“The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.”
Earlier in the same book, an angel warned that anyone who decided to accept the Mark would be subject to the wrath of God (Rev 14:9, 11; 16:2). Those who decide to reject the Mark of the Beast would stand with the Lord beside the Sea of Glass (15:2; 20:4)
Satan loves to copy the Lord God and the things that God determined for good, Satan will emulate in perversion. Ephesians 1:13 clearly states that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit until the Day of Redemption. In line with this, an angel in Revelations also decrees:
“After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel”
So, just as the Saints are marked with a sign by the Holy Spirit that declares they belong to the Lord, the Beast will mark his followers with a sign as well to declare that they belong to the Antichrist. (As a side note, in this also we see the Unholy Trinity – Satan, the Antichrist and the Beast (or false prophet). This is Satan’s perversion of the Holy Trinity.)
The Mark of the Beast is branded on the person’s forehead or hand; without this, no one can buy or sell anything. Today, we already see the beginnings of the development of the Mark in the newest technologies that are coming out, specifically in the RFID sector and the adoption of the medical implant chip. Though these are not the Mark of the Beast, it is highly likely that they are the forerunners to the technology that will make the branding viable.
Already, these chips can be implanted in a person’s forehead or right hand, just like the Mark. Unlike the Mark however, they are not the only means of buying and selling. With such a widely accepted system in place, it will be very easy for the Antichrist and the Beast to adopt it for their own purposes when they rise to power.
Simply put, the Mark of the Beast in the Bible is the sign of the Antichrist given to those who support and worship him in the last days. The Mark is a brand, without it no person can buy or sell anything around the globe. Those who refuse to accept the Mark are effectively rejecting the Antichrist and embracing the one true Christ- Jesus, the Son of God.
