The "Mark of the Beast"

Kendra Arsenaux

The Mark of Cain

By Kendra Arsenault

“16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” (Revelation 13:15-17).

I recently moved to a city that still has “Blue Laws” in place. This is particularly interesting to me because Blue laws show the history of a city and the history of its values. It’s also something I’ve often heard talked about in sermons regarding future Sunday laws. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with what a “Blue Law” is it’s a law that was created back in colonial times and still stands today, but is not enforced. The fear surrounding “Blue Laws” is that the laws that prohibited work on Sunday back in the early 1900s will be reinforced at the end of time since they’re still technically a law. While on a city tour a few weeks ago, the tour guide shared with us some of the more unknown blue laws that are still on the books today. Some of these would be quite interesting if they were brought back.

1. Duels can be carried out to the death on Sunday as long as the governor is present.
2. It is illegal to take a lion to the movies. (This particular law was created due to this eccentric and wildly wealthy woman who apparently, before the days of wild animal regulations, would bring her pet lion to the movies.)
3. It’s illegal to play the fiddle (this may have been an attempt to systematically remove the homeless and other beggars and poor from the city).
4. It is illegal to bathe unless your doctor gives you a prescription. BUT, it’s also illegal not to bathe before going to bed.
5. Roosters may not go into bakeries.
6. It is illegal to eat peanuts in church.

Aside from some of these quirky laws, we learned about the history of how the city treated convicted criminals. During Revolutionary times when America was struggling for independence from England, there was a particular pardon called, the “Benefit of Clergy,” which allowed members of the church to be tried by their parish rather than by the state and thus escape the death penalty. In exchange, they would receive a branding on their thumbs. This branding included a T for theft, an F for felony, and M for murder. This was a one-time branding. If they were convicted again, they would receive the full penalty for their crime. This branding often made them unemployable tho and turned them into homeless wanderers, often dependent upon the kindness of family and friends for food and shelter, or working laborious jobs that no one else wanted. To be branded with this mark ensured that you would live a hard life.

This branding for the criminals of old, reminded me of a similar story in the Bible, where God branded a murderer rather than give him the death penalty. This branding sentenced this murderer to a life of wandering and reflection. This branding is the Mark of Cain.

The mark of the beast is often spoken of as a terrifying branding that will be forced upon the faithful if they’re not so very careful. Maybe it’s an implanted chip or a change made to our DNA through a vaccine, but whatever it is, it’s always this external force that we must be vigilant to guard against. It’s a principle in exegesis to return to first mentions in order to gather more insight on how a mysterious term might be used in different parts of Scripture. The first mention of a mark, is the mark given to Cain. And it was not a mark forced upon him in his innocence. It was not a mark that he received because he lacked discernment or did not watch carefully what was happening in the world around him. It was a revelatory mark, a mark that revealed a hidden secret, his very real guilt, the guilt of bloodshed.

When I think about the Mark of Cain, I see it as the mark of violence. October is Domestic Violence Awareness month and I thought it would be appropriate for us to discuss how violence shows up in prophecy. The mark of the beast is not something external that is placed upon the innocent thus turning them evil. It is a mark that reveals what is already in the heart. And as wide as the gap between Cain and Abel, there is a crying contrast between those who earn the Mark of Cain, and the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

In contrast to those who bear the mark, Revelation goes on to describe another kind of people saying, “Then I saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him were 144,000 who had His name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.” (Revelation 14:1).

Jesus is spoken of in contrast to the beast, as a Lamb. His followers, bear His mark. The mark of Abel. The mark of being slain, the mark of those victimized by the Cains of this world. Jesus in so many ways, is our example, a model after whom we pattern our lives. But Jesus is more than that, He is savior, a Savior from ourselves.

“David Buss, professor of psychology at the University of Texas-Austin, surveyed 5,000 people for his book, The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind is Designed to Kill, and found that 91% of men and 84% of women had thought about killing someone, often with very specific hypothetical victims and methods in mind. Though we may like to think that murderers are either pathological misfits or hardened criminals, as author David Buss highlights, the vast majority of murders are committed by people who, until the day they kill, seem perfectly normal.”

Now this book goes on to highlight the ways our brains have been wired to deal with perceived danger and that at times, our brains misfire. The rage we experience in a traffic jam or when someone says something cruel and injurious to our ego and we go red with rage, all of this a misfire since there is no real existential threat of danger, no, kill or be killed scenario happening. And yet violence is incredibly accessible for us.

October is Domestic violence awareness month, and Domestic violence statistics since the pandemic have risen. Families have been under incredible amounts of stress since the pandemic, financial stress, the loss of family members, where one or both financial providers have been fired from work. There have been lots to be angry about. Mallory Littlejohn, Legal Director, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation paints this picture. "It's a really horrible situation. Imagine needing to wake up in the morning, go to work, take care of your kids, because they're homeschooling, [but] you're working from home and so was your abuser." Data obtained from the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline received 28,749 calls for help in 2020. That's a 16% increase from the previous year and at its busiest, the hotline received almost 150 calls in one day.”

This is a single hotline number, in a single state. 30,000 calls that year. Multiply that by 10 states, by 50. Violence is its own epidemic and it is rising. But there is a beacon of hope in it all.

Jesus is called “Immanuel” God with us. The book of Revelation ends with the declaration, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (Revelation 21:3). Jesus is the ultimate pattern of what it means to dwell well with other people. He has lived with contentious, judgmental, even violent dome...