What is 666 all about?

There are a lot of things that can totally creep us out. Certain foods. A dark hallway. Halloween night with a full moon. Watching a fast food worker cough into their hands and then use their hands to wrap up your burger. Clowns. People who have way too many cats. Lots of stuff creep us out. 

For many the number 666 is creepy. The number is often connected to the Devil, evil happenings or viewed as a bad omen. A few years ago I was doing some visiting rounds as a hospital chaplain. I visited a man who was in room 6XX. The hospital knew that people were creeped out by the number 666 so they changed the room number to 6XX. As I visited with the man in the room he informed me that he was a good Baptist, had been going to church for years, and was mad. I mean he was really mad. 

He expressed his great displeasure at being in “the Devil’s room.” He got loud, so loud that I am sure the people at the other end of the hallway could hear him. He had quickly figured out that 6XX was really 666. He wanted to be moved to another room. He wanted to be moved now! He felt that by being in that room he was somehow placing his eternal soul in jeopardy. The man in room 6XX was eventually moved to a different room and that seemed to help him. Yet, the number 666 can really give people a serious case of the creeps. 

What does 666 mean? The answer to that question is totally boring and also totally surprising.

There are a host of interpretive traditions that people bring to the book of Revelation. The most pervasive interpretive tradition is that the book of Revelation is a creepy book. It is full of doom and gloom and tells the story of an angry God that is out to destroy the earth and randomly kill massive amounts of people. I would suggest that the book of Revelation is seeking to be a blessing. 

The book’s author is seeking to be an encouragement to a group of Christians going through a particularly difficult time. The author wants to encourage his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as well as call them to remain loyal to Jesus.  Thus the book of Revelation isn't about the rapture. Instead Revelation is way more interested in where our allegiances lie. 

In the ancient world numbers were commonly connected to letters. Today this practice is called Gematria. Ancient Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians all connected letters to numbers. As a Jewish or Roman child you would have learned your numbers while learning your alphabet. The letter A equals 1, B equals 2 and so forth. You can Google the term Gematria and see some examples if you like. The point is that in the culture that produced the book of Revelation it was not uncommon to use numbers to both reveal and conceal names and phrases. 

The ancient city of Pompeii was destroyed around 79 AD. Mount Vesuvius erupted with a force greater than the nuclear bombs used in WWII. The city and many of its inhabitants were sealed in a tomb of ash and lava that in some places was 70 feet thick. As the city has been excavated many wonderful discoveries have been made out of this ancient tragedy. One such discovery is that of ancient graffiti. That’s right even in the ancient world folks wrote stuff on other people’s walls and buildings. Some of the graffiti offers a note of love when someone wrote “Health to you, Victoria, and wherever you are may you sneeze sweetly.” as well as insults such as “Sanius to Cornelius: Go hang yourself!” Another bit of graffiti reads “I love whose name is 545.” Who is 545? Using gematria was a way to both reveal and conceal who 545 was. You could connect the letters and numbers and figure out who the person loved. With this in mind let us now take a look at the number 666.

Revelation 13:15-18 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. 16 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, 17 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. 18 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.

We are told in the passage above that the number has something to do with its name. The name is a number and the number is the name. What does the number 666 translate into? If you take the Greek word for beast, which is therion (θηρίον), and then apply gematria you get the number 666. What does 666 mean? It means beast. The number is its name. We can see this emphasis again in the following passage. 

Revelation 15:2 And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. 

The name beast is 666 and 666 is the beast. Totally boring, right. Using 666 is more than likely a way for the author of Revelation to reveal and yet conceal that he is truly talking about the Roman Emperor as well as the sinfulness of humanity. Without getting into the weeds the number 666 also serves as a contrast the 777s that occur in Revelation as well. The numbers and images used in Revelation often contain layers of references. Yet, what about having marks on foreheads and hands and buying and selling? For that let’s take a look at the book of Deuteronomy. 

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

It cannot be overstated how important this passage was and still is to those who practice the Jewish faith. It contains the Shema which is “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Over time this passage came to be taken more literally. By the time of Jesus the practice of wearing phylacteries had become commonplace in Jewish culture. 

Phylacteries were a small leather box containing texts from the Old or First Testament on vellum, worn by Jewish men at morning prayer as a reminder to keep the law. By strapping God’s word onto their heads and hands it was a reminder that their daily tasks were to be a reflection of what it means to live for God. Jesus highlights the use of phylacteries as a way to be self-righteous in Matthew 23:5  “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long;" 

Revelation 14:1 Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.

The writer of Revelation wants to know where your loyalties lie. Whose team are you on? Revelation, with its talk of 666, a beast and marks, is calling us all out on where and on whom our loyalties reside.  The book of Revelation is making a political point. By political I don’t mean the narrowly focused politics of the Republican or Democrat parties. Before our so-called modern times the word politics was used in describing how a person organized their everyday life. 

The book of Revelation is calling into question just who or what is really your Lord. What is your life built on and around? How is your life oriented? The number 666 is not about microchips, government control or the devil. Revelation wants to know who or what you worship. By looking at your everyday behavior (such as buying and selling), how have you been marked? 

According to Revelation it should be as clear as a mark on your forehead or a mark on your wrist as to whom you have given your allegiance. Are you team 666 or team Father and Lamb? Revelation says how you go about your daily life is a mark that tells everyone who is your Lord. That is what 666 is all about.