The Covid Vaccine has 666 Written All Over It…and Why that Doesn’t Matter According to Revelation

In an article published last week on theLAB, COVID-19 and The Mark of the Beast, I claimed that the mark of the beast (666) is most likely not a physical or visible mark (Rev. 13:16). The biggest objection I received from readers had to do with this very point: how could the mark be non-physical and invisible if having the mark was what allowed people to “buy or sell” things (Rev. 13:17)? Wouldn’t the mark need to be visible in order to do that? Furthermore, isn’t there enough evidence that the vaccine is the “number” of the beast, including a bill currently before the House of Representatives (6666) and the very letters “C-O-R-O-N-A” themselves?1 These are good questions, and I think a response would be helpful. But first, we need to start from square one and do some background work.

Letter to the Churches
First, we must remember that Revelation is a first-century letter to seven churches in Asia Minor (Rev. 1:4, 11). Letters in antiquity are much like modern letters—situational, personal, and contextual. To understand a letter between two people (or groups of people), you really need to know a thing or two about what necessitated the sending of the letter in the first place. In other words, you need context. In order to rightly interpret the letter of Revelation, we need to investigate these churches’ historical situation.

Many evangelicals tend to skip over this step and jump straight to application. This is a grave mistake. If we completely detach our modern-day applications from a text’s original, historical context, we risk misapplying the text—sometimes in embarrassing ways. Revelation 13:17 (“no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name,” ESV) is one such text. In order to interpret it rightly, we need to know its context. We need some historical data from the letter’s time period in order to gain clarity into its meaning. Is there any such data that might shed some light on this passage? As it turns out, there is.

Worshiping the Emperor
If you want to reconstruct the historical context of Christian people living in first-century Asia Minor, you must take into account the Roman imperial cult. There’s simply no way around it. The cult itself presented clear challenges to early Christians. But what do I mean by “imperial cult”?

For starters, Roman emperors were often deified after they died, becoming “gods” for Roman citizens to worship. For example, after Julius Caesar died, he was deified. His adopted son, Augustus, took for himself the title “son of god.”2 The logic was simple. If his father became “god,” then he got to be called, well, you guessed it: “son of god.”


Though it was true an emperor would be deified after he died, many Greeks living in various cities throughout the eastern parts of the empire jumped the gun; they would worship the Roman emperor while he was still alive.3 It is interesting to note that this was true of Ephesus (just like the letter to the Ephesians).4 The city of Pergamum, too, had long been a hotbed for imperial worship.5Smyrna needs to be thrown into the mix as well.6 The list goes on. In fact, this was also true of the other four cities to which John directed his letter.7

The more despotic emperors of the first century sought to be recognized as gods while they were still living. Nero was one such emperor; Domitian was another.8 Suetonius, the well-known ancient historian, says Domitian demanded to be addressed as both “Lord and God” (Suetonius, Dom. 13). The situation was such that Domitian was “everywhere hated and feared” (Dom. 14).

Keep in mind that most scholars believe Revelation was written during the reign of one of these two tyrants. Either way, if you were a Christian, you very well might have been plagued with angst, fear, and uncertainty. After all, Nero was infamous for murdering his own mother, as well as killing innocent Christians by turning them into tar-covered human candles to light up the night. Suetonius tells a story of how Domitian once wined and dined his palace steward, lavishing on him kindness and generosity. Then the next day Domitian had him crucified. Why? Simply because he could (Dom. 11).

It is perhaps understandable, then, why other ancient texts came to refer to Nero and Domitian as a “beast.” This is documented in places like Pliny’s Panegyricus, the Sybilline Oracles, and Vita Apollonii.9 I’d say the shoe fits.

“666”: The Number of the Beast
Years ago, I remember hearing how some had taken President Reagan to be the end times “beast.” The reasoning went like this. When you take his full name, Ronald Wilson Reagan, you can see how each name contains exactly six letters. No wave of the wand or hat-trick was needed to see how that dreaded, mysterious number was embedded in the president’s name. To say this is silly is an understatement. (How odd that John wrote in such a way that only a person who was familiar with both the English language and modern American politics could rightly interpret his message!) In order to avoid embarrassing interpretations like this one (and similar ones that seem to prevail in 2020), we must deal with the text’s original context. Again, you can’t simply jump to modern application without dealing with the historical context.

Scholars often associate “the number of the beast” with Nero Caesar. There’s actually good reason for doing so. For instance, we know from Suetonius that many people were at the time toying with the numerical values of Nero’s name (Nero 39). This practice, known as gematria, took a letter of the alphabet and assigned it an equivalent number. So, for example, in the case of Greek, the first letter alpha would be given the number one. The second letter beta would be understood as two, and so on. When you take Nero’s name (Neron Kaisar) and transliterate it into Hebrew, the result is the number of the beast: 666.

