So I read an article that tries to cast doubt on the idea bandied around the Evangelical Christian media and pulpits that COVID vaccine passes are “the mark of the beast” mentioned in the New Testament book of Revelation. This guy doesn’t even have the education or experience of your average Christian theologian, yet he presumes to teach you. Rather, that which inspires him aims to mislead you. Among Christian theologians, futurists and preterists have been arguing about this for ages. In truth, the divine truth plays out on a spectrum of levels. Phenomena occur at various points in history, and they represent general tendencies of history itself, and the whole of history itself with its many episodes correspond to patterns and occurrences playing out in completely different spectra, for example, within one’s own soul.
So then, there have been many marks of the beast throughout history. Nero’s silver denarius was the one that was talked about during New Testament times. The Ahnenpass of Nazi Germany was another. Overall they represent the general historical tendency to subvert freedom and justice to authoritarian economy. It got to the point where in Roman times you could have a lump of silver in your pocket, but it had no value compared to an equally sized lump of silver that had Emperor Nero’s name on it. It was the illusion that somehow Emperor Nero’s name made a thing something other than what it actually was. Likewise, in Nazi Germany, you could have any piece of paper in your pocket imaginable, but none of them would avail you unless you had that stamped piece of paper that said, “not a Jew.” People would do nearly anything to make sure they had that piece of paper. Likewise, today you can have any app on your phone you want, but you aren’t going to eat in the restaurant unless you have the one that says, “vaccinated.”
Further, the futurists claim that during the last days there will be some similar type mark that everyone will have to have in order to participate in society, and that to get this mark, people will have to compromise their principles and betray God in some way or pledge allegiance to an evil godless government in some way. The devoted will refuse the mark and be banned from society, and the unprincipled will accept it and do whatever is required to keep it.
So, yes, the mark of the beast was actually a Roman coin like the article says. But it is also the tendency in history for evil to demand allegiance by offering convenience in exchange for participation in an evil society. This has always happened and is always happening. But finally, there are those that say it will happen in a big way at the end of days when the ultimate evil emperor shows up.
The shell game that this author is playing with you is that the mark of the beast can only be one thing. It can only be the preterist interpretation: a Roman coin. Therefore you shouldn’t be at all concerned by the fact that you have to take mandatory injections that don’t do anything to stop a mild illness and show proof of this in order to buy a sandwich. There is nothing wrong with that at all according to this author, apparently.
I beg to disagree. This mark of the beast principle is found in various scriptures of various religions around the world, known by various names. Again, it is the general idea of forcing the population to sell themselves out in order to receive the benefits of participation in an authoritarian and evil society. Now I make absolutely no claim that COVID passes are the actual mark of the beast of the Book of Revelation issued by the Antichrist named in that book. I have been vaccinated twice, and I have the proof thereof on my phone. But I know that it is evil to prevent people from buying food because they have not accepted multiple injections of experimental mRNA vaccines that apparently do nothing to prevent infection against an illness that is turning out basically to be a form of the common cold. I know there is something fundamentally wrong with that. And I will not vote for any politician who does not recognize that there is something fundamentally wrong with that. The author of the article wants you to somehow not think there is something fundamentally wrong with that because one religious book, the New Testament, used a visionary reference to Nero’s denarius to represent a fundamental principle, and some Evangelical Christians see that principle being played out in our current political and economic environment.
Please don’t think that mandating injections that don’t prevent something that isn’t dangerous in order to be able to leave your house, go to work, or buy a sandwich isn’t fundamentally wrong just because this guy is talking about a Roman coin. Something seriously wrong is happening here.