What Is the Significance of the Mark of the Beast and the Number 666?

What is the significance of the mark of the beast and the number 666? Are they somehow connected with computer chips, credit cards, and a cashless society? Three short verses have generated a great deal of controversy: “And he causes all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, and he decrees that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who unwittingly. Economic pressure will be applied to get everyone to submit. “No one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark” (Rev. 13:17).

Though the “mark” is said to be either the name of the Antichrist or the number of his name (666), it is not explained in any greater detail. When the events in Revelation are being fulfilled, the significance of the number will make perfect sense. Right now, however, it’s not clear. That has led to a great deal of unhealthy speculation. Many people have offered guesses regarding the identity of the Antichrist or the interpretation of the number . . . like a security code or chip on a credit card, a tattoo, or a universal ID. When it comes to interpreting prophecy, it can always be helpful at such times simply to say, “I don’t know, but it will make perfect sense at the proper time.”

What we do know is that this mark of allegiance is not something an individual could receive accidentally. The passage says everyone will be forced to receive the mark in order to be able to buy or sell. People will know when they are getting it.