The Image of the Beast
Recall that in Revelation “the mark of the beast” is tied closely to the worship of the beast’s image (Rev. 13:15; 20:4). Since we have a pretty good idea about the identity of the beast, is there any other historical data we could look to that would link the worship of thebeast’s image with the worship of Caesar’s image? Again, the answer is yes. From the writings of Pliny, for example, we learn how professing Christians’ faith were put to the test by having them worship the image of Caesar (Pliny, Letters, 10:96-97).11

The emperor’s image was everywhere, especially on coins. Modern folks are used to this. In my country, images of former national leaders are on our money. But Rome was slightly different. Caesar’s image would be on coins along with his claim to divinity. Quite literally, the emperor’s boast that he was in some way “divine” was etched (dare I say marked?) on money, decrees, and the like. One scholar observes that, “One could do little in commerce . . . without handling such a ‘mark,’ because allusions to the emperor’s divinity appeared on many coins and even shipping bills and other documents.”12 During this time period, involvement in local economies would have often required some sort of participation in pagan worship. For example, trade guilds often had feasts that centered around the worship of idols. If you were part of the guild, then your participation in these feasts would have been compulsory—that is, only if you wanted to be able to buy and sell.13

Buying and Selling
What, then, can we conclude about that “buy/sell passage”? When it comes to the beast, his mark, and the worship of the beast’s image, the historical data seems to be pointing us in one direction: It’s simply a reference to how the imperial cult impacted one’s participation in the local economy. If the “mark” is an allusion to the emperor’s claim to divinity (symbolized on Roman coins, statues, images, etc.), then a person in the first century could genuinely be said to “take the mark of the beast” by participating in the economy at the expense of their faith in Jesus. That last part is key. In other words, at certain times and in certain locations in the empire, the only way to be a good-standing citizen would have been to simply curse Christ and worship Caesar’s image (see again Pliny, Letters, 10:96-97). Again, this would have been a particular problem for Christians in Asia Minor. They would often find it impossible to make a living and worship Christ exclusively.

Of course, a person could respond by saying, “Yes, but the text says the ‘mark’ is placed on the ‘right hand or the forehead.’ Does this not therefore necessarily imply a physical mark?” The answer is no. Craig Keener offers helpful thoughts on this point. He notes how “the mark of the beast” in Rev. 13 acts as a parallel to the “seal” that is placed on the foreheads of Christians in Rev. 7:3-4. This “seal” actually has an Old Testament basis, namely, in Ezekiel 9, where a “mark” was said to have been placed on the foreheads of God’s people (Ez. 9:1-6). Keener also points to another Jewish text of the period (known as the Psalms of Solomon) that describes a mark placed on evil people. He observes how the two marks in Ezekiel and the Psalms of Solomon are clearly “symbolic . . . visible only to God and his angels, not to people.”14 And so it is quite reasonable to conclude that the mark of the beast, like the seal of the Lamb, is also symbolic.

So is the Vaccine the 666 Mark of the Beast?
Growing up, I never heard any of this stuff. I reckon that most people in my evangelical tradition haven’t either. But without all the background information, people are being tossed to and fro by endless speculations and fears. Sadly, some people—many of them sincere Christians—are terrified that they will be forced to take the mark of the beast (no, it’s not Bill Gates) in the near future. Could it be the vaccine? Is it a computer chip? What if I get tricked into taking it?

With these questions in mind, let me offer a few remarks about modern-day application. First, the historical data does not permit us to think the “mark of the beast” is something you can accidentally take. It’s a mark of loyalty and worship, which requires full cognitive and heart-felt awareness of what you are doing (otherwise it’s not worship). If there is some future mark imposed on people by some nefarious person, then to take that mark, you’ll know exactly what you are doing—namely, cursing Christ and pledging devotion to his enemy. Scripture and other ancient writings from that timeperiod point us in this direction and, quite frankly, there isn’t much leeway on this point (although you can debate me in the comments, if you wish).

Second, be careful and wise with how you apply these texts. Let me give an example. Right now, in my own country (and it’s been this way for a long time), a person might find it very tricky and difficult to operate within our local economies without a government-issued social security number. Let me be as clear as I possibly can about this: There is no biblical reason to think that accepting government-mandated social security numbers is the equivalent of taking the mark of the beast. Whatever the current issue may be (vaccines, SSN, chip implants, SIM cards, etc), we need to be careful about confusing our personal and/or political convictions with the meaning of a biblical text. Some public policy ideas are good; some are terrible. But either way, unless “They” require you to forsake your faith in Jesus as the exclusive object of your worship, They have no relation to the mark of the beast. Again, given what we know about the historical context of these biblical texts, the “mark of the beast” must be tied back into worship if it is to be applied properly.

To take all of these things into account allows a much-needed moratorium on all the pointless anxiety and fear-mongering. The message of Revelation beckons us away from angst and worry. It bids us to gaze upon the slain Lamb—to worship him with loyalty, devotion, and commitment. Let’s make Christ our focus, not endless speculations that, at the end of the day, have very little to do with the message of Revelation.

Thank you for the breath of sanity, and welcome to CC.

