Page 71 - The Mark of the Beast

and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this
mortal must put on immortality.

Flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God. That which is stamped with the number 666
cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Even after men have been born again of the Spirit they
still walk around in bodies of sinful flesh. Therefore, these bodies must be put off before the
saints can enter into the presence of God. All that pertains to the beast must be slain.
Is it any wonder that throughout the Old Testament we see ordinances established and
practiced whereby a beast has to be slain in order for men to enter into the presence of God
in the Temple? These things are a symbol of man’s need to slay the beast that dwells in his
flesh in order to enter into God’s presence. These carnal ordinances of the Old Testament
were unable to free men from their slavery to sin, and they had to be repeated year after
year. Only in Christ has sin been totally atoned for, once for all, that we might be freed from
sin and made slaves to righteousness.
At this time, those who are born again are a divided house. The flesh wars against the
Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary to one another. Flesh
cannot inherit the kingdom of God and therefore it must be crucified. Those who walk
according to the Spirit have crucified the flesh with its affections and desires, and one day
they will lay aside the sinful flesh and take upon themselves glorified spiritual bodies after
the image of Christ.
It is 666, the flesh, the beast nature, that must be overcome, and all saints are called
to subdue and rule over it. In our flesh dwells no good thing, and we must buffet our bodies
and keep them under subjection to the Spirit. It is not a Pope, or some political world ruler,
that the saints must overcome, though there be men in abundance who bear the imprint of
the beast, and many who are enemies of the saints of God. The greater, deeper, and more
universal understanding of the number of the beast’s identity is that it points to the first
man, Adam, and his sinful nature which became the inheritance of all his children. This
number is the number of a man, and all men have been called to put off the old man and
put on Christ.

Romans 6:6
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might
be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

The universal struggle of mankind is to put off the old man, the first Adam, that is
marked with the number 666, and to put on the New Man, even the Last Adam, who is the
Lord Yahshua the Messiah. We have dealt much with the beast nature thus far in this book,
and in one type presented in Scripture we have seen that God has commanded the man and
woman to subdue and rule over the beasts. In another type, we now see God depicting this
as a struggle between two men, the first Adam and the Last Adam. One of these men is of
the earth, earthy, and one of the men is from heaven. All men will bow to one of them.
When we read in the book of Revelation that some men will have victory over the
beast, his image, and the number of his name, we are reading the same thing that the
apostle Paul spoke of when he contrasted the old man and the new man. Paul wrote further
of this struggle to the saints in Ephesus.