Is the Mark of the Beast forgivable? (Moved from Christian apolegetics)

[elman]

Actually it's about being beheaded.

Revelation 20:4 (NKJV)
4 Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

Actually it is about existing spiritually with God and Jesus.

 

[Duckybill]

Actually it is about existing spiritually with God and Jesus.

Is there anything in the Bible that you take literally?

 

[elman]

Is there anything in the Bible that you take literally?

Yes. First John. God is love.

 

[Duckybill]

Yes. First John. God is love.

What makes you think it means what it says?

 

[elman]

What makes you think it means what it says?

God has written on your heart and on mine that loving others is good and failing to love is bad. Jesus confirmed what was already written on our hearts as the will of a loving Creator.

 

[Hairy Tic]

Is the Mark of the Beast forgivable, and if not, does that make the mark the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit? Food for thought!

## Someone has been reading "Left Behind", or so it seems

 

[Duckybill]

God has written on your heart and on mine that loving others is good and failing to love is bad. Jesus confirmed what was already written on our hearts as the will of a loving Creator.

Do you believe the Genesis Flood was literal? Was that God's love?

 

[elman]

Do you believe the Genesis Flood was literal? Was that God's love?

No I do not; and I don't believe God ever killed anyone. I also do not believe natural disasters come on us today because of our sin. It rains on the just and the unjust.

 

[precepts]

OOOh my pearls, my pearls!

 

[globug54321]

This "mark of the beast" is not literally mark that will be put or seal in a man's body but spiritual mark.

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as
symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. De. 11:18

People now are not aware that mark of the beast are already placed into people.

You are mistaken about what this passage is referring to. The passage you are quoting is a about placing the word of God, not the "mark of the Beast". Go back and read the chapters before and after to get the contest of this passage. I have not found any other passage in my Bible that says anyone has received the mark of the beast upon his heart. Can you tell me what passage you're getting this from? And from my reading and understanding of Rev., it IS speaking of an actual, physical mark that will be placed during the tribulation.

 

[Jazer]

Is the Mark of the Beast forgivable, and if not, does that make the mark the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit? Food for thought!

The Holy Spirit is not in the world during the tribulation. The age of grace will have come to an end. People will be expected to follow the law of God as it was given to Moses.

 

[globug54321]

The Holy Spirit is not in the world during the tribulation. The age of grace will have come to an end. People will be expected to follow the law of God as it was given to Moses.

What about the 144,000? What about the 2 witnesses? What about those who come to Christ during the tribulation? Where do you find the passage(s) that support your statement?

 

[PROPHECYKID]

What about the 144,000? What about the 2 witnesses? What about those who come to Christ during the tribulation? Where do you find the passage(s) that support your statement?

Those passages can be found in the book of Jazer.

 

[emilio]

globug54321...

It's my mistake, I didn't elaborate clearly I wanted to say.

The mark of the beast is completely opposite to the commandments of God. False doctrines are the mark of the beast as people received it from many false teachers and different denominations.

So it's really symbolic not physical mark...

 

[elman]

What about the 144,000? What about the 2 witnesses? What about those who come to Christ during the tribulation? Where do you find the passage(s) that support your statement?

The greatest tribulation we can experience is to be spiritally deceased. We experience that when we kill our own soul with our own sin. Ezekiel 18. If we come through that tribulation by being recreated spiritually--being born again, we need fear no other tribulations because God is able to keep us from being separated from Him and His love and no power in Heaven or on earth can separate us from God. So worrying about some future tribulation is a waste of time and it is an idea that is created by men and not God.

 

[PROPHECYKID]

There has to be concent, a choice, before something can be called "evil". Whatever the mark is, it's consequences must be understood by the wearer of the mark for it to truly be the mark of the beast.

When the beast does arise and do what he is prophisied to do, I've always imagined that he'd send out his followers and councils to apprehend the world's population and give them an option A or B. Option A, receive the mark of the beast along with a couple demonic rites "i hereby surrender my soul to the devil... etc... etc..." and have a pentagram of the devil's head captioned with 666. Or option B, we kill you (like these worshippers of satan have done in the past... martyred people that don't want to worship foreign gods.)

