Few things are more important than figuring out what the “Mark of the Beast” is, so let’s try to clear up the confusion and make sense of it.
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Will the Mark of the Beast be a personal adoption of a new payment system?
God’s Warnings
Growing up in a small Mennonite town in the 1990s, it was common for people to reference the New World Order, the Antichrist, and the Mark of the Beast (or “666”) as something right around the corner. Some church leaders were into the research, and stayed up to date on the latest developments of microchips and surveillance systems. Christian authors raised awareness in the churches, and prophecy conferences invited everyone to attend and listen to the interpretations. Everyone seemed to agree that this evil system would transform our free, private, open economy into a surveillance control grid somehow. Of course this sounded logical to me, given what the text says:
(Revelation 13:16-18, NET) He also caused everyone (small and great, rich and poor, free and slave) to obtain a mark on their right hand or on their forehead. Thus no one was allowed to buy or sell things unless he bore the mark of the beast – that is, his name or his number. This calls for wisdom: Let the one who has insight calculate the beast’s number, for it is man’s number, and his number is 666.
There you go! What else could it be? Of all the mysterious passages in Revelation, this one part seems completely literal and straightforward. We don’t need to figure out what the “Beast” is, or why there is a second one that rises out of the ground instead of emerging from the sea, or why the second one convinces mankind to create an “image” of the first one, or any of the other stuff in that chapter. All that matters is that somebody will control whether we can buy or sell, some day.
But this is not merely about being cut off from the economy, or even being persecuted in this lifetime. God Himself will condemn those who take the Mark of the Beast, cutting off any hope of salvation, and damning them to an eternity of suffering:
(Revelation 14:9-11) “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.”
Most Christians never bother to learn that part. It means that the punishment given to those who take the mark of the beast is the most severe thing listed in the entire Bible. You can’t get more punished than eternal torture day and night. Yikes!
But that’s not all. During the cataclysmic judgments God will send to earth, those who have taken the mark will be specially targeted, showing a preview of God’s wrath against them, and making sure that they don’t die comfortably:
(Revelation 16:2) So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.
Furthermore, these people are specifically mentioned as being susceptible to the deception of the “false prophet” who will show up before the end:
(Revelation 19:20) And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.
As for those who successfully reject this mark, they are going to be specially rewarded in the Millennial Kingdom, along with the martyrs:
(Revelation 20:4) Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
So I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the question of the Mark of the Beast is the most important topic we could possibly figure out. It could mean the difference between an eternity of suffering, or reigning with Jesus Christ for a thousand years!
Although I’ve written about the Mark of the Beast in various places already, and had more conversations in person, I have almost given up hope on convincing my fellow believers that we’ve been barking up the wrong tree for generations when it comes to this topic. This might be my last attempt. At least I’ll be able to say I tried. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do think my analysis is valid.
“Old” Marks of the Beast
I grew up hearing variations of how the Mark of the Beast supposedly worked. Some of the older extremists believed that the Mark of the Beast was everybody’s Social Security Number; or in Canada, our “Social Insurance Number” (which was abbreviated to “SIN”, which seemed plenty ominous).
The interpretation had issues. Doubters pointed out that there was no incorporation of “666” into the Social Security Number, or Social Insurance Number, except perhaps by unlucky coincidence for some people. And although it was important for a bunch of financial dealings, it was definitely not a marking in our foreheads or right hands.
Others believed that the number “666” was secretly hidden in every bar code, so that anyone who participated in modern retail shopping was already adopting the Mark of the Beast in some important symbolic way. As far as I know, none of these people stood by their own interpretation, but gave in and ended up buying stuff with bar codes. It turns out it’s pretty tough to live when you don’t go along with the normal methods of paying.
Credit cards, digital scanners, and anything computerized involving money was suspected of empowering the coming Antichrist system of finance. Paying cash was critical in this worldview; the “cashless society” would be the real Mark of the Beast, because only cash provided the anonymity required to live freely. However, again, this didn’t have anything to do with a marking on our bodies—in our foreheads and right hands. Many Christian book shops that accepted credit cards and sold products with bar codes on them, and nobody was being persecuted for rejecting any of these.
That’s when the idea began to center on the implanted microchip. We would all be “chipped” some day, with a physical device implanted in our foreheads or our right hands. This would be the final form of the Mark of the Beast, and anyone who did not have it would be cut off from the economy, if not killed. As late as the mid-2010’s I was attending events where this was the predominant interpretation of the Mark of the Beast.
