WE THE PEOPLE

Monday, April 25, 2016

Amen!

Amen


("firm", "faithful", else "verily".) Jesus is "the Amen, the, faithful and true witness"  Rev 3:14). Compare 2Co 1:20Joh 1:14Joh 1:17Joh 14:6. "The God of Amen" (Hebrew for "truth")  Isa 65:16). Jesus alone introduces His authoritative declarations with Amen in the beginning; in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, singly, in John  Joh 3:3Joh 3:5Joh 3:11Joh 10:1) always doubled. It is most marked how the apostles and others avoid the use of it in the beginning, which is His divine prerogative. Jer 28:6 is not an exception; it is praying for the divine ratification of what preceded. In oaths those who pronounce the "Amen" bind themselves by the oath Num 5:22Deu 27:15-26).
God alone can seal all His declarations of promise or threat with the "Amen," verily, in its fullest sense; our assertions mostly need some qualification. As John records Christ's discourses on the deeper things of God, which man is slow to believe, the double Amen is appropriately found at the beginning of such discourses 25 times. Amen was the proper response to a prayer, an oath, or a solemn promise  1Ki 1:30Neh 5:13Neh 8:61Ch 16:36Jer 11:5); the God of Amen witnesses our covenants. Jewish tradition states that the people responded to the priest's prayer not "Amen," but, "Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom for ever." But in synagogues, as in the Christian assemblies, and in family and private prayers, Amen was the response  Mat 6:131Co 14:16).

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