Whatever the case, however the mark is received, whether it is a spiritual or material manifestation, there has to be direct concent to the wearer that he is surrendering himself to satan.

A child of God would never recieve such a thing, because God's spirit inside him/her would more than ever compel that child to rather be martyred or simply not recieve it.

I don't agree with this because the beast deceives people. When you deceive someone you don't tell them straight out what they are getting into. Emilio said it very correctly before that the mark of the beast is about following the commandments of the beasts rather than God's. While a physical mark might play some role the real focus is on the spiritual. If the devil keeps out focus on the physical he will easily get us to walk into his spiritual trap and accept the true mark of the beast. That is deception, not coming to your face and telling you exactly what is going on.

 

[blanning]

I don't agree with this because the beast deceives people. When you deceive someone you don't tell them straight out what they are getting into. Emilio said it very correctly before that the mark of the beast is about following the commandments of the beasts rather than God's. While a physical mark might play some role the real focus is on the spiritual. If the devil keeps out focus on the physical he will easily get us to walk into his spiritual trap and accept the true mark of the beast. That is deception, not coming to your face and telling you exactly what is going on.

I've been reading this thread with great interest, so I thought I'd chime in.

I think that the mark is a real actual mark. And since the bible is clear that it's tied to commerce, this almost has to be either a chip or an RFID tag... anything that can be read at the point of sale to approve or deny the transaction.

I can also tell you that it's most likely not a bar code or any other kind of tattoo. The reason for this is that bar code scanners have enough of a hard time reading bar codes on paper. What if someone gets cut, or gets a sunburn. And tattoos fade. And lastly, far more information can be kept in an implantable chip, whereas a bar code can only hold a relatively short number.

RFID chips can also be read at a distance. This is great for crowd control. If there's a demonstration or a riot, just drive through with a reader and call people's names out over a loudspeaker as a warning, record everyone who showed up, fine everyone, etc.

And lastly, there was also a recent article about a saudi (iirc) man who filed for a patent in germany for an implantable chip that contains a cyanide capsule that can be administered remotely. Sounds like an ideal new world order device to me.

So I think it's a real actual mark. But also, I think taking the mark will require taking an oath. And after the midpoint of the tribulation, the one world religion will be all about worshiping the antichrist, the man, directly. And this is the real problem. It's the oath. But you can't have the mark without the oath. Maybe the chip even contains a recording of you taking the oath so there's no question.

I also agree that there will be deception involved, even maybe the antichrist claiming to be jesus. Whatever it turns out to be, I'm sure it will be all about love, peace, happiness, kittens, and puppies, and not about 3-digit numbers, blood, and pentagrams.

Regardless, I'm planning to refuse any sort of implantable identification technology (or any oath for that matter) no matter what. It's just not worth the risk.

brian

 

[precepts]

The mark of the beast is the 6th sense E.S.P., extra sensory perception.

For without are dogs (homosexuals), and sorcerors, and whoremongers (Pimps), and murders (serial killers), and idolators, and who so ever loveth and maketh a lie.

 

[emilio]

Those people that insist that the mark of the beast is physical mark.. their preachers teaching them only earthly things not spiritual.

Like Paul said,

The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.(2Th. 2:9-12)

Which is now fulfill with the people who believe in lie.

It came also in my mind the Roman Empire is the anti-christ and Nero. But it doesn't make sense, the prophets and apostles doesn't mind the world what matter to is the church and the saints. So it's all about parable.

As Christ said,

This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “`You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ [Isaiah 6:9,10] But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. (Mt. 13:13-16)

 

[CryptoLutheran]

I think the notion that a physical mark, whether a tattoo or some microchip implant, could condemn you to eternal hellfire to be one of the more ludicrous ideas that's come out of trying to take the Revelation literally--perhaps second only to that scene in Tim LaHaye's Left Behind books where large literal demonic locusts pour out from the abyss to torment the world, that was hilarious.

I consider the mark to be the antithesis to the seal which God places upon His own. It represents allegiance and fidelity, the former is allegiance to the Beast (i.e. Caesar) and the latter is allegiance to Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran