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Amen.
What Does “Amen” Mean?
BY WAYNE JACKSON
“Occasionally, while the preacher is presenting a lesson,
someone in the audience will say, ‘Amen.’
Is this
practice in keeping with the Bible?
If so, what
does ‘Amen’ mean?”
The term “Amen” is
common to both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and it has a variety of
uses, depending upon the context in which it is found.
The Hebrew word, amen, means “surely, indeed, truly.”
It derives from a root form, aman, which
signifies “to be firm, steady, trustworthy, faithful” (again,
the context can suggest which of these shades of meaning is most appropriate in
a particular setting).
The following is a sampling of the major uses of this
important word.
Amen: An Agreement or Affirmation
"Amen” was
used as an affirmation, asserting comprehension of, and agreement with, certain
laws imposed by Jehovah upon the nation of Israel.
Read carefully
Deuteronomy 27:15-26.
For example: “Cursed be the man who makes a
graven or molten image (an abomination unto Jehovah), the work of the hands of
the craftsman, and sets it up in secret. And all the people shall answer and
say, ‘Amen’” (verse 15).
One scholar notes: “Whoever pronounces the Amen to
them [the laws] acknowledges awareness of the sentence for the pertinent
activities. Thus the speaker judges his/her own guilt in the event such a crime
is committed” (H. Wineberger in: Theological Lexicon of the
Old Testament, Ernst Jenni & Claus Westermann, Eds., Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson 1997, Vol. I, p. 146).
Amen: An Endorsement
of Praise or Prayer
“Amen,” in both Testaments, could be
employed as an affirmation of endorsement as a concluding pronouncement in
connection with either praise or prayer.
Note Psalm 41:13. “Blessed be Jehovah, the God
of Israel, From everlasting and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen” (see
also: Romans 11:36).
One of the gifts
granted to the early church was the supernatural ability to speak in languages
that had never been learned by the normal educational routine.
But this gracious
bestowal was subject to abuse. One might possess the gift of a certain
language, yet attempt to exercise it in an assembly where no one spoke that
particular tongue.
Accordingly, under such a circumstance, unless there was a
brother present who possessed the gift of “interpretation,” and
who could, therefore, convey the message to the assembly, the brother with the
language-gift was to remain silent (see 1 Corinthians 14:1ff).
It is within this context that the apostle asks this rhetorical
question – if we may expand and paraphrase, based upon the textual
information.
“If one pronounces a blessing (i.e., he gives
thanks), under the influence of the Spirit in a language that some do not
understand, how will those who are unlearned in that tongue be able to say
‘Amen’ at the conclusion, since they do not understand the words being spoken?”
This shows that
endorsing a prayer with “Amen” was a practice in the early
church.
In this connection we must make this comment. The use
of “Amen,” in conjunction with a prayer or sermon, means that
the one who utters this word “puts himself into the statement with all
earnestness of faith and intensity of desire” (Gleason Archer, Wycliffe Dictionary of
Theology, Everett Harrison, Geoffrey Bromiley & Carl Henry, Eds.,
Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999, p. 39).
This means that the term must not be used flippantly
or in a haphazard fashion.
Those who “Amen”
a point that they do not even understand, but do so simply from habit, err.
Those who caustically “Amen” the preacher – to throw the point back into his face as a
matter of protest, trample on the sacred.
Amen-ing is serious business.
Amen: The Truthfulness of the Inspired Documents
“Amen” was used on occasion at the
conclusion of a letter, the design of which seems to have been to emphasize the
integrity of the writing.
.
.
It would be the equivalent of: “What I have written is the truth!” (see Romans 16:27; Jude 25).
Amen: The Faithfulness of God
The term is used to stress the
reliability or faithfulness of God.
.
.
Listen to the prophet Isaiah. “. .
. [H]e who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth
. . .” (Isaiah 65:16).
The New English Bible renders it
as: “He
who invokes a blessing on himself in the land shall do so by the God whose name
is Amen . . .” (see also
the ASV footnote).
“He is the God of truth, for in
the carrying out of all His promises of blessing and threatenings of judgment,
He has been successful and has shown that what He has spoken is true” (Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah,
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972,III, p. 512).
The “Amen” expression
appears to be used of Christ in like fashion in the New Testament.
In his second
Corinthian letter, Paul refers to the great host of “the promises of
God” which have come to fruition in the work accomplished by Jesus.
He asserts that these
blessings have never been an uncertain matter (a sometimes - “yes” or
sometimes-“no” proposition); rather, the Lord Jesus is a definite, “Yes!” to
that realization.
He is God’s “Amen!” to
the hope for the human family (2 Corinthians 1:20).
There is a similar point to be made in Isaiah 55:3, where
the Messianic promise is called the “sure mercies of David,” or,
as it is suggested in the Hebrew text, “the amen-ed mercies of
David.”
Paul provides the
Messianic interpretation in his sermon at Antioch (Pisidia), with special
emphasis on the Lord’s resurrection (Acts 13:34).
See also Revelation 3:14 where Christ identifies himself as
the “Amen,” which is virtually defined as “the
faithful and true witness.”
“Amen,” as found in the Gospel accounts, is
employed by Jesus alone.
In the Gospel of John, it is always used in the double
format, rendered in English by “verily, verily” (25 times).
It emphasizes the authority with which Christ spoke, and it
takes on the essence of a “thus says the Lord.”
It makes for a
fascinating study to observe how Jesus used this term to forcefully emphasize
certain truths.
For example: None of
the law of Moses would fail (not a particle) until it was fulfilled (Matthew 5:18).
Those who are religious show-offs receive their “full
reward” in that praise they elicit from men (Matthew 6:2, 5, 16).
Eternal punishment will be “more tolerable” for
those of earlier historical periods, than for those who reject Christ (Matthew 10:15).
No one can enter the
kingdom of God except but by the new birth, the components of which are the
Spirit and water (John 3:3,5), etc.
Hopefully, these comments will assist in understanding the
various ways in which the expression, “Amen,” is
employed in the Scriptures.
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