It's funny how an offhand remark not intended to be much more than a silly joke can provoke such a thoughtful discussion.

When I wrote that, I was thinking of the book of Revelation and some of the sermons I've heard from that book. In it, many of the visions that John saw contained the number seven (seven stars, seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, etc.) and always had to do with God. Seven represented "godly perfection" while six fell short of that and was the number of man, because we always fall short of godly perfection without Christ. The number "666" was the ultimate number of imperfection and the mark of the beast or the Antichrist.

Grishny