Johnathan Geoffrey Hughes lives in Sydney and writes today about the vaccination
Note: The following article will be of most interest to those who believe the Bible to be God's word. If you do not, though you're most welcome to read, you may not find this terribly useful.
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Before I get started on this, I feel the need to rant for just a little. During my own life time I have seen several "marks of the beast" come and go. I remember when I was at Primary school a preacher I heard on TV confidently asserted that BankCard was the forerunner to the mark of the beast. Not only was it "difficult to buy things without a credit card now," the card "actually has 666 in its logo," and "pretty soon there is a plan to replace the card with an 18 digit number tattooed on your hand (3 x 6, see!)" and that would be the final mark, and anyone who had it was doomed to the same fate as the Antichrist.
And then there was the clumsy indelible stamp of 110110110 from the movie "A Thief in the Night" - the heroine suddenly realised at the climax of the movie that "That's just 666 in computer writing!" And hundreds of people now unwittingly bore 666 on their right hand or their forehead! They were marked with the mark of the beast, and they didn't even know it!
Now, of course, it's no longer the bankcard or the tattoo; now it's the COVID-19 vaccine.
The thing that really irritates me about all of these is the sheer arrogance of the claims. There have been 2000 years of Christianity, but the end times prophecies are ALL ABOUT US! Us alone!
There is a phenomenon called "Disney Princess Theology", in which Christians wind up convinced that they are actually the hero of the Bible. If you were to quiz them on this, they'd deny it, of course, but when they open their Bible the automatic assumption is that whatever they read is a personal message just for them. So when they read Jeremiah 29:11, there's no question in their mind that this is God promising them eternal prosperity, and there is no consideration that this was part of an oracle to the city of Jerusalem. And when they read Philippians 4:13, God has issued them (personally, again!) with a blank cheque, and they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them, without the slightest thought that it might be about Paul's own experience. And of course, it is up to these people to work out the Mark of the beast, which is (naturally) lurking in their own world - and oftentimes they know the secret!
Now, don't get me wrong. The Bible DOES have messages for you. But they need to be understood in context. We can learn from what God said to Jerusalem, or what Paul says to the Philippians, and yes, from what John says to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor. But before we can understand this, we need to be careful that we know what is actually being said, and to whom. Quite apart from anything else, we need to keep in the back of our minds that rather than the hero, we COULD be closer to the villains.
Anyway, rant over.
I have encountered a significant number of Christians who fear the COVID-19 vaccine on the grounds that they've been told that it is the Mark of the Beast mentioned in Revelation chapter 13. Now for many this isn't so much something that people believe straight out but a question of doubt. How can we be sure that something like this is wrong?
Well, as it happens, I would suggest that we can be VERY confident that the vaccine is not the mark of the Beast. And not just because the idea of John in the 1st century identifying an injection as a mark strains plausibility beyond its elastic limits! I believe I can demonstrate it reasonably conclusively from the text of Revelation, using a little simple Greek.
The word used for "mark" in Revelation is "χάραγμα", or charagma. This word has a lot of uses, but for our context here there are two that are important. Firstly, the word can be used for a brand - in the most literal sense, when a horse or cow has its owners' name or symbol burned onto its skin. Secondly it can be used as a seal. In a society where literacy is less common than our own, rather than signing documents, you seal them - you place a lump of wax on them and stamp your signet ring into it. But it's not just a signature; it can also be used as a receipt or a bill of sale.
In either of these contexts, the charagma is used as a sign of ownership. So by using this word in Revelation, John is making something clear: A person who has received this mark has ceded their sovereignty and has accepted that they now owe their allegiance to the Beast (Whoever that might be). They are not their own, they are owned by the Antichrist.
It is important to note that this is not something unintentional; it is a deliberate choice. A person who has received the mark also (intentionally and deliberately) worships the Beast. Chapter 19:20 says that those who received the mark had been deceived, but this was no accidental action on their behalf - rather they "had received the mark of the Beast and worshiped its image." Rather than being tricked into getting *marked* by the Beast, they were tricked into *making the choice* to *follow* the Beast - and so were marked as his.
This is key. Whatever the mark of the Beast is, it's not the mark itself that is significant. It is the attitude behind the mark - the choice to swear allegiance to something other than God - which is the problem.
So if one is worried about unknowingly receiving the mark of the Beast, this is not an issue. The issue is not being marked by the Beast, but giving one's allegiance to the Beast (which, possibly metaphorically, results in the reception of the Beast's mark).
The mark of the Beast is not surreptitiously given to you, and you cannot be unaware of its meaning. Rather displaying the mark is a person making a statement of their allegiance. If it is possible to be vaccinated and continue to give your allegiance to Christ - which, take it from me, it is - then it does not qualify as the mark of the Beast.
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