The Vaccine Passport and the Mark of the Beast
Have you ever been in a situation where you saw others, including those you are close to, blindly following a lie and been essentially powerless to get them to see the truth? If it didn’t cause any harm to themselves or others did you let it go? What if the deception did cause harm to your loved one or even random strangers? Could you still let it go? In order to be cordial, in order to be nice? What if it was the Mark of the Beast right out of the Book of Revelation?
As a Christian I am quite fond of James 4:11–12, “Do not criticize one another brothers. Whoever criticizes a brother or judges him, criticizes the Law and judges it. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it. God is the only lawgiver and judge. He alone can save and destroy. Who do you think you are to judge your fellow man?” Then there is Mathew chapter 7, verses 1 and 2, you know, “Judge not least thee be judged.” Jesus himself emphasized the importance of being non-judgmental. Christianity is a religion of Love. One can love somebody or judge them but they cannot do both.
Let’s say that one of our Christian brothers or sisters committed murder. It is not our place to sit in judgment of them. That’s only for God to do. That does not mean that murder is okay. It means it is not our place to judge them for it. They know they have sinned, so we do not need to point that out. Now if for some reason they did not know murder is wrong in the first place then we should point that out so they would not continue to do wrong. Ours is a faith of non-judgment but not one of non-discernment.
I was late in learning to pick my battles. Many times in my life I had to be halted with the phrase, “Is this the hill you want to die on?” only to realize that the issue at hand was not really so important in the bigger scheme of things anyway. In fact the more we mature, the more we realize that most things have really been way more petty then we had imagined they were. Conversely, one might ask, is there ever a point that I must take a stand? Are not some matters so important that you would need to stand up for what is right regardless of the cost? Jesus rallied against the pettiness of the Pharisees but he also overturned the tables of the money-changers.
In negotiation we must first ask what is most important. Is it the issue? The relationship? Neither or both? If some random corporation owed you fifty bucks then it’s the issue that matters and not the relationship. Why negotiate or compromise? My immediate family are all Cubs fans. My cousins are all Sox fans. Does it matter? No. What’s important is the relationship not whether or not we root for the same team. Do I care whether the guy in front of me at the grocery store chose Pepsi or Coke? No. Neither the relationship nor the issue matter.
When I lost Migdalia it was like being hit by an emotional freight train. We all argue with the one’s we love. Our relationship had its share of arguments but the relationship came first. The weight of the world came upon both of us when she was diagnosed with leukemia. When she first was diagnosed and for some time afterwards she had more fight in her than I thought she would. Near the end we argued about whether or not she would keep fighting. A friend who lost someone to leukemia tried to clue me in to reality but I was in denial. In the end she had refused to take her medication. She was ready to go.
I fought with her insurer and I fought with her doctors and nurses. I fought with her and made every form of appeal that I could. I invoked every logical reason to go on, threw the most momentous sales pitch I ever pitched and prayed over her with every Holy and Divine name and promise in a vain attempt to appeal to even her very soul. In the end she would not take her medication and was ready to go. I was not ready to lose her. The relationship mattered and so did the issue. If she did not take her medication she would die. I was powerless. Faith did not matter. Logic did not matter. She died.
Which brings me back to the proposition that a loved one is about to get the mark of the beast. There are some matters in which both the issue and the relationship matter. What if some of your closest friends were about to get the mark of the beast and were in denial about the reality of the situation? Well, here I am. In a situation that is analogous to that. It’s not Migdalia this time, it’s just about everyone else I care about and I’m just about as powerless.
So let’s talk about that mark of the beast. Let’s see if I can get my loved ones NOT to receive it, worth a shot. YOU matter to me. The book of revelation is an interesting complex work. Truth be told, to fully understand it is a very difficult if not impossible task. The work is rife with symbolism which might be difficult to understand to the modern reader even if it may have been understood by a reader in the time it was written. There are seven different major views of how it is to be interpreted with many subjective interpretations of the details to boot. Within reason, you are entitled to your own personal interpretation. Why? Because what matters is that you have salvation through Jesus Christ. If you have Jesus it doesn’t matter if you are wrong about this or that symbol in a prophetic work. You are Saved either way.
