10 Things You Need to Know about the Number 666

Admin Thu 06 Aug 2020, 10:32 pm

10 Things You Need to Know about the Number 666
Dr. Roger Barrier Preach It, Teach It
202 2 Aug
10 Things You Need to Know about the Number 666
Editor's Note: Pastor Roger Barrier's "Ask Roger" column regularly appears at Preach It, Teach It. Every week at Crosswalk, Dr. Barrier puts nearly 40 years of experience in the pastorate to work answering questions of doctrine or practice for laypeople, or giving advice on church leadership issues. Email him your questions at roger@preachitteachit.org.
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Dear Roger,

You said in today's post that you will post your answer to "what does 666 mean" when somebody asks you. May I please be considered a "somebody" so that you will do so?

I, too, believe in "types and shadows" and do believe that the Bible is to be read both historically and predictively. We are certainly living in some very frightening, scary times, aren't we? The antichrist knows his days are numbered . . . and so do we. So, what is the real meaning of 666? May you be greatly blessed. Mary Kay

Dear Mary Kay,

Here is your answer to what 666 means according to the book of Revelation:
1. 666 literally means a name.
The number "666" is the number of the name of the coming Antichrist. Giving a number to a name is called "gematria," which is the Greek practice of adding up the letters in someone's name. In Latin this practice is called "isopsephism." Each letter in the Greek language has a numeral equivalent. Add up the letters and you get the number of the name.

2. Greeks used this number-name practice in their daily lives.
When Julie and I were dating I often wrote the initials, "RB + JT" in my notebook or in the wet cement of a newly poured sidewalk. Of course, the Initials stand for, "Roger Barrier plus Julie Tacker." Young lovers in Greece and Rome used gematria to express their relationships. For example, one inscription on a wall in Pompei reads, "I love the girl whose number is 545."

Of course, it is quite easy to take a name and turn it into a number. It is much harder to take a number and turn it back into a name.
Turning the number into a name is the key to unlocking the name of the Antichrist.

3. Revelation 13:8 is the verse that mentions 666.
"This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666." (Revelation 13:8)
According to John, those who are wise can get an insight into the Antichrist's identity by knowing the number of his name

4. In ancient Greek, Hebrew and Latin letters represented numerals according to their order in the alphabet.

5. The original 666 wasn’t written the way we write it.
6. Many interpreters consider the Roman Emperor Nero to be the “antichrist” of Revelation 13.

7. Other interpreters consider the number to be applicable to both past and future.
Other interpreters, myself included, view the Book of Revelation as being both historical and predictive of coming future events (This is the double fulfillment principle of prophecy.) According to this view, Nero was indeed an “antichrist” as well as a type or picture of the coming future Antichrist—whose number-name will also add up to 666.
8. History shows us why Nero would perfectly reflect the character of a 666 "antichrist".
Nero was a despicable man who murdered his own mother. Nero fiddled the night Rome burned. By blaming Christians for the fire, he justified his tortuous murdering of uncounted hundreds of those who proclaimed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. He proclaimed his supposed divinity on coins, identifying him as the "Savior of the World.”
Since Christians have only one Lord, refusing to burn incense and declare Caesar Nero as Lord was like signing your own death warrant. As an aside, since Nero ruled from A.D. 54-68 he would have been the emperor to whom Paul appealed his case as recorded in Acts 25:10-12.

9.Nero's evil acts don't stop there...
For those who may be interested, I quote below a passage from Tacitus, the Greek historian (c. A.D. 60-120), who preserved in his Annals (XV.44) the viciousness of the Neronian persecutions which give us some idea of the horror the coming Antichrist will inflict on both Jews and Christians.

Nero falsely accused as the culprits [who started the fire] and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty a class … who are commonly called Christians. “Christus,” from whom their name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.… Accordingly, arrest was first made of those who confessed [to being Christians]; then, on their evidence [refusing to worship Nero as Lord], an immense multitude was convicted ... Besides being put to death they were made to serve as objects of amusement; they were clothed in the hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs; others were crucified, others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed…. All this gave rise to a feeling of pity, even towards men whose guilt merited the most exemplary punishment; for it was felt that they were being destroyed not for the public good but to gratify the cruelty of an individual.