The Mysterious Number 666

We come now to the conclusion of Rev. 13 and "another beast rising out of the earth" rather than out of the sea as had the first beast (Rev. 13:1). What a strange and evil beast this is. All, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave are marked with his number, the number of a man, the number 666. As John says, "This calls for wisdom" and understanding. How many have claimed to have such wisdom and understanding and proclaimed who the number 666 points to. Samples:

• A Jehovah's witness declares, "This beast is a symbol of the worldwide political system, which rules over “every tribe and people and tongue and nation.”

• An"end times" commentator boldly declares that the number stands for President Barack Obama: "The end must be extremely near! God is gracious to reveal to me insights hidden for the last two thousand years so that the 666 riddle of Rev 13:18 is finally solved! All glory goes to Him!

"The thing that stumbles untold number of Bible students and scholars is the notion that the gematria value of the name of the beast must add to 666. Once you get past this mental block and begin to count his name in connection with 666, the riddle cracks open and the mystery dissolves.

The Spitfire Grill

"Paul Black was the first person who stumbled upon one such connection nearly three years ago. At the time, Paul could not have known the identity of the beast -- a then unknown before his meteoric rise. I saw the connection end of last year and have since written article after article exposing the beast.

"Paul's counting is ingeniously simple. He counted all four scriptural references to 666 in the bible and discovered to his astonishment the presence of an amazingly high common factor -- 793 -- which I found to be the English gematria value of 'Barack Hussein Obama'! (see link) As you can imagine, I would not have paid any attention at all had I not remembered Paul's counting. No researcher would have paid any attention to 793 unless he knew about the 666 connection."

• A Roman Catholic commentator writes, "In the biblical world, the number seven stood for wholeness and completeness, so to be called a “666” was an insult implying that you were short of being the real thing. Also, if you take the Greek form of the name of the Emperor Nero, the Roman emperor around the time of Revelation, and write it in Hebrew, the letters, which can also have numeric values, “add up” to—you guessed it—666. 

"For its original audience, the number symbolized the repressive Roman Empire personified in its “beastly” emperor, which, though it claimed divine authority and had seemingly absolute power, would always be a “six,” never a “seven,” and thus would not prevail in the long run."

•  Following up on this a number of commentators point out that the number may well be 616 rather than 666, since this number is found in several of the ancient manuscripts of Revelation. To answer this Tag, writing in July, 2015, declares that "Actually, both numbers are correct. They refer to Nero – 666 from a Greek calculation and 616 from Latin calculation."

So what shall we conclude, especially since this number 666 has taken on such a mysterious meaning in some circles? The profound insight behind the images of the two beasts in chapter 13 is clear. We have seen it repeated again and again in human history. Political rulers who seem to have absolute power become the gods of those who reject the supreme God and Creator of the universe. We see it in our day as millions bow down to a god who commands his followers to kill and murder all who will not bow down to him. This is the power of the beast who "had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon" (Rev. 13:11). This beast demands that all, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, be subject to him. And if they will not, they are slain. 

What a contrast is this beast whose number is ever short of perfection, 666 vs. 777. What a contrast is this beast to the God who operates with the power of the Lamb, the power of accepting suffering and death for the sins of the world. 

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" - Rev 5:12-13 ESV

Essentially The Revelation Is a Book of Symbols.

The Seven Churches of Revelation, also known as The Seven Churches of the Apocalypse and The Seven Churches of Asia (referring to the Roman province of Asia, not the entire continent), are seven major churches of Early Christianity, as mentioned in the New Testament Book of Revelation.

We continue with our study of the Apocalypse or Revelation of John (the Apostle), written from the Greek island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, off the coast of modern Turkey. John writes to

... the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. - Rev 1:4-6 ESV

"Churches" in this context refers to the community or local congregations of Christians living in each city, and not merely to the building or buildings in which they gathered for worship. In fact, church buildings would not appear to any extent, until a couple hundred years later. John is instructed to write to seven of those Christian communities. There may well have been more. Seven here must be interpreted as a symbol for all churches.  Seven is an important symbolical number in the Bible denoting completion. Some examples:

• Gen. 1:31 - 2:3 - God completed His creation in six days and set the seventh day aside to rest. Thus seven became the number for completion. It still marks the completion of our week of days. 

• In Rev. 13:18 "the number of the beast" is called "the number of a man": 666. Man was created on the 6th day. If God's number is 7, then man's is 6, indicating clearly that man is not God. He was created by God on day 6. The number of man is written 3 times. The number 3, as we'll later learn, is also God's number, the number for the Trinity. In claiming 666 we will learn that the beast is claiming to be God and worthy of worship.  

