The Number of the Beast

I was at McDonald's the other day waiting for my order, when a woman came in and ordered at the kiosk. Afterwards, she walked over showing me her order number, and sarcasticly said as she smiled, "Awesome! It's my lucky day! What a great number I got!". Her order number was 666.

The number 666 has a stigma attached to it of being a bad omen. It's unlucky like the number 13, or Friday the 13th. If you're a superstitious person, like the woman at McDonald's, then getting the number 666 on your meal ticket certainly means that the stars are aligned against you, and you're in for a bad day, perhaps getting burnt fries or a hair in your Big Mac.

The number is also believed by some to be satanic and is associated with evil and the devil. Many movies and songs have been made about the number 666, and they are typically, if not always, about Satan, Lucifer or the devil.

But where do these ideas come from? What does the number 666 mean, and are these ideas accurate?

In short, the number of the beast comes from the book of Revelation in the Bible, in which the apostle John has a vision while serving a prison term on the island of Patmos, and among other things, he sees a beast coming out of the sea, followed by a second beast coming up out of the earth. 

The following passage is what the apostle John wrote regarding the two beasts and is where the number 666, the number of the beast, originates:

He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.

Revelation 13:11‭-‬18

One view that Christians hold, is that the first beast coming out of the sea is the Antichrist, who is essentially a political leader who is possessed by Satan, and who will attain power to rule over the entire world at some point in the future. He will usher in the Great Tribulation and eventually the return of Jesus.

Antichrist's name has the number 666 somehow associated with it, which is the number of the beast. For example, in the '80's some thought that President Reagan was the Antichrist because each of his three names - first, middle and last - have six letters in them - Ronald Wilson Reagan. Fyi, ever since FDR, the President of the United States has been a candidate for being the Antichrist. Other popular candidates have been Hitler, the Pope, Henry Kissinger, and Mikhail Gorbachev.

The second beast who comes up out of the earth, is believed to be a religious leader, similar to the Pope, or perhaps the President in the Mormon religion. He performs signs and wonders - miracles - which causes many of those who are left remaining on the earth to worship the first beast. Prior to the time of the Antichrist and the false prophet, the church has been raptured, meaning believers have been taken up to heaven with Jesus, to escape the Great Tribulation. The second beast is a false prophet who will try deceive the remaining inhabitants of the earth, although God will cause many of them to repent during the Great Tribulation.

According to this view, the mark, or number of the beast, will be stamped on the right hand and on the forehead of those who worship the beast in order to identify them as being loyal and belonging to him. Today, some believe that the mark of the beast will be a computer chip implant or the COVID vaccine, or something that government officials force upon the people against their will. Regardless of what it is, those who do not have the mark of the beast would not be allowed to buy or sell, which would make it very difficult to live, because you would not be able to buy food or to make a living. These would primarily be Christians, because they would not be deceived by either of the two beasts. However, after witnessing government leaders and people during COVID, I think there would be non-Christians who would not give into the demands of an authoritarian government.

At any rate, that is what the number of the beast is according to this view.

Another view is that the first beast represents a political system, and the second beast represents a religious system, both through which Satan operates against the church. The first beast is a representation of the empires of the world who are hostile towards the church, and through whom Satan works to persecute and oppose the church. The second beast represents false religions through which Satan also works in opposition to the church. From the time of the apostles, political and religious systems have been the primary sources of opposition against the church.

In biblical times in the Roman Empire, a numeric code was sometimes assigned to a person to conceal their name. Some believe that the apostle John did this when writing about the first beast in Revelation, so that the early churches whom he was writing to would know who it was he was referring to, but if the Romans were to read it, they would not. The Romans severely persecuted the church, so it is believed that the apostle John was taking a precautionary measure to protect the church in case the Romans got a hold of it.

According to this view, the person the apostle John was talking about as the beast, was Caesar Nero, the emperor of Rome *at the time of the apostle John's writing of Revelation. If the Greek spelling of Nero Caesar (Neron Kaisar) is transliterated into Hebrew (nrwn qsr), the numerical equivalent is 666. Nero brutally persecuted Christians living in Rome, and is believed to have blamed the Christians for starting the fire that burned through Rome in AD 64, even though he himself is believed to have started the fire. Satan worked through Nero to persecute Christians and to try to destroy the church. Nero also murdered his mother and had his wife imprisoned and then killed after marrying another woman.

Another reason Nero is who some believe the apostle John is talking about, is because John described the beast as having seven heads, ten horns with a crown on each horn, and a blasphemous name on his heads. Revelation 17:9-10 says:

“Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time."

The apostle John wrote that the seven heads of the best are seven mountains of which there are seven kings. The seven kings are believed by some to be the seven emperors of Rome, and the "one [who] is", would have been Nero if Revelation was written during Nero's reign.

To sum it all up, according to this view, 666 the number of the beast, is the mark of the beast, and the number of the beast equates to Caesar Nero when the numeric value is assigned to his name in Hebrew. Because Revelation is a letter written by the apostle John to seven churches that existed at that time, John was taking precautionary measures by transliterating Nero's name into a numerical value, when letting the churches know that Nero was the beast whom he was talking about.

Hopefully this helps to clear up what the number of the beast really is, not that having the knowledge of it has life changing altercations, but because  knowing the truth of what the Bible actually teaches is important so that we can pass it on to others. You can decide which, if either of these two views, are the correct view.

*The date of Revelation is debatable among biblical scholars. Those who hold this view believe the letter was written during Nero's reign prior to AD 70.