We’re now in 2025, and there are no signs that any plans are underway to seriously “chip” the population, especially in the right hand or the forehead, as Revelation 13 specifies. Sure, it could suddenly become mandatory one of these days, but it isn’t happening yet.
COVID-19 Vaccines
Then there was the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Chances are you’ve come across hundreds of articles and videos explaining how evil they are, so I trust that you have either educated yourself on this topic by now, or you don’t care that much about the details. The part I find interesting is how many Christians have accepted this technology as being the literal Mark of the Beast.
Now let’s be fair, in many ways the campaign coercing the population to accept these “vaccines” does resonate with the stereotypical interpretation of the Mark of the Beast:
It was an inescapable worldwide event, with unprecedented coordination between local governments and global authorities;
It put pressure on people of all social and economic ranks to receive the same procedure;
Anyone who did not receive it was threatened to be limited in their access to physical retail locations and workplaces;
The injections were in the arm;
It was an irreversible one-time decision to trust a lie and obey the corrupt elite;
The patent for the vaccine was “060606” which translates to “666” if the zeroes are removed.
And the list goes on. But that last point isn’t actually real.
The 666 Patent
The patent’s proper title is “Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data”, and it was filed by Microsoft in March of 2020, during the pandemic. It does indeed relate to currency, so there’s that. But the patent itself was only proposing a theoretical technology, and imagined a cryptocurrency blockchain system that would use biometric devices to “mine” the currency unconsciously, as its title suggests.
The sensors are theorized to be stuff like an MRI or EEG sensor, or an infrared spectrocopy, heart monitor, thermal sensor, optical scanner, radio frequency, ultrasonic, camera, or “any other sensor or scanner that can measure or sense body activity or scan human body”. These are not nanomachine functions, and therefore have nothing to do with injected particles in a vaccine. There is no mention of injections, nanobots, or nanotechnology in the patent, and the things it does describe would be impossible to accomplish via any current generation of nanomachines. It is clearly describing wearable devices that have network access, like smart watches. Perhaps this is why RFK Jr. wants everyone to start wearing them.
But let’s keep this simple. It is idiotic to suggest that this supposed “666” patent relates to the COVID-19 vaccines in any way. The technology does not yet exist, and so was not invented by the time the vaccines were deployed. This patent is simply exploring the idea of a new cryptocurrency that could use biometric data to mine itself. Therefore, it is even more idiotic to suggest that this technology would constitutes the basis of the Mark of the Beast, since the cryptocurrency also does not exist. And even if it was invented in the future, it would need to replace the entire world’s money supply and become mandated as the only acceptable form of payment. And even then, there is no marking of the forehead or right hand. Plus, people who did not get the injections are still allowed to buy and sell using cash!
Sure, we could imagine a dystopian scenario where network-connected microchip sensors are implanted in the forehead/brain (or in the right hand) and then imagine that these are used to mine the cryptocurrency passively as we go about our day, and that this currency is the only accepted form of payment… but at this point we’re stretching the limits of imagination just to hype up a theoretical technology that shows no promise of becoming a reality.
So what is it really?
Perhaps this will come as a shock to you, but the “Mark of the Beast” actually relates to the “Beast” itself. Crazy idea, right?
So first we need to understand what the “Beast” is before we can understand what its “mark” would be. And as I explained in my affordable little booklet, Rise of the Beast, the actual fulfillment of the Beast described in Revelation is the Roman Empire.
In this post, I don’t have room to lay out the scriptural connections to prove this point, but it would involve going back to the book of Daniel and its four “beast” kingdoms described there. The important thing is that Rome does fulfill the Beast description, and therefore we need to read Revelation chapter 13 as a description of how the Roman Empire evolves over time to conquer the world. Both the “second beast” and the “image of the beast” are evolutions of a system of oppression, and the “Mark of the Beast” seems to be the final evolution—a global financial system of control.
The Wounded Beast
Let’s back up a bit.
The initial “Beast” kingdom is said to have received a fatal wound on its head (from the triumph of Jesus on the cross), which is then miraculously “healed”—presumably by Satan. This recovery causes the world to “worship” the Beast, and Satan gives it his full authority, power, and throne; this power would include the power to blaspheme God and kill the saints.
(Revelation 13:5-8) The beast was given a mouth to speak arrogant and blasphemous words, and authority to act for 42 months.1 And the beast opened its mouth to speak blasphemies against God and to slander His name and His tabernacle—those who dwell in heaven.
Then the beast was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them, and it was given authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. And all who dwell on the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life belonging to the Lamb who was slain.
