666

The number 666 is mentioned in the Revelation of John (Chapter 13, Verse 18) and attributed to the Anti-Christ. Much has been written about the Anti-Christ and who he might be. At this point I don’t want to contribute further speculations but rather want to shine some light on the symbolic meaning of this number. Many numbers in the Bible have a symbolic meaning. For example, the number seven: God created the world in seven days. Therefore, the number seven stands for completeness and perfection. The number eight thus – just one number after seven – stands for new beginnings. Jesus himself created such new beginnings for everyone who believes in Him by His resurrection from death. Interestingly the numeric value of Jesus name in the Greek language is 888. Most people are familiar with the numeric values of the letters of the Latin alphabet. Similar to the letters of the Latin alphabet, the letters of the Greek alphabet also have numeric values. The addition of the different letters of Jesus name in Greek – the language the New Testament was written in – results in 888. So, as Jesus Christ is representing the resurrection from death and a new beginning, the Anti-Christ is representing the opposite: The number six is only one number short of seven which stands for completeness. So, six is close to completeness but it falls short. That is what the Anti-Christ aims for: He wants to be like God, but he isn’t. He is not complete, not perfect like God even though he might be close. In the same way that a lie is more dangerous when there is some truth mingled into it, so it is with the Anti-Christ: Close to being God he will deceive many believers with truth he has mixed into his lies. But he is short of perfection and, therefore, will work against God and His Christ bringing destruction, death, and deception. That is what the number 666 stands for.