Did Nero Caesar have the technological capability to require that every living person take a mark on the right hand or forehead in order to buy or sell? Or be killed for refusing to take that mark?
The mark is not technological.
Nite that there are two Marks in the book of Revelation.
The first is from God. No evil will be allowed “till we have sealed the servants of our God upon their foreheads” (7:3). This is the “mark” that was mentioned in the letter to the Church in Philadelphia, in anticipation of the mark of God that would later stand in contrast to the mark of the beast. The fact that God’s servants are sealed with this mark “upon their foreheads” shows that their minds are right. They think as Christians should because their loyalty is to God and His Kingdom.
Next the mark of the beast. Could it really be a microchip that will be imbedded in the forehead or hand at some point in the future, as you believe?
No, the biblical text refutes that concept.
The “mark” was a common symbol in the Old Testament, signifying loyalty. Cain was given a mark for disloyalty after he killed his brother (Gen. 4:15). The mark of lamb’s blood on the doorposts in Egypt just before the exodus of the Hebrews was a public announcement of loyalty. In Ezekiel 9:4–6, a mark was put on each loyal man’s forehead before God destroyed those in Jerusalem who were doing evil. This mark was the Hebrew letter tau, or T, and those without it were killed in judgment. The early Church saw it as a prophecy pointing to the sign of the Cross.
Like the Kingdom that is being revealed, the marks of The Apocalypse are internal. There are two marks: the mark of the beast and the mark of the Lamb (as we see earlier in the book of Revelation).
The mark of the beast and the mark of the Lamb are inward and discernible only through the actions of those marked. Having it on the hand signifies the change in what we Christians do as a result of our loyalty, while the forehead mark signifies how our loyalties change the way we think. The loyalty to God’s Law within the Christian community would be obvious to everyone when emperor worship was demanded in the marketplace. Christians refused to “go along to get along,” and they ended up as a people marked by Rome for death. At the same time, God marked these martyrs for eternal life.
In the vision of the winepress, “anyone [who] worships the beast and its image” is equated with “receiv[ing] a mark on his forehead or on his hand” (14:9). This spiritual understanding of the marks dovetails best with the mark of God’s presence even in eternity.