The wounding of the Roman Empire was fulfilled by Jesus Christ, when he was resurrected from the dead. He showed the power of God over death, sin, and Satan’s armies.
But the “healing” was fulfilled when Emperor Constantine took power and created a fraudulent tolerance for Christianity. Via the bogus “ecumenical councils” he created, the Roman Empire began to monopolize Christian doctrine from on high. From that point on, anyone who rebelled against the “Christianized” Roman Empire was branded as “heretics” and exiled, punished, or even killed. Satan regained spiritual power over the world by pretending to be the top authority on Christianity.
The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches have always been a satanic ploy to control dogma. They were founded on the “Nicean Creed” created in the Roman ecumenical councils, and given authority by the wicked Constantine. They led to the worship of Mary, the invocation of the “saints”, idol worship, and thousands of other blasphemies, just as the prophecy describes. They used this false holiness to persecute and wage war against the real Christians, who never complied with this satanic system, but were always persecuted.
The Second Beast
The “Second Beast” is what emerged after the Roman Empire collapsed and lost its armies. In its place, the Vatican became the real seat of Roman power, deceiving the European kings into paying it homage, and using Charlemagne the Great to conquer them and force them into subjection to the Pope.
(Revelation 13:11-12) Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. This beast had two horns like a lamb [ie. like Jesus, because it pretends to be Christian], but spoke like a dragon [ie. Satan]. And this beast exercised all the authority of the first beast and caused the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose mortal wound had been healed.
The “two horns” of the Second Beast are nothing less than the Greek Orthodox and Latin Catholic Roman churches, and the armies they commanded; they are “like a lamb” because they have the appearance of being Christian, but they “speak like a dragon” because they continue the blasphemy of Constantine’s system of lies and persecution. Thus, the medieval period, with its Crusades, Inquisitions, and extreme dogmatism was the Second Beast exercising its authority over the world.
The Image of the First Beast
What about the “image of the first beast” mentioned next:
(Revelation 13:14-15) Because of the signs it was given to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived those who dwell on the earth, telling them to make an image to the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet had lived [ie. Constantine’s Roman Empire]. The second beast [ie. Vatican and Constantinople] was permitted to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship it to be killed.
Here is where we really need to discern what modern history is about.
If the Second Beast was a hybrid power structure encompassing all of the Greek Orthodox and Latin Catholic nations, then their combined power maintained an ongoing fantasy to some day recreate and revive the soaring heights of the Greco-Roman Classical Antiquity period. Practically all of the heads of state in Europe claimed to descend from Charlemagne the Great in some way, and Charlemagne himself was dubbed the “Holy Roman Emperor” by the Pope as a reward for conquering Europe on behalf of the Vatican. Furthermore, Charlemagne tried (in vain) to revive Latin and create a renewed Roman Empire in Eurhope everywhere he went. This dream never died.
But after centuries, something finally happened which did trigger the so-called “Renaissance” which “breathed life” into the dream. Once again there was Greco-Roman philosophy, art, engineering, and more spreading across Europe and revolutionizing society. The key was thousands of documents that had been stored in Constantinople by the Orthodox Church for centuries. With the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims, these documents poured into the hands of wealthy collectors. The Italian Renaissance fulfilled the prophecy of the “Image of the Beast”—a replica of the First Beast (ie. Rome), created by man, at the behest of the Second Beast (ie. Vatican and Constantinople).
Modernity
In other words, the Image of the Beast is what we live in today. It is the modern “Democratic Republic” system, modeled directly after classic Athens and Rome, with elections and senators, constitutional limits on power, and the greedy system of imperial conquest and integration.
That is why government capital buildings are almost always “Neo-classical” in architecture. It is literally an attempt to replicate and revive the Greco-Roman civilization 1,500 years later, using the old documents as inspiration.
The “Renaissance” (revival) was obsessed with breathing life back into old, seemingly dead Greco-Roman concepts, and their success was all thanks to the Greek and Latin Churches preserving their ancient texts and traditions
The word “inspiration” literally means inhaling—giving life to something with breath. For our modern civilization to be “inspired by” the Greco-Roman world is to directly confirm that we are living in the Image of the Beast, which was given breath by the Second Beast. Remember, we’re not talking about just any period of the Roman Empire. The Bible specifically says that the “image” is modeled after the “first beast” that was “healed”; which means the post-Constantine empire of false Christianity. That’s why the modern Roman empire (ie. America) has a fake Christian foundation, blaspheming by claiming to promote “Christian values”, while actually destroying the world and persecuting the innocent.