• Series of sevens often appear in the Bible. So we find:

• Gen. 7:2 - 7 pairs of each clean animal enter the ark. 
• Exodus 25:37 - the Menorah, the tabernacle's lamp stand, has 7 stems
• Proverbs 6:16-19 - The LORD hates haughty eyes, a lying tongue, shedding of innocent blood, a heart devising wicked plans, feet that run to evil, a false witness and one who sows discord.
• Matt. 18:22 - wrongdoers are to be forgiven 70 X 7. 
• In the Revelation the number 7 is used more than 50 times. e.g. 7 letters to 7 churches in Asia and 7 spirits before God’s throne (Revelation 1:4), 7 golden lamp stands (Rev.1:12), 7 stars in Christ’s right hand (Rev. 1:16), 7 seals of God’s judgment (Rev. 5:1), 7 angels with 7 trumpets (Rev. 8:2), etc. 

So here in the beginning of The Revelation the number 7  represents completeness or totality: the 7 churches represent the completeness of the body of Christ, the 7 seals on the scroll represent the fulness of God’s punishment of a sinful earth, and so on.

Symbolical language is very important in the Bible. One study tells us that there are 1,670 symbols in the Bible. These include the rainbow (Gen. 9:13; Rev. 4:3), thunder, lightning, cloud and smoke (Rev. 4:5; 8:5; 11:19), trumpets (Exod. 19:19; Rev. 8:6), throne (Isa. 6:1; Rev. 4:2; 22:3), white hair (Dan. 7:9; Rev. 1:14), etc. Amazing Discoveries has created a Bible Symbols Chart that you may find helpful.

By the way, what do you think about when you see men like myself with white hair ? White is the symbol for purity (Rev. 12:9; 20:2) and for victory (Rev. 19:8; 3:5; 7:14). White hair in particular is apparently a symbol for experience and the consequent wisdom that comes from the same (Rev. 1:14). We are commanded to honor the old man with gray or white hair and consider it to be a crown of glory, glory gained by living a godly or righteous life (Prov.16:31). Obviously not all of us white-hairs have earned such honor, but many have, by God's grace.

What precisely is a symbol or symbolic speech? Webster's dictionary defines it this way: A form of speech that expresses an idea or emotion without use of words. A symbol represents or suggests something abstract, such as burning one’s draft card, bra, or flag, or picketing. So throughout the Revelation we will encounter symbolic speech and we must consequently be very careful never to interpret symbols literally. An obvious example of this is the number 144,000 (12x12x10x10x10). We'll want to explore that peculiar symbolical number later. But is it only symbolical?

The problem is how to decide if one should ever interpret the symbols of Revelation as literal rather than symbolical, pointing beyond the image to an abstract concept, like 144,000 (Rev. 7:1-4; 14:1-3). Jehovah's Witnesses, for instance, claim that 144,000 is the literal number of those who will reside in heaven. The rest will live forever on earth or be annihilated. We'll come back to interpreting that symbolical number later. For the moment I believe we need some guidance on principles of interpretation (sometimes called hermeneutics).

One basic hermeneutical rule is that Scripture interprets Scripture. So right at the start we read that the Revelation comes from God to Jesus. Jesus, in turn, is to show his servants what must happen soon . To do that our Lord sent his angel / messenger to signify or make known what must happen through symbols.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, - Rev 1:1 NKJV

The Greek word for signify here is sēmainō, a favorite verb used by John in his Gospel. So Jesus spoke about his being lifted up as the means by which he would draw all people to himself. John then writes, "He said this to show (or signify) by what kind of death he was going to die. - John 12:33 ESV. The snake lifted up on a pole was a sign of what would happen when Jesus was lifted up on a Roman cross. In its noun form that word is translated simply as sign. So when Jesus heals the son of an  official from Judea John calls it "the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee" (John 4:54). The healing was a sign pointing to Jesus as the Messiah.

So we hear from the outset that this is a book of signs or symbols that show us what must happen. Essentially the Revelation is a book of symbols. That is the primary way by which Jesus chose to communicate to us through His angel. If we are to interpret these symbols in some kind of literal manner, the Holy Spirit will make that clear as well. Otherwise we'll have to treat the various images as symbols or signs, not to be taken literally. If you'd like to read more about this process of interpretation or hermeneutics, read Roy Harrisville's article "A Primer on Lutheran Hermeneutics."