NAMES AND TITLES OF CHRIST
THE AMEN
DR. JIM DIXON
REVELATION 3:14-22
MAY 25, 1997
“Amen, Amen, Amen.” Those were the final words of Daniel Webster when he died on October 24, 1852. Daniel Webster was, of course, the famous lawyer, the famous American orator, statesman, congressman, senator, Secretary of State under three different presidents. When he died, his doctor was by his bedside. As he was dying, his doctor said a little prayer and when the prayer was done, Daniel Webster said “Amen, Amen, Amen” and he died.
We are told that the average Christian in the course of his or her lifetime will say the word “amen” 30,000 times. Most of you, in the course of your life, before you leave this world, you will have said the word “amen” at least 30,000 times. Christians say the word amen sometimes at the end of the doxologies, sometimes at the end of hymns, sometimes in moments of joy, most often following a prayer. In the course of most Christians’ lives, they will say this word 30,000 times and yet, incredibly, most Christians do not know the meaning of the word. Isn’t that amazing that we would say a word 30,000 times and NOT know the meaning of the word? The word amen is used in the Old Testament 24 times and it is used in the New Testament 126 times. It is used by our Lord Jesus Christ as a title for Himself. I am “The Amen” says the Son of God.
This morning we have three teachings as we seek to understand this word and title. The first teaching is this. The testimony of Jesus Christ is true. When we say that Jesus Christ is The Amen, first of all we mean His testimony is true.
On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart vanished from the earth with her navigator whose name was Noonan. They just disappeared. Amelia Earhart was in the midst of an around-the-world flight. She was certainly the most famous woman pilot in the world. In 1932 she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and now in the midst of this around¬ the-world flight, she just disappeared.
Immediately, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered for a search. Seven U.S. Navy ships, for 14 days, searched over 250,000 square miles of the vast Pacific for Amelia Earhart. They did not find her. Part of the problem was that Amelia Earhart maintained radio silence. She had maintained radio silence because her husband, George Palmer Putnam, had negotiated an exclusive contract with the New York Herald Tribune, giving them the exclusive rights to the story of this global flight. So, Amelia Earhart maintained radio silence, not wanting other newspapers to be able to get glimpses of the events surrounding the flight.
Today, there are some people who believe that she was captured by the Japanese and executed as an American spy. There are some people who believe that she was able to take her plane along with her navigator, Fred Noonan, to some remote island and that somehow they died there in isolation. But most people believe that Amelia Earhart simply ran out of fuel and her plane crashed into the Pacific somewhere near Howland Island. The truth is not known, and the truth cannot be known. The truth cannot be known because there were no witnesses, or if there were witnesses, they have not spoken. We do not have the testimony of eyewitnesses. We live in a world where the truth is so often determined by the testimony of eyewitnesses.
Right now, right here in Denver, the Oklahoma City bombing trial is taking place. Timothy McVeigh is being tried. The prosecution and the defense are calling upon witnesses and those witnesses are sharing their testimonies and the jury must try to determine the truth based on those varying testimonies. We live in a world like that and in this world the truth is so often difficult to ascertain. I mean how do we know the truth about God? Or the nature of man? Or even the truth about morals, values and ethics? How can we know the truth?
Jesus Christ said, “I am The Amen,” the faithful and true witness. This word amen is a Hebrew word, borrowing by the Greeks and borrowed by the English but a Hebrew word. The word amen literally means “true.” In the Old Testament, God is called the God of Amen and that means the God of Truth. And so, Jesus takes this title as The Amen, saying that He is the truth, and His testimony is true. He is the faithful and true witness. This is why, in the New Testament in the gospels, we read how Jesus, so often when He spoke, began with the words “Amen, amen… Truly, truly… Verily, verily…” He began His statements using “Amen, amen, amen…” “Truly, truly…” “Verily, verily I say to you…” He wanted His audience to know His witness was true. He is the faithful witness.
If you want to know the truth about God, Jesus is the Son of God, and He is The Amen. If you want to know the truth about the nature of man, Jesus is the Son of Man, and He is The Amen. If you want to know the truth about morality, Jesus is the the Holy One and He is The Amen. His witness is true.
