Amen--Part 2

A couple posts ago, I wrote about what the term "amen" really means.  If you have the time, I recommend going back and reading that post before this one.  I'll go ahead and summarize here.  Amen literally means "faithful, true."  God is called "The God of Amen" (Is. 65:16) and Jesus is called "the Amen, the faithful and true witness" (Rev. 3:14), revealing both God and Jesus (who is God) as sources of truth.  In prayer, we say amen and what we supposedly mean when we say amen is that "you believe that God's character is trustworthy...that you are confident He will hear your prayer, be faithful and true to do what He promised, and fulfill His purposes in your life" (Mary Kassian).  When we say "In Jesus' name, Amen" we are saying that God's faithfulness and truth are fulfilled through Christ in our lives.

I took the stance in the last post that the above facts mean that amen is not just the ending to a prayer or a simple "so be it," as I had always been told growing up.  The meaning is far deeper.  It calls into question what we pray before we say amen.  Do we really speak prayers that can end in amen?

I decided to go back to the Bible and look up every instance of amen.  What I found was exciting, stirring and gives me a direction to head in my prayer life.  Here's what I found: 

In the Old Testament, amen is used as a response that affirms what was previously said.  In other words, what was said before is truth.  Amen is spoken in one of two instances: 1) It follows a truth statement.  An example of this is 1 Chronicles 16:36, which says, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, From everlasting even to everlasting. Then all the people said, 'Amen,' and praised the LORD."  The truth statement is that God will be blessed from everlasting to everlasting.  2) It confirms that God will carry out what he has said he will do.  A clear example is in Jeremiah 28:6: "[A]nd the prophet Jeremiah said, "'Amen ! May the LORD do so; may the LORD confirm your words which you have prophesied to bring back the vessels of the LORD'S house and all the exiles, from Babylon to this place.'"  There is also a series of "amens" used in Deuteronomy 27, where the Israelites confirm all the curses God will carry out if the people break his word.  Interestingly, and of importance later, is the fact that all amens in Psalms follow the phrase “bless the Lord," the same as in 1 Chronicles 16:36.

I thought what was in the Old Testament was interesting.  What was in the New Testament floored me.  There are 29 occurrences of "amen" in the New Testament, not counting when Jesus says "verily, verily" in the gospels before he utters a truth statement or the Revelation 3:14 verse stated previously (I didn't include his statements because I wanted to focus on how "amen" is used by people).  Here is the break down of when the term "amen" is used:

21 times: The overwhelming majority of the amens in the New Testament follow statements that say "blessed/glory/dominion be to God/Jesus forever and ever."  As stated above, amen means faithful/true.  The majority of the statements in the New Testament are similar to the usage in Psalms.  The term affirms the truth that God is the one to blessed forever, God is the one who has glory forever, God is the one that has dominion forever.

5 times: Amen follows five statements in the New Testament where the author says "God/Jesus be with you all."  Four times, Paul is writing and one time, John is writing in Revelation.  In these instances, the author is affirming the truth that God is with us, a truth that Jesus himself has proclaimed in Matthew 28:20.  (On a separate, but related note, I did a word study recently on when God tells people not to fear; the majority of reasons not to fear are because "God is with you.")

3 times: The last three instances of amen are found in Revelation.  Two of them affirm the truth of Jesus' second coming (Rev. 1:7, 22:20) and the other affirms God’s judgment at the end of time (Rev. 19:4).  Once again, these are statements that are meant to declare truth, the truth that God's future plan is true.

The application question then is, "How should amen be used in our own prayers?"  Every use of the term amen is tied to the truth of the statement proceeding.  Every use of the term refers to a truth involving God's character or his actions.  In our prayers, amen should follow truth statements.  The shocking, life-changing truth here, then, is amen doesn't follow such statements as "God, please heal granny."  "Please heal granny" is not a truth statement; it is a request.  We definitely should present our requests to God (Phil 4:6).  But requests are not truth statements, so amen does not apply to them.  Our amen is the affirmation that God is God, that God has the power, that God is with us.  Those are statements of truth.

Somehow we have come to treat "In Jesus' name, Amen" in one of two ways: as a meaningless ending of prayer phrase or as some kind of "in" with God, that by saying amen, God somehow is obligated to answer.  So then we get confused when God doesn't do what we have requested in our prayers.

In my previous post on amen I wrote this "Prayer is fundamentally about shaping my will to God's will.  Prayer is a way to remind myself of God's truth and faithfulness.  I pray, not to get what I want, but to call God's truth to mind and to declare to God that I know what is true about him, that I know he will be faithful to me."  Prayer shapes God's way into my life.  Prayer draws me intimately to God, reminding me that he is powerful and in control, that his will will be carried out.  My amen is an affirmation of this truth.  So I pray, "God, I ask for healing for granny," but I end with "you have the glory forever, your will will be done on this earth, amen."  In fact, I think we should even pray deeper for granny.  Instead of "please heal granny" it would be much more meaningful to pray "show granny that you are in control and that granny can trust you no matter what happens," because those are truths about God's character and can be followed by hearty amens.

Finally, it is instructive what follows Paul's admonition that we present our requests to God.  He writes this, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."  Paul does not say, "Present your requests to God and you will get everything you want."  No, he says, "Take your worries to God, remember to thank him, and he will bring you peace."  Ah!  This is an amen!  This is a truth!  God is the God of peace and God doesn't want us to worry.  We pray to God, not to get what we want, but so that we shape our will to God's, that our worries dissolve into the truth that God is the giver of peace.

Wow and wow.  I am humbled and amazed.  My prayer life has been weak; I have used it as a vessel for request after request.  My amens have been following statements that lack truth.  Could it be that my trust of God withers as I focus on my own selfish desires in prayer and not on truths about his character?  Could my prayer life be transformed if I prayed carefully, not haphazardly, to make my amen a true amen?  Yes!