There are some crucial things about the mark of the beast that I would like to repeat. I encourage you to check out the Apocalypse of John to verify my statements. 1 — John had a series of events he was describing that would happen when the end would come. A list of things that would happen that indicates ‘this is it!’ 2 — The mark of the beast was directly related to choosing to worship the beast. 3 — The mark was a “human” number, meaning it represented a man. 4 — The beast was given the power to put to death those who would not worship it. 5 — The mark is related to commerce and you cannot buy or sell without having it. Regardless of the major view you accept as valid, these five basics remain.
So in certain circles we have people suggesting or even pronouncing that the Covid-19 vaccine or more recently a Covid-19 vaccine passport is the dreaded mark of the beast written about in chapter 13. So let’s break down the possibility. Now the pandemic and other recent events are certainly bad things but they pale in comparison to the items listed as preceding the anti-Christ and the mark of the beast as defined by the seals and the trumpets. In order to do so you would need to make the argument that those things are meant symbolically and stretch each one to fit a current event. Oddly, I have not even seen anyone attempt such a thing. Should we focus only on the verses about the mark of the beast and ignore the rest of the work and the context it provides?
The mark of the beast was related to the worship of the beast. No one has asked us to worship anything in order to get the covid vaccine or the theoretical vaccine passport. The mark represented a man. What man does the covid vaccine represent? For that matter, how would we calculate the number if there is no name to apply the gematria to? The beast has the power to put to death those who do not have the mark. No one is being put to death for refusing to take the vaccine or not having a vaccine passport. Suffering and death can certainly come to those who don’t get the vaccine but that isn’t the beast of revelation doing that, it’s Covid-19.
Lastly, let’s look at the fact that no one could buy or sell without having the mark of the beast. There is no universal federal mandate indicating that you cannot engage in commerce if you don’t get vaccinated. Now as a caveat here, I know certain municipalities and individual enterprises have limited ‘vaccine only’ events. You could say that this is in a sense an analogy to the mark of the beast. Considering that it is not a universal law and it does not fit all the other requirements for the mark of the beast though, it is a false analogy.
Speaking of analogies, I could make the analogy that the covid-19 disease is the mark of the beast as it is associated with suffering and death. Death has long been associated with the devil and in that sense I would argue the disease is the mark of the beast. It’s at least AS fair an analogy. It is this mark that I do not want you to receive. I do not want you to suffer. I do not want you to die. I do not want you to cause someone else to suffer, or cause someone else to die because you failed to do the thing that would have prevented their suffering and death.
Scripture has an interesting thing to say about vaccines: Nothing. Just like nuclear weapons and medical abortion and the internet. It says nothing. This leaves us one of three options. A — Make a decision that is extra-biblical. Leave our faith out of it and make a logical decision based on evidence. B — Extrapolate based on existing scripture and form an exegesis on the matter. Or C — Combine the two and look at both. I have a general preference for option C. Let’s look at each.
Let’s do a quick review of medicine in the bible. There either is or is not a balm in Gilead. Going all the way back to ancient Israel we see many examples of medicine. The role of priest and doctor overlapped. If you had a skin infection you went to the priest for treatment. As the biblical timeline continues we see plenty of examples where people are treated with herbs and foods to treat ailments. https://bit.ly/3yU9DpM Why would Job call his detractors useless physicians if there were no physicians and they worked on faith alone?
When we reach the New Testament we have Jesus being criticized because of the company he keeps and he responds with, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor only sick people do.” It is implied that in his time people saw doctors. He also had a disciple that was believed to be a doctor, Luke. Why see a doctor if they do not have medicine to provide? They may have only had herbs, wine, olive oil and balms but they provided at least a rudimentary type of medicine to their patients. To extrapolate here, taking a medicine was okay then and perfectly normal so taking a medicine now should be just as correct.
That leads us to the medical evidence. We can extrapolate a Biblical understanding of using medicine but we also need to know whether or not a medicine actually works. This leaves us with the evidence provided in the vast medical community that indicates taking the vaccine is a safe and effective. This includes https://bit.ly/3yM9gx8 and https://bit.ly/34pxQpQ and https://mayocl.in/3oWNLoY . The only other outliers that I’ve seen tend to have motives for their positions on the subject that are suspect at best. A good decision always provides an outcome that is best for everyone if possible. I review the evidence, evaluate risk, make a choice and act on that decision. The evidence indicates that taking the vaccine is safe and effective. The risk of taking the vaccine is far less than getting the disease. Making the choice of getting the vaccine seems clear medically, logically and Biblically.