Now, there are many witnesses out there and many testimonies. You can read the testimony of Buddha in the Tipitaka. You can read the testimony of Krishna in Hinduism in the Vedas, or in the Gida or in the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read the testimony of Mohammed in the Koran and of course, in the Bible, you can read the testimony of The Amen, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who are you going to believe? There are some people in our culture, there are some people in our society, who claim that they can just believe them all. This is true of New Agers. This is true of religious pluralists. This is true of religious syncretists. They believe that they can embrace the teachings of Christ, the teachings of Buddha, the teachings of Krishna, the teachings of Mohammed in a kind of religious pluralism but that’s deceptive because the teachings of Christ are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Buddha and Krishna and Mohammed.
If you desire rational symmetry, then you cannot embrace all of these teachings simultaneously unless you can just ignore cognitive dissonance because, you see, their teachings simply do not agree. Jesus said that when we die, our soul leaves the body and if we’re a believer, our soul goes immediately into His presence in heaven. Jesus tells us that if we’re not a believer, our soul is kept for the final judgement.
Buddha and Krishna taught that when you die, your soul simply re-enters another body in an almost endless cycle of reincarnation, death and rebirth. Both cannot be true. The teachings of Christ and the teachings of Buddha cannot both be true. They cannot both be The Amen. You must make a choice. Jesus Christ said that if we would be saved, then we must find atonement for our sins. If you would be saved, you must find atonement for your sin. Buddha did not teach this. Krishna did not teach this. In fact, Buddha and Krishna both taught that there is no such thing as sin and therefore there is no need of atonement. There are mistakes from which people can learn in this endless sequence of reincarnation as they progress in their karma. There are mistakes from which people can learn but there’s no real sin and there’s no need for atonement.
Mohammed taught that there is a need for atonement, but Mohammed taught that we could atone for our own sins. “You can atone for your own sin,” says Mohammed in the Koran, “through following the five disciplines, through confessing Allah, through ritualistic prayer, through faithfulness and alms giving, through fasting in the month of Ramadan, through the pilgrimage to Mecca, through circling the Kaaba, through kissing the black stone. You can atone for your own sins and if there’s any atonement left undone, then you can just rest on the mercy of Allah. But Jesus Christ said that’s not true. Atonement must be made, and you cannot atone for your own sin. It doesn’t matter what you do and that’s why Christ came into the world, to make atonement. For this He was born. For this He came into the world that He might die for your sin, that He might die for my sin, in substitutionary atonement and thereby offer forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
But, you see, you can’t embrace Christ and Mohammed and Buddha and Krishna at the same time. Their testimonies radically differ. You must decide who is The Amen, whose testimony is true. Jesus Christ said, “My word is truth.” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” If you call Jesus Christ The Amen, then you bear witness that His testimony is true, and it affects the way you live your life. You draw your morals from Him, your ethics from Him, your values from Him, your lifestyle from Him if indeed you believe He is The Amen. We live in a confused culture in this age of post-modernism where there’s a denial of truth itself but if you would take the name of Christ, then you believe that He is The Amen, and He conveys absolute truth.
There’s a second meaning to this title and this word. When we say that Jesus Christ is The Amen, we also are saying that He fulfills the promises of God. Jesus Christ fulfills the promises of God.
Now, there’s a mysterious passage, a kind of strange passage, in 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, beginning with verse 20. In 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 20, the Apostle Paul writes, “All of the promises of God are yes in Christ for with Him it is always yes. This is why we utter the amen through Him to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 20. “All the promises of God are yes in Christ for with Him it is always yes. This is why we utter the amen.”
Did you know that the word amen sometimes means yes? It’s primary meaning, as we’ve already seen, is true. That’s its primary meaning. But its secondary meaning, and many words have secondary meanings, its secondary meaning is yes. In the Hebrew culture, many times when people said amen, they simply meant yes. We are to understand when Jesus said, “I am The Amen,” He is the yes. He fulfills all of the promises of God. “All the promises of God are yes in Him.” So, of course, God promises His people forgiveness, but that promise is fulfilled in Christ. God promises His people resurrection, but that promise is fulfilled in Christ because death could not hold Him, and He rose in power and great glory, and He offers resurrection to all who believe in His name. God promises His people eternal life, but that promise is fulfilled in Christ.