To this day, our phony system is given support, guidance, and “inspiration” by the Vatican and the Orthodox Churches. Think about how much of the world is dominated by the Orthodox and Catholic churches and their bishops. They are involved in wars, organized crime, child-trafficking, corruption, and the conspiracy to snuff out biblical doctrine. Those that are “secular” are almost all modeled after the Greco-Roman system of constitutional republics, which is just another way of conforming to the Beast System.
And yes, “the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship it to be killed”, because this empire demonizes and overthrows any government that stands up for itself and defies the American imperialist system. I shouldn’t have to tell you about the history of the CIA and the war machine “liberating” the world in the name of “democracy”.
Now the Mark Itself
Even so, the Mark of the Beast may seem mysterious. Where does this leave us? According to my interpretation, we need to step back and look at how real history has played out to get the clues. Once you see it, it becomes obvious.
This is the final evolution of the Beast System: our modern imperial system. We are already living in the age of the Mark of the Beast, and we have been for 500 years. It is not a piece of technology, but a system of international control via banking, military intervention, and financial conquest. It is aimed at destabilizing and integrating any regime that resists Western colonization. This is connected directly to the “Humanist” roots of the Renaissance, since the justification is always based on humanitarian principles, democracy, and self-determination (which is a lie). It is played out on an international scale, not a individual one, since the Beast is a global power that governs nations, not a person who governs individual people.
Let me quote the passage again, but include my own interpretive notes in brackets:
(Revelation 13:16-18) [The Roman Churches] also caused [every nation] (small and great, rich and poor, free and slave) to obtain a mark [committment] on their right hand [lifestyle] or on their forehead [ideology]. Thus no one was allowed to buy or sell things [in international trade] unless he bore the mark of the beast – that is, his name or his number.
This calls for wisdom: Let the one who has insight calculate the beast’s number, for it is man’s number, and his number is 666.
What is the name of the Beast? What is its Number? Why is it also “Man’s Number”?
The name of the Beast might be something like “Greco-Roman Democratic Republicanism”. We can’t know how God thinks of it exactly, but this would fit the majority of the world today, which “worships the Beast” by adopting its systems in various forms.
Hell, even China is officially called the “People’s Republic of China”, and they have elections for many of their representatives. North Korea also calls itself a socialist republic. Iran calls itself an Islamic republic. Just look at the list of republics in the world today. The world has truly been conquered in the name of the Greco-Roman system, with everyone pretending to have a representative system of government, no matter how fake their elections are and how corrupt their representatives behave.
The number of the Beast might be “Humanism”—the rejection of God and the promotion of Man as his own judge. We believe that we are collectively responsible for ourselves. This is why it is also “Man’s Number”. And this number may be “6” because Man was created on the 6th day of Creation. In my opinion, the reason it is repeated three times is to show that it is purely Humanist, with no room for God. In other words, it is also Secularism or Atheism.
Conclusion
To have the “Mark of the Beast” on the right hand (lifestyle) or your forehead (ideology) therefore means to reject God’s authority in your life, and in your mind. It means accepting the authority of Man instead of God, electing officials to represent you, creating policies based on human rationality, and trusting in this system as the pinnacle of what we should be striving for, rather than repenting of our sins and devoting our lives to the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, which is not on Earth, and already has one Sovereign Lord who has supreme authority over every human soul.
The Roman Churches are in fact Satan’s Antichurch—the Second Beast—deceiving the world into believing that they represent Christianity. For those who want to escape this system, they flock to the Greco-Roman Humanist system and elect corrupt officials into power. Secretly, however, the Second Beast is controlling world affairs behind the scenes, through their bishops and intellectuals.
The good news is that the punishment for taking the Mark of the Beast is not in effect yet. According to Revelation, the warnings about eternal condemnation are only given to humanity by the three angels that fly across the world preaching the Gospel and warning them not to worship the Beast or its Image, or to take its mark:
(Revelation 14:6-12) Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, and he had an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth – to every nation, tribe, language, and people. He declared in a loud voice: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has arrived, and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!”
A second angel followed the first, declaring: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great city! She made all the nations drink of the wine of her immoral passion.”
A third angel followed the first two, declaring in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and takes the mark on his forehead or his hand, that person will also drink of the wine of God’s anger that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb. And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.”
This requires the steadfast endurance of the saints – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to their faith in Jesus.