A quick word on the subject of abortion and it’s relation to the Covid vaccine. Plenty of exegesis already exists on this subject by people better suited to such a thing: https://to.pbs.org/3wBp4RC . It is important to note, these fetal cell lines are not taken from recent abortions, but are derived from decades old fetal cells. These cells are cloned over decades in laboratory settings, thousands of times removed from the original fetus cells, becoming known as fetal cell lines. The connection to abortion is considered remote. To throw out this baby with the bathwater you would need to ignore the teaching of Jesus when his disciples were plucking grains of wheat. At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is lord of the Sabbath.”
In taking the vaccine I don’t just protect myself but others in the community more vulnerable than I. This fulfills the admonishment of Jesus Christ to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Mark 12:31). In Luke 6:31 we are admonished to treat others the same way we would want them to treat us. I know I would want others to do what it takes to protect my vulnerable family members. Again in Philippians 2:4 Paul mirrors Jesus saying, “Do not merely look out for your own interests, but also for the interests of others.” We are also advised to take care of our own health, “God will destroy anyone who destroys the temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
“If God wants to take me, he will take me” is something I have heard often as a means of writing off the need to get vaccinated. Ignoring for a moment how this neglects other people, does this mean you wish to die? God will take you, sure. This is true whether or not there is a pandemic. Is it not also true that we should “not tempt the Lord God?” Doesn’t both the Old and New Testament say as much? If you were on a cliff and Satan said to you, “Go ahead, jump off! God will protect you” would you do it? God helps those who help themselves, remember?
Here is another old parable you may recall: A man was told there as going to be a flood. He saw the water rising towards his home and the neighbor said to him “come with us” and he said “No, God will save me.” Then the waters continued to rise up to his second floor. A man came by in a row boat and said, “Get in.” “No,” the man said again, “God will save me.” Then the waters rose up even more and the man got on his roof. The National Guard came by in a helicopter and they said, “We’ll save you just affix yourself to the rope.” “No way!” the man exclaimed, “God will save me.” Finally, the water rose above his roof and above his head. The man died. When he arrived before God he said, “Why didn’t you save me God?” and God replied, “I made sure you were told the rains were coming and you did not go, I sent you your neighbor and you would not go, I sent you a rowboat and you would not go, then, finally, I sent a helicopter and even then you would not go. Death was your choice, not mine!”
To the believer the things that happened in the Bible are not coincidental events but miraculous events. We see the perfect timing of events to save people in scripture and we see the same phenomenon in real life. Had the virus happened 40 years ago it likely would have spread with as much intensity as our world had plenty of travel at that time. We would not have had the means of developing a vaccine then like we have now. We live in an age when we have identified mRNA technology, developed the lipid means of transporting the mRNA, can sequence genomes, already had a similar virus that they developed a vaccine for, have scientists that shared the genome so it can be tailor made for Covid-19, and had the scientific and logistical collaboration needed to develop the vaccine in record time. I can’t help but see the hand of God here. This isn’t to detract from those who have lost someone to this disease. Only God can answer why he took some of us but I do see that God so wills that the human race be capable of ending the pandemic that he timed the disease’s arrival to match our ability to fight it. It is truly a miracle!
If we look at both at logic and evidence outside of the Bible we have grounds to take the vaccine. If we look at scripture we can extrapolate that taking the vaccine is the right thing to do. So I know I need to take the right Christian moral action and get the vaccine. Here’s a better analogy than the mark of the beast, the vaccine is like the lamb’s blood painted door of Exodus. Those who have it, the Angel of Death shall pass over. As for me and my house we shall serve the Lord. Part of doing so, is valuing not just my own life but the life of others by doing the modern equivalent of painting my door with lamb’s blood by getting the vaccine. It is my hope and prayer that you get your door painted with the Lamb’s Blood, too.