So, God would ask you this morning, “Do you really believe the promises? Do you really believe that the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ?” If you do, it affects the way you live every single day. Do you really believe your sins are forgiven and you’ve been washed whiter than snow? Do you believe that? Do you believe that you will one day receive a resurrected body just like the resurrected body of our Lord Jesus Christ? Do you believe that? Do you believe that you will live forever and ever with Christ in a new heaven and a new earth? Do you really believe that? Because if you believe that, it will radically affect your attitude every single day of life in this world.
Most of you have heard of Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen died in 1980 of cancer. Steve McQueen was, of course, a well-known Hollywood actor. He really burst onto the scene in 1960 when he made the movie The Magnificent Seven and then in 1963 with the movie The Great Escape. By the time 1968 rolled around and Steve McQueen made the movie “Bullitt,” by that time he was already the most famous or one of the most famous actors in Hollywood and he was the actor in Hollywood who received the most money per movie. He was married to Ali McGraw. By his own testimony, by Steve McQueen’s own testimony, he lived a debauched life. He grew up as a kid in reform school and he never did reform. I mean he lived a life of sexual promiscuity in and out of marriage and divorce, struggled with alcoholism, not well liked by a lot of people.
But in the 1970s, Steve McQueen came down with cancer and he was told it was terminal and he tried alternative treatments for that terminal cancer, but he was desperate and one day he went to a crusade where a Billy Graham associate was preaching. At that crusade, Steve McQueen asked Jesus Christ to be his Lord and Savior. And Steve McQueen said that before he died, he wanted to talk to Billy Graham and so it was that Billy Graham came to Los Angeles. He had a stopover there on a flight. He met Steve McQueen at L.A. International Airport. They sat in Steve McQueen’s limo. For two hours, Billy Graham and Steve McQueen.
Steve McQueen said, “You know, my biggest problem is I just can’t believe that I’m really forgiven because I’ve lived such a horrible life. I just can’t really believe that He’s forgiven me, and I can’t really believe that He’s giving me eternal life. I have a hard time believing.” Billy Graham took him to Titus, chapter 1, verse 2. In Titus, chapter 1, verse 2, the Bible says that God has promised eternal life to all who believe in Jesus Christ and God’s promises are real because God cannot lie. God cannot lie.
Well, this verse meant everything to Steve McQueen. God cannot lie. It’s not based on his worthiness but on God’s faithfulness to His promises. When Steve McQueen died, according to Dr. Ike Reighard, he had that Bible on his lap. Steve McQueen had asked for a pen so that he could write Titus 1:2 down on a piece of paper and Billy Graham just gave him his Bible and when Steve McQueen died, he had that Bible on his lap. The Bible was open to the book of Titus, the first chapter, and his hand was right there on that page.
I think there are many who are nominally Christian and struggle to believe the promises of God, struggle to believe that the promises of God are really yes in Christ, that they are really fulfilled in Christ. God would ask you today, “Do you really believe? Do you believe your sin is forgiven? Do you believe you have eternal life?” If you do, there’s got to be a sense in which every day is a celebration. If you really believe you have eternal life, you’ve got to believe every day is a celebration and there’s got to be a joy in your life the world can’t quench, the world can’t take away, if you really believe.
Some of you have heard the Indian Chieftain whose name was Crowfoot. He was the great Chief of the Blackfoot Confederacy in southern Alberta. Crowfoot is well known for having given the Canadian Pacific Railroad the rights to build that railroad through Blackfoot Territory, from Medicine Bow to Calgary. In response, the Canadian Pacific Railroad gave Crowfoot, this Blackfoot Indian Chief, the promise that he could ride for free on that train the rest of his life. They gave him a little token, a kind of metal token, that sealed the promise that he could ride the train for free the rest of his life. Crowfoot wore that token in a leather pouch on a chain around his neck the rest of his life, but he never rode the train. Not once did he ride the train through Blackfoot Territory from Medicine Bow to Calgary. He didn’t get on the train once.
