“These are the words of the Amen…”

                 What is behind this strange little word, amen?  It seems like it has been around forever, and it has…for thousands of years.  People even pronounce it differently in different churches, including which syllable is accented:  (1) ah · MEN, (2) AH · men, (3) ā · MEN, (4) Ā · men.  I must admit I’m a bit surprised, given the trendy, steady push for radical gender egalitarianism in the West, that I haven’t heard feminist theologians complain about the word’s apparent gender bias and demand equal etymological opportunity—“Awomen”!  Seriously, though, what is behind this word, amen?

Obviously, it is only coincidental that it contains the word men in it.  The story begins with the Hebrew word, âman, which means, “trustworthy, sure, faithful, assurance, true.”  The Old Testament records the Jews using the word in numerous situations—affirming or agreeing with the petitions of a prayer (1 Kings 1:36), agreeing with the reading of God’s law (Deuteronomy 27:27:15-26), declaring the trustworthiness of God’s statutes (Psalm 19:7) or God himself (Deuteronomy 7:9).

Since the first Christians were Jews, they did not translate the Hebrew word, but transliterated it into the Greek, amēn, and kept it’s original meaning for both individual and corporate usage.  Jesus used the word frequently.  When making notable statements recorded in John’s gospel, he began such statements twenty-five times, “verily, verily” in the King James Version, or “amen, amen.”  Newer translations clean up the apparent awkwardness.  The New King James has it, “most assuredly,” while the NIV says, “I tell you the truth.”

The apostle Paul also contributes to our understanding of this word.  In 2 Corinthians 1:20 he writes, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.  And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”  Unfortunately NIV translators conceal the parallel Greek construction, which says that the promises are “in Him Yes, and in Him Amen” (NKJV).  That means that all of God’s promises have positive purposes and benefits.  They are Yes and not No.

Can you imagine a God whose promises were “No”?  Or “Yes and No” (2 Cor. 1:18-19)?  To do so, think of a child whose parents make promises and keeps none of them, or only some of them.  Perhaps your parents did this.  In the former case, children will learn very quickly that they can disregard—tune out—what the parent says about the future.  “We’ll do this tomorrow,” the parent may say.  “Yeah, right” we can hear the child murmur in a flat monotone.

As bad as that scenario is, child psychologists say that the latter situation is worse—parents keeping only some promises.  That is because it can create extreme insecurities in children.  They never know when the parent will come through.  This forces the children to go through the highs and lows of expectation and then crushing disappointment when the parent fails to deliver: “They kept their last promise!  Why can’t they keep this one?!”  It creates bitterness, resentment, depression and worse in most children.

But God is not like that—He is Yes! and Amen!  And consider this:  Let’s say a parent makes a promise and several days or a week goes by.  What if a month or year or even decades go by?  What happens to that promise in the parent’s mind?  It’s gone, forgotten on the dusty plains of the distant past.  How many years transpired from the promises made about Christ’s coming to his actual arrival?  Thousands of years in some cases.  Yet God never forgot a single promise over the millennia.  And his Word contains thousands of Yes promises to and for each of us.  As one Greek dictionary says, when God says ‘Amen,’ it means ‘it is and shall be so’; when man says, ‘Amen,’ it means, “let it be so.’  In other words, there is perfect and enduring correspondence between God’s character and word, between his nature and his action.  Never a breakdown, not even for a nanosecond!

Are you praising him who is our “Amen,” the Son of the promise-making and promise-keeping God?  Are you delighting in his never-failing faithfulness to you today?  Can you say, Amen?