05-13-2008, 05:44 PM
Dear brothers and sisters in the Faith in Christ Jesus our Lord and God,
Please accept my contribution to this discussion on the issue of the number of the beast as we find on the pages of the living Word of God Revelation 13.
It is true in the ancient world that in any language the consonants had sound values and numeric as well. So any word in any language would have the force of what it sounded like, and a numeric value. Gravette were found saying for example: ???I love 545???. So who is 666?!! The simple answer is we don???t know but those who read John???s letter to whom it was addressed first as part of the infant church in their situation, then they knew exactly who it was.
Some tried to associate it with certain emperors while ignoring others. For example, some worked out it was referring to Domitian but that works if you assume the abbreviated Greek form of the full Latin name and title of this emperor.
Some suggests Nero but to get it right you must use a Hebrew transliteration of the Greek form, but this Hebrew transliteration has a defective spelling!
Some say it is Henry Kissinger and it works if in Syriac (can someone check this please! unless he is like me and thinks all is a waste of time and effort).
Some are very cleaver in mathematics and worked different interpretations.
All interpretations are misleading and a waste of time and effort, just like those who are trying to work out the date of our Lord???s return, although our Lord says no one knows that hour/day/month/year except God our Father.
If only people listen to the Word of God carefully and learn what is He is warning against. The issue is not who the beast is/was as a person, but what he is demanding from all people and what he is doing to those who reject his mark, especially those who accepted the mark of the Lamb the Son of God Jesus Christ. The church history is full of such beasts till this day and such beasts will continue to appear till the Return of our Lord.
People are locked on this number but don???t understand what the Holy Spirit is saying. The beast is a deceiver and a persecutor (in the context of chapter 13) and demands enormous conformity from all people of different gender and age (vv.16-17), or they will be under his wrath! The beast could be a person, a philosophy, an ideology (the many isms of the day), a religion, a system, or a combination of those.
I think it is part of God???s inspired wisdom (v.18) to us to be on alert and be wise, because the Church history is full of deceivers and persecutors. What protects us is the continuous reading and re-reading of the Word of God to identify such deceivers (beasts), and not to accept their marks and not to be afraid of their wrath. We forget that those beasts and whoever accepts their marks are all under the Wrath of the Lamb forever; but those who have the mark of the Lamb are saved from His Wrath (similar picture found in God???s Word in the Old Testament Revelation in Ezekiel 9). People should be afraid not from the one who can destroy the body, but from who has the authority to destroy both body and soul in Hell forever, God the Creator and the Saviour and the Righteous Judge.
Yours in Christ
Henry
Please accept my contribution to this discussion on the issue of the number of the beast as we find on the pages of the living Word of God Revelation 13.
It is true in the ancient world that in any language the consonants had sound values and numeric as well. So any word in any language would have the force of what it sounded like, and a numeric value. Gravette were found saying for example: ???I love 545???. So who is 666?!! The simple answer is we don???t know but those who read John???s letter to whom it was addressed first as part of the infant church in their situation, then they knew exactly who it was.
Some tried to associate it with certain emperors while ignoring others. For example, some worked out it was referring to Domitian but that works if you assume the abbreviated Greek form of the full Latin name and title of this emperor.
Some suggests Nero but to get it right you must use a Hebrew transliteration of the Greek form, but this Hebrew transliteration has a defective spelling!
Some say it is Henry Kissinger and it works if in Syriac (can someone check this please! unless he is like me and thinks all is a waste of time and effort).
Some are very cleaver in mathematics and worked different interpretations.
All interpretations are misleading and a waste of time and effort, just like those who are trying to work out the date of our Lord???s return, although our Lord says no one knows that hour/day/month/year except God our Father.
If only people listen to the Word of God carefully and learn what is He is warning against. The issue is not who the beast is/was as a person, but what he is demanding from all people and what he is doing to those who reject his mark, especially those who accepted the mark of the Lamb the Son of God Jesus Christ. The church history is full of such beasts till this day and such beasts will continue to appear till the Return of our Lord.
People are locked on this number but don???t understand what the Holy Spirit is saying. The beast is a deceiver and a persecutor (in the context of chapter 13) and demands enormous conformity from all people of different gender and age (vv.16-17), or they will be under his wrath! The beast could be a person, a philosophy, an ideology (the many isms of the day), a religion, a system, or a combination of those.
I think it is part of God???s inspired wisdom (v.18) to us to be on alert and be wise, because the Church history is full of deceivers and persecutors. What protects us is the continuous reading and re-reading of the Word of God to identify such deceivers (beasts), and not to accept their marks and not to be afraid of their wrath. We forget that those beasts and whoever accepts their marks are all under the Wrath of the Lamb forever; but those who have the mark of the Lamb are saved from His Wrath (similar picture found in God???s Word in the Old Testament Revelation in Ezekiel 9). People should be afraid not from the one who can destroy the body, but from who has the authority to destroy both body and soul in Hell forever, God the Creator and the Saviour and the Righteous Judge.
Yours in Christ
Henry