Just before he died, someone asked him why. “Why did you never ride the train?” He said, with that chain still around his neck and the token still there, he said “I never really believe the promise. I never really believed they would let me ride the train for free.” Isn’t that incredible? And yet how many nominal Christians are like that? I mean we wear a cross around our neck. Perhaps we put an ichthus on the car, but do we really believe that Jesus is The Amen? Do we really believe the promises of God are fulfilled in Him?
You know, in the early years in America, in every sanctuary, most every sanctuary, there was a part of the sanctuary called Amen corner. The expression Amen Corner comes from England and from London, England where there literally is Amen Corner because of the annual priestly processional toward St. Paul’s Cathedral where the priests, every year, recite The Lord’s Prayer and they come to the word Amen just when they arrive at Amen Corner.
But this expression Amen Corner was taken over to America and it was used to describe a section of every single worship center or every single sanctuary. If you went to a church in colonial America, you would see Amen Corner, but you could not just go and sit there. You were not allowed; you were not free to just go and sit in Amen Corner because the people who sat in Amen Corner were trained. They had to go to rehearsal each week. They had to go to practice each week and they would learn to say Amen in unison. They would not only learn to say Amen in unison, but they would learn to say Amen at the appropriate times. They were taught that they were to, in unison, say the word Amen whenever the promises of God were proclaimed from the pulpit. Sometimes when they had an early manuscript of the pastor’s sermon, they would be told some of the promises of God that would be mentioned the upcoming Sunday from the pulpit so they would be ready to say the Amen in unison.
Well, there are no longer any Amen Corners in sanctuaries. In a church like this, there are very few people who ever shout Amen from the seat. And perhaps it doesn’t really matter as long as there is an Amen in your heart, as long as there is an Amen in your soul, as long as you believe the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ and you live with that belief every single day because then your life is going to be a kind of celebration and it’s going to have a joy the world just can’t take away.
There’s a final meaning to this word Amen. When we say Christ is The Amen, we mean not only that His testimony is true and that He fulfills the promises of God, but we mean also that He seals the covenant of God. You see, the word Amen was used to seal a covenant. Now, etymologically, the word Amen has an unusual background. We’ve already seen the word Amen as a Hebrew word but where did the Hebrews get it? It’s a Hebrew word but where did the Hebrews get it? Well, most etymologists, philologists and linguists believe that the Hebrews, around the year 1500 BC, borrowed the word Amen from the Egyptians because in 1500 BC, the primary god of the Egyptians was called Amun-Ra or Amun-Re and sometimes just called Amun.
Whenever the Egyptians would enter into a covenant or a contract, they would seal the covenant or the contract with the word Amun. Now, no one knows for sure that the Hebrews borrowed the word Amen from the Egyptian Amun. No one knows that for sure, but we do know this for sure. We do know that the Hebrews, from the very earliest time, used the word Amen to seal covenants and contracts. When they entered into a contract or a covenant, the covenant or contract was sealed with the word Amen. When we say that Jesus Christ is The Amen, we mean that He seals the covenant of God.
God entered into a covenant with Moses on Mt. Sinai, and it was a covenant etched in stone as the decalogue was inscribed on tablets of stone called the Tables of the Covenant. That covenant and the terms of the covenant were very clear. God said, “You keep My commandments, you keep My law, and you will be My people and I will bless you.” But the New Testament points out that it was not possible for fallen humanity to keep the covenant, not possible in our fallen condition to keep the commandments of God faithfully. We’re told in the New Testament that the Old Testament covenant served to remind us of our desperate need for a new covenant and that new covenant came through Christ. It is sealed in Christ. It is offered in Christ. He is The Amen.
