouth of the state; by it the state speaks, makes itself known, identified, obeyed. We are then truly before the extraordinary work of the animation of a dead structure, of a sterile organization, of a mechanism of power, which becomes [a] living and vital presence. That which actually fills all these roles exactly is Propaganda. . . . it is an inspired analysis of the situation by John, which distinguishes between the organization of power which is the state, and the animation of this structure by the word of propaganda. On the one side, the sword; on the other, the word. . . . Obedience does not suffice; there must be love and profound adhesion.[7]
In John’s vision of the second beast we find an inspired distinction of political powers. The intimidating first beast must have a humanizing and seducing partner. This partner in contemporary parlance is public relations and its propaganda machine.
Since Edward Bernays’ 1928 book Propaganda, the sophistication of the PR business of advertising, marketing, media relations, mass psychology, etc, has multiplied many times over. Yet Bernays’ statement describing the purpose and means of propaganda remains as relevant to our own day as it ever was.
Here is Bernays’ now famous statement from the opening paragraphs of his book.
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. . . . We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. . . . In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
In our own day propaganda has become universal and invisible. It is everywhere and nowhere. For example, advertising has become so ubiquitous that we can hardly go one minute without the interruption of an advertisement on YouTube. We now routinely flick/click the ‘Skip Ad’ link reflexively and without thought. We accept this intrusion without protest or irritation. This is now ‘just life’ – the ‘new normal.’
Yes, most of the PR/advertising that we see on YouTube or other media is used as a corporate mouthpiece. But the state also has its own propaganda. Take for example, the mask advertising that’s developed and widely published. Check this out:
https://indyarts.org/public-art/current-projects/maskupindy
I’m also writing this in the months leading up to the 2020 election and – as always – scores of political ads now litter the TV landscape.
The first and second beast work hand-in-glove, but the main goal is to inspire, seduce and intimidate people to worship and adore the state. This leads us to the second major element in Revelation — the image of the beast. In other words, the beast itself is one thing, which John accurately described in the first few verses of Revelation 13. But the image of the beast is a completely different thing. It’s not just the beast that is worshiped but also the image of the beast.
That concludes part 1; it’s enough to set us in the right direction. In part 2 we’ll start with the image of the beast and conclude with answering the question:
What is the mark of the beast? Go to part 2.
[1] For an excellent treatise/commentary on the book of Revelation see Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, by Jacques Ellul. I’ll be quoting from this book extensively in these articles.
[2] Ellul, Jacques, Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, Seabury Press, New York, 1977, pg 92.
[3] Ibid, pg 93.
[4] By political power I am not referring to any particular political party. In the US, both Republican and Democrat parties fit most, if not all, of the beast’s description.
[5] An execution of power through the UN, NATO, NGOs, etc is also now a reality.
[6] Ibid, pg 95.
[7] Ibid, pg 96.
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