Though there are many problems with Nero being the beast, there is only one that needs to be mentioned to kill that whole idea. Scripture states that when the Lord returns to the earth to end the age, the antichrist/beast along with the false prophet, will be thrown alive into the lake of fire. Regarding this, Nero committed suicide by stabbing himself in the neck, which would immediately disqualify him as being the antichrist. Furthermore, by the use of gematria one can make anyone out to be the beast.

The mark of the beast will be exactly what it says it will be, which has nothing to do with the Covid virus. For according to the scritpure, the mark is to go on/in the right hand or the forehead. It will be a device that will replace the swiping of debit/credit cards for the scanning of the hand or forehead, which will credit or debit a persons back account.

We have already seen the mark of beast technology with the implanting of RFID chips under the skin between the thumb and index finger with one of its purposes to be for making purchases (buying). Sweden is already pretty much a cashless society using only bank cards to make their purchases. In 2015 people in Sweden began to be chipped with the RFID chip and are now using this to make their purchases. Instead of using their bank cards, those who have been chipped are using it to pay for the train fare, etc.

I believe that the mark of the beast technology will evolve from the RFID chip to something smaller and more applicable in preparation for that coming antichrist/beast. In any case, regardless of what it evolves into, one thing will remain the same in that, the marks location will be on/in the hand or the forehead.

Did you forget who wrote the book of Revelation and why?

This is a book of which God says, that anyone who adds to the words of that prophecy, God will add to that person the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from those words, God will take away from that person his right to the New Jerusalem and the tree of life. Right in the first chapter we are told that this is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him to show His servants (believers) the things that must take place in quickness. It goes on to further say that 'blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart the things written therein.

This tells me that the information contained in the book of Revelation is very important and that God wants us to know bout it. Studying and meditating on the book of Revelation is in fact putting our focus on Christ, for He is the One who gave these words to us. How dare anyone attempt to diminish it as though it wasn't important. To me the book of Revelation is the Grand Central Station of the word of God.

For the most part, the book of Revelation is a detailed account of 'The Day of the Lord,' the long prophesied wrath of God which will be carried out via the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments, as well as the plagues that the two witnesses bring.

So, by reading this book as well as the rest of His word, we are making Christ our focus. But we should not push the book of Revelation to the side as though it only offers endless speculations. God has moved people to study this book, I being one of them, so that we could know what it says and its relevance, especially as we are quickly approaching the fulfillment of the Lord's promise to come and gather His church. Once that takes place, then the time of God's wrath will follow, which is what the majority of the book of Revelation reveals.

What a lot people don’t realize in world is that these countries like japan,Korea,China,Sweden,Poland,Russia,France,Italy,papa New Guinea,England,Canada,America and all those tiny islands are dragon shaped not supposed to be divided it’s supposed to one land connected with all people of different nationalities, anytime the land is carved into shapes through earthquakes it means that is the devil is carving his mark of the beast on those lands he separated in order to divide and conquer you heard about that strategy before in ancient times and now they are doing it again in a different way with coronavirus, nothing can separate us from god but Jesus is everything that will save man kind. If you read revelation 13
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. So when revelation speaking of beast coming out of the sea it more than one meanings for example it talking about continents that will emerge from the sea in the next 200 million years there is a 7 continent called zealandia is under water below New Zealand this is what revelation is speaking about. And also they have man made artificial islands in Dubai that is shaped like a plant on the sea that is the beast revelation is taking about, I know a lot of things in this world I could tell will shock but it’s the truth. I am only here to warn people about the future cause what is not good.

It sounds nice. And there may be verifiable truth in some-or-all of the historical details. However, it only weaves a hopeful story around a few ideas and concepts mentioned in the revelation text. It does not take into account - nor align with - the overall historical significance or prophetic nature of events tied to those ideas and concepts as they are written in the revelation text.

Are you suggesting that God gave Jesus a revelation for Him to give to man - in a vision - that involved only some things about the then current-day already-known happenings of evil kings? That just-so-happens to align with actual events over the next ~2000 years? Along with the 'entities' associated with those events?

Think again.

There are too many details left unexplained by this explanation.

How does the sea of glass fit into this? How about the Seals, Trumpets, and Vials?

Did the 'they' in Revelation 7:14 all come out of the first century?

How does this explanation account for all of Revelation? Or, at the very least, all of the things tied to the ideas and concepts discussed?

Yes - it would be wonderful if it were true. But, it has a very long way to go to explain all of the specific detail concerning events, etc. that are included in the revelation text.

Wrap a good story around a few ideas - just enough to take the attention of most Christians off of the important 'details' of scripture - to "disable" good discernment - and they will buy it.

Because they really want to believe it.

Be careful Christians!

A-few-details-that-match does not a-full-alignment-with-scripture make!

This appears to me to be nothing more-or-less than a monumental attempt to dissuade people from the truth about who the 'beast' in revelation really is...

Sanity? Or, sly deception?

Fear-mongering is deception.

Telling-it-straight is neither fear-mongering nor deception.

Straight or crooked doesn't make a whit of difference when the message is pure speculation.

And the OP is not???

There is no speculation about the need for something to be aligned with all relevant scripture.

I read once that they never found Nero's body. I don't know if it is true.