What is the mark of the Beast?

Satan has always and forever wanted to be God. He wants to do what God does, in the same way that God does, and to be worshiped as God.

But his imitation is always crude. It is always physical, while what God does is an original, spiritual creation of beauty.

In the book of Ephesians, twice Paul makes reference to God's people being “sealed” unto the day of redemption. The Greek word used there is the same as used for the mark of a king's signet ring or a maker's mark – a mark of genuineness, a mark of quality assurance that a craftsman puts on his finished product.

On the other hand, the “mark of the Beast” that scripture says will come in the last days is denoted with a different Greek word, which means a scratching or etching, or a stamp as a mark of bondage or servitude.

At first glance, and with the limitations of the English language, these two “marks” appear similar, but they're not.

God's seal is spiritual, and while Satan's mark involves spiritual bondage, it is at base crude and physical. It will be a physical event in a person's life.

Satan takes the long view, and has been inching us toward his mark for centuries.

Satan is the supreme imitator. He imitates God. But whereas God's actions are always for our good and are spiritual at their base, Satan's imitations of God incorporate us into his plan with no regard for our good, and they are physical at their base.

God's plan has always been to draw people together in his Son, Jesus Christ, to make us one with Him and one with each other. Satan's imitation is a crude, physical recreation of that spiritual act. He will build a network of human beings, bound together, for his own benefit. And he will use artificial intelligence (AI) to do it.

To understand this, we have to look at some of the current developments in the news.

Elon Musk is a young genius of our time. He developed the Tesla car, SpaceX – which has already delivered a payload to the International Space Station on contract with NASA – and a multitude of other cutting edge inventions. His goal is to establish a human colony on Mars, and every one of his inventions is a piece of the puzzle to make that a reality.

Elon Musk has called AI an “existential threat to mankind.” He also said that most people won't be concerned about artificial intelligence until we have robots coming down the street killing people.

Elon Musk is not crazy. He is extremely smart. And he has seen all the facets of modern electronics from the inside-out. It would be a safe bet that when he considers artificial intelligence a credible threat, he's right.

How, then, does this tie in to the biblical mark of the Beast?

About 15 years ago, when cell phones were just becoming popular, and the internet was beginning to come into every home in the developed world, someone said it was just a matter of time until all communication, financial transactions, and entertainment would be incorporated into a device that could be carried in a person's hand. That is a reality today.

Nearly every human interaction is becoming digitized. A person can call or write a friend, pay their bills or buy groceries delivered to their home, watch the news or a movie, check their heart rate, respiration, and the number of steps they've walked, check on the baby in the nursery or monitor their home security remotely, even allow a doctor to scan them for heart trouble – all with electronic devices.

And gradually, all those devices are being melded together into one.

A knowledgeable professor said recently that the next generation of computers will have no hard drive, but instead will upload everything to the “cloud.”

Practicality – pragmatism – will lead to the next big step, which is taking the device out of your hand and putting it into your body.

Elon Musk believes the way to head off the threat of AI is by making the human and the AI one. That way, he reasons, we can control the AI from within, and keep it from wiping out the human race.

If he has his way, we will be one with the AI and one with each other. Sound familiar?

AI is being developed as you read this. Already, the AI in existence is increasing in knowledge and capabilities “exponentially” – Elon Musk's words.

Exponentially is what you get in the old game where someone asks if you would rather have a million dollars or a penny that doubles every day for a month. In 30 days, the penny would have multiplied “exponentially” to $5,368,709.12.

The AI now being developed by Google and other entities are growing in understanding exponentially. Satan's plan is to incorporate AI into human beings. He is easing us into it gradually – a little convenience here, some necessity there, and a medical emergency tomorrow, all make us more and more dependent on that digital realm.

The ultimate convenience will be when all those facets of our life are incorporated into a tiny electronic device implanted in our brain to make us one with the system.

We will be able to call or write a friend, pay our bills or buy groceries delivered to our home, watch the news or a movie, check our heart rate, respiration, and the number of steps we've walked, check on the baby in the nursery or monitor our home security remotely, even allow a doctor to scan us for heart trouble . . . quick as a thought.

God makes us one with his Son, to find life. Satan makes us one with his device, to make him like God.

For Satan, the plan has always been to imitate God.