The Infamous 666

A lot has been made of the infamous 666 of Revelation 13.  Most prominent is the Hebrew practice of gamatria wherein the letters of a person's name have a numerical equivalent.  For example, Nero's name has the numerical equivalent of 666.  But Nero had been dead for over 20 years before John was sentenced to the penal colony on the Isle of Patmos, so I hardly think it was of Nero John wrote.  Perhaps when the anti-Christ is revealed, his name will add up according to this system, but we'd go crazy looking for it.  I think it is deeper than this.  I looked to my old stand-by website on the meaning of numbers in Hebrew and began looking at the number 6, then the number 666.  This is what I found:

Six represents the worship of man, and is the number of man, signifying his rebellion . . .  i.e., man's coming short of spiritual perfection. In any case, therefore, it has to do with man; it is the number of imperfection; the human number; the number of MAN as destitute of God, without God, without Christ. [Man's] imperfection, works, and disobedience.

If six is the number of human imperfection, then 66 is a more emphatic expression of the same fact, and 666 is the concentrated expression of it; six hundred sixty-six is therefore the triple of human imperfection; the perfection of imperfection; the culmination of human pride in independence of God and opposition to His Christ.*

That makes some sense to me.  Just last night, I found Dr. Richard Draper's book, Opening the Seven Seals, among some of my sister's books.  I asked her if I could borrow it.  When I looked up gamatria in the index, I was led to a discussion of this chapter.  Draper wrote:

But a specific historical entity may not be what John had in mind.  It may be that he was portraying a spiritual condition. . . The three [sixes] could thus represent a trinity of imperfection:  the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. (p. 151)

There have been many anti-Christs throughout history.  The New Testament mentions four by name.  The Book of Mormon names 3 more.  In our days we have had men like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.  I think the answer then lies, not in the numbers, but in the words and behaviors of individual men and women in positions of power.  The Savior taught: "Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them." (Matthew 7:20)  Anyone who is against Jesus Christ or seeks to lead men away from Him can be anti-Christ.  If we walk with Jesus each day, we will know anti-Christ when we see him. 

* http://www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/meaning-of-numbers-in-bible

Text copyright Gebara Education February 2013

Richard Draper quote from Opening the Seven Seals: The Visions of John the Revelator. Deseret Book Company, SLC. 1991

Picture of 666 from multiple source on the web