So you see, there is a time coming when actual angels will spread the Gospel to the whole world without human effort, and this will trigger the final days of judgment, when no human being has any excuse to deny God’s authority. At that time, cataclysmic disasters will have wiped out the majority of humanity, and the world will be very different than today. Those who do reject God—those who continue to believe in Humanism or the Roman Churches—will at that point be doomed to eternal damnation. It is ignorance that allows God to give people grace today, but the appearance of these angels will leave them without any justification. Therefore, it will be appropriate for them to be tortured forever, because they will know the truth.
Today, we still have grace and opportunity to repent. We must serve the Kingdom, not the Beast System.
I fully acknowledge that this is my own hypothesis, and I could be wrong. We all have the opportunity to study the scriptures and discern their meaning, and I have put forward my ideas in the hopes of creating a better interpretation than the ones I received by tradition. If you want a deeper study, please consider my books.
Yes, I know that it mentions that the Beast only has 42 months to reign, and that this number aligns with several other spans of time given. I believe that these spans of time do relate to each other, but none of them are literal. They are as symbolic as the Beast description itself. If you think that we should be watching for a literal monster with seven heads and ten horns, let me know.
I read your book "Maybe Everyone is Wrong" after hearing you on Dan Fournier's podcast, then subscribed to this Substack some months ago. So by now familiar with your take on the Catholic church, and Orthodox, as well, as you are writing here once again today. I agree with you that a lot about these institutions is a continuation of Roman empire and very corrupted, political power more than spirituality. I assume these views extend to some Protestant denominations, Anglican for example which is just like Catholic except instead of the pope they substitute the English king or queen. Or United here in Canada, which is like an arm of the government.
But one thing I have not gotten from reading/listening is what you consider a good church. Is it better for Christians to be on their own; not attend any religious institution or adhere to the dogma of a particular denomination? Are only congregational type Christian gatherings good in your opinion? Also is it possible to be a good Christian but also be an attendee of a particular Orthodox or Catholic church? Does one have to decide based on a local church and behavior of its congregation? Curious to know your view.
I appreciate you offering your views on this, and you’ve obviously given it a good deal of thought. Some excellent insights here.
There’s one transition in your interpretation that I’m really struggling with though. You outline a compelling interpretation regarding the first beast and the second beast wherein you identify the mark of the beast as “a system of international control” and say that we “are living in the age of the Mark of the Beast, and we have been for 500 years.” You then you point to Revelation 14 as signifying “that the punishment for taking the Mark of the Beast is not in effect yet.”
All that is compelling to me, but it seems to imply that the mark of the beast at some point must transition from a kind of generic system of international control to something more specific that forces each individual to make a choice for himself/herself. How else to make sense of Revelation 14:11: “And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.”
It’s difficult for me to see how the phrasing can just mean an intangible system that shapes global civilization, and it really seems to me to point to something more tangible that forces each individual to make a stark choice. But I don't know. Like I said, very compelling viewpoint that I'll be thinking about for a while.
I read your book "Maybe Everyone is Wrong" after hearing you on Dan Fournier's podcast, then subscribed to this Substack some months ago. So by now familiar with your take on the Catholic church, and Orthodox, as well, as you are writing here once again today. I agree with you that a lot about these institutions is a continuation of Roman empire and very corrupted, political power more than spirituality. I assume these views extend to some Protestant denominations, Anglican for example which is just like Catholic except instead of the pope they substitute the English king or queen. Or United here in Canada, which is like an arm of the government.
But one thing I have not gotten from reading/listening is what you consider a good church. Is it better for Christians to be on their own; not attend any religious institution or adhere to the dogma of a particular denomination? Are only congregational type Christian gatherings good in your opinion? Also is it possible to be a good Christian but also be an attendee of a particular Orthodox or Catholic church? Does one have to decide based on a local church and behavior of its congregation? Curious to know your view.
I appreciate you offering your views on this, and you’ve obviously given it a good deal of thought. Some excellent insights here.
There’s one transition in your interpretation that I’m really struggling with though. You outline a compelling interpretation regarding the first beast and the second beast wherein you identify the mark of the beast as “a system of international control” and say that we “are living in the age of the Mark of the Beast, and we have been for 500 years.” You then you point to Revelation 14 as signifying “that the punishment for taking the Mark of the Beast is not in effect yet.”
All that is compelling to me, but it seems to imply that the mark of the beast at some point must transition from a kind of generic system of international control to something more specific that forces each individual to make a choice for himself/herself. How else to make sense of Revelation 14:11: “And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.”
It’s difficult for me to see how the phrasing can just mean an intangible system that shapes global civilization, and it really seems to me to point to something more tangible that forces each individual to make a stark choice. But I don't know. Like I said, very compelling viewpoint that I'll be thinking about for a while.