Some themes never change. Throughout Scripture, God makes a clear distinction between those who belong to Him and those who do not. That distinction isn’t based on ethnicity, ritual, or being in the right religious crowd. It’s based on righteousness that flows from faith—the kind of heart that grieves over evil and seeks God’s ways.
No passage captures this more vividly than Ezekiel 9, one of the most sobering scenes in the prophets. God sends a man “clothed in linen” to put a mark on the foreheads of those who “sigh and groan over all the abominations” committed in Jerusalem. Once the line is drawn, judgment is allowed to come. Those without the mark are slain, but the remnant is spared—known by name, because they are His.
The picture is crystal clear: God makes His distinction not by outward association but by inward loyalty. The mark is a symbol of covenant faithfulness rooted in righteousness through faith.
Ezekiel 14 reinforces this by stressing personal accountability. Even the presence of extraordinary saints could not shield an unfaithful people:
“Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it . . . even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord God.”
(Ezekiel 14:13–14 ESV)
At the end of the chapter, God promises that “some survivors will be left in [Jerusalem]” and that their “ways and deeds” will demonstrate His justice (Ezekiel 14:22–23 ESV). In other words, the marked ones of chapter 9 become the preserved remnant of chapter 14.
Even when the whole land is judged, God knows all who belong to Him, and He protects them. Abraham understood this when he asked about Sodom, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” (Genesis 18:23 ESV). God’s answer was decisive: No. Lot belonged to Him, and therefore he was removed before the city was destroyed.
Psalm 91 captures this divine protection beautifully:
A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
You will only look with your eyes
and see the recompense of the wicked.
Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
the Most High, who is my refuge—
no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
no plague come near your tent.
(Psalm 91:7–10 ESV)
The pattern has never changed. When Jesus describes two people in a field or two women grinding grain—one taken, the other left—He isn’t introducing a new doctrine. He is using the same prophetic language His hearers already knew. Judgment was coming upon Judea, but God’s remnant would again be saved.
And when we reach the end of the New Testament, we see this theme one last time:
“Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads” (Revelation 7:3 ESV). Before divine judgment falls, God places His protection on His people.
Because this message is consistent from Genesis to Revelation, we can also understand the mark of the beast in Revelation 20. It is simply the inverse of God’s mark—a sign not of protection but of rebellion. It represents everyone who does not belong to Him.
God’s mark and the beast’s mark are two sides of the same reality: those who trust Him and those who don’t; those who sigh over wickedness and those who celebrate it; those who are preserved and those who are taken in judgment.
The distinction has always been the same. And God has never failed to keep it.