Wild theories of vaccine-cloaked RFID chips and Donald Trump First Beastism have swept the collective mind of Christian pop culture since the announcement of the Covid-19 vaccination and subsequent mandates.
Many Christian pseudo-intellectuals have found themselves fascinated by the parallels between the current day and the prophecy revealed in St. John’s revelation: employees fired and isolated from the market after refusing a jab or Trump’s (very recent) healing from an almost fatal wound. While the health concerns surrounding and movements against the Covid vaccine are legitimate, this new wave of four horsemen fanaticism is anything but.
Still, these theories, which the “algorithms that be” have revealed to me daily for weeks now, beg me to ask the questions: Are the end times among us? Is the Covid-19 vaccine the Mark of the Beast? Will Donald Trump force me to bend my knee? With much research and much deliberation, the same answer is yielded to all of these questions: No.
Now, while the scripture clearly states, “but of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of Heaven, but the Father alone,” that is not to say that Christians cannot know which day and hour the events of revelation will not take place. In order to eliminate this theory, we must first take inventory of what we know about the Beasts and their mark.
First, the Beast will be a grave blasphemer and global authority who will demand the worship of its subjects and who will have survived a mortal injury (Rev 13:3-8). Next, the second Beast (from the Earth instead of the Sea) will come after the first, having been given all of his authority, and force the world to worship the former Beast, performing miracles and giving life to images of him (Rev 13:11-15). Lastly, the second Beast will force humanity to receive a mark, either on their hands or foreheads. This Mark will be a numerical representation of the name of the Beast, which is revealed to be 666 (or 616, depending on the manuscript used for translation).
For those who interpret Revelation literally, the answer is cut and dry — the Covid-19 vaccine cannot be the Mark of the Beast because it’s injected into the arm and not marked on the hand or forehead. But, for those who consider St. John’s visions to be symbolic representations of real life events, we must consider what the Mark of the Beast really means. St. John writes,
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 imagery of a mark on the hand and forehead, though seemingly straightforward, is used as a metaphor in several other places in scripture. In Exodus 13:9, the exclusive use of unleavened bread is referred to as a “sign on your hand” and a “memorial between your eyes” and in Deuteronomy 11:18, the Israelites are commanded to take God’s warning against pagan worship as “a sign on your hand … as frontlets between your eyes.” From these passages, it seems as though this image refers to both a reminder in action —sign on the hand, and a reminder in thought — sign on the forehead. Because both of these images describe right action and worship of the Lord, we can infer from the Mark of the Beast’s association with pagan worship that the Mark is not a physical image or branding, but instead the action and thought associated with the worship of the Beast.
However, even if the Mark of the Beast is a literal physical sign, the original Greek word used to describe the people’s reception of the Mark is the plural, third person form of the verb δίδωμι, which means “to offer” or “to give.” This wording heavily implies that the reception of the Mark is in some way an offering to the Beast himself, associating it yet more strongly to worship. Because worship is a process which requires participation, it is clear that nobody in St. John’s Revelation was tricked into receiving it (despite being forced out of the economy otherwise).
Knowing these biblical precepts, it is fair to say that the Covid-19 vaccine can in no way be the Mark of the Beast, as it was not (at least for most) a reminder of worship in action or in thought or an offering to a specific self-deifying being. Nor, because worship is an act that requires full participation, could it have been used to deceive you into receiving the Mark.
But what about the Beast himself? St. John leaves us a reliable method for identifying the Beast when he writes:
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.
The phrase “the number of its name” refers to the ancient Hebrew practice of gematria and the later Greek practice of isopsephy. Because neither of these languages possessed a numerical system separate from their alphabet, they developed ways to assign values to words based on the number associated with their letters. This practice is the main reason that many scholars believe the Roman Emperor Nero to have been the Beast (despite the fact that, in order for his name to equal 666, you must include his title “Caesar,” transliterate his name from Greek to Hebrew, and then misspell it).
This is why St. John says the number calls for wisdom: It must be calculated and, because Revelation was written in Greek for a Greek audience, it is much more likely that the name of the beast should be calculated using the Greek isopsephy rather than the Hebrew gematria.
Now, although Donald Trump has survived a near-mortal wound, is a world power, was in office for around 42 months, and has evidently been worshiped both in prayer and song (look up Natasha Owens – “The Chosen One”), he has not yet referred to himself as a god and his name, via isopsephy, calculates to 528 (and 589 in Hebrew Gematria).
Even a brief exegetical analysis substantiates that the world isn’t going to end quite yet, and all I can assure will happen in the future is that other predictions just like these will come to peak and pass. But when the end times do come, my friends, trust me, you will know.