The terms of the new covenant are also very clear and it’s really quite a deal. I mean God said “My Son will keep My commandments. My Son will fulfill all righteousness. My Son will fulfill all holiness and He will do this for you. His righteousness will be imputed to you. My Son will die for you. He will die in substitutionary atonement for your sin. If you believe in Him, if you believe in Him as Savior and as Lord, you will be My people and I will bless you from everlasting to everlasting.” That’s the deal. That’s the new covenant, sealed in Christ’s blood. The new covenant in His blood. Every time you say the word Amen, it should remind you, not only that the testimony of Christ is true and that the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ, but every time you say the word Amen, it should remind you of the new covenant to which you have pledged yourself in faith.
Perhaps some of you have read a book called “The Wall.” That book was written by John Hersy. It’s a novel. John Hersey’s book “The Wall” describes the Nazi persecution of the Polish Jews during World War II. That book describes how the Polish Jews were taken from Warsaw ghettos and dragged to concentration camps where many were exterminated. The book describes how many of the Polish Jews were taken into open fields. They were made to march in a line towards a field desk where Nazi officers sat. The Nazi officer would look and if the person looked healthy, then that Polish Jew was sent into a factory line. If the person didn’t look so healthy, then that Polish Jew was sent into the death line.
Now, John Hersey, in this book “The Wall,” describes a couple who was in that line, and they are married, husband and wife. They are arguing in the line. They are really angry with each other. They kind of blame each other for the predicament they are in. Of course, they are under incredible stress. They have been uprooted and life just doesn’t seem to make any sense to them anymore. It just seems like one big nightmare. It seemed to them as though God Himself had abandoned them. There they are in this line, and they are arguing. Finally, they found themselves standing in front of the field desk and the Nazi officer. Husband and wife. The Nazi officer looks at the husband and sends him into the factory line, but he looks at the wife and sends her to the death line. The husband stands there for a moment in silence and he just begins to cry. He looks over at his wife whom he has been arguing with and he goes to her and holds her. They cry together and then they go off together to die together.
I think if you are married, you can understand that. I mean if you’re married, even though you argue sometimes, even though there is conflict sometimes, you understand that love. You understand a willingness to die together. You understand how someone might, for the sake of comforting his or her spouse, even go into death with them. It’s part of the covenant, the covenant we call marriage, which is a covenant unto death, and yet the Bible tells us a lesser covenant when compared to the covenant of God in Christ, a lesser covenant, a kind of symbol of the greater covenant that involves a relationship between Christ and His church.
Did you know Jesus Christ once said, “Whoever loves husband or wife more than Me is not worthy of Me?” Do you ever struggle with a verse like that? I mean I know I have because I love Barb so much. “Whoever loves husband or wife more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Of course, He’s not talking about romantic love but He’s talking about the love of devotion. Where is your highest devotion? Is your highest devotion to your spouse or is your highest devotion to Christ Jesus? Who are you living for? Are you living for your spouse? Are you living for your kids? Are you living for your career? Are you living for Christ? That’s the covenant sealed in His blood. You know, Satan wants you to walk away from that covenant. He wants you to renounce your faith. That’s his great purpose in this life. He wants you to cease to say the Amen. He wants you just to walk away.
You know, just a few weeks ago… I know we have to close, and we’ll close with this. But just a few weeks ago, Barb and I went to a meeting at a house south of town, members of our church. It was a meeting concerning the persecution of Christians worldwide. I’ve told you before that there’s a kind of global holocaust, a kind of global genocide that is taking place in the world today with respect to Christians and Christianity. Christians are just being slaughtered.
At this meeting, there was a man from Nigeria who had just recently escaped, a Christian man. His name was Sahti. He had had his body slit open and he had been tied to a tree and left to die because he had embraced Christ. They literally slit his stomach open, and they cut his body in other places that he might just bleed to death, and they tied him to a tree and die and then they went away. But a farmer rescued him and miraculously… and I don’t have time to tell the story… but miraculously he came here to the United States. But, you know, he may have to go back where he would probably die because he simply believes in the name of Jesus, and he’s embraced that covenant with Christ.
In this country, the United States of America, we have legislation passed which enables us to protect those in other nations who are persecuted because they are homosexuals. If they come here to America, we can keep them because they are persecuted as a homosexual. We have legislation passed which enables us to protect people who come from other countries because they are persecuted as members of the Bahai faith, but we have no provisions that enable us to keep people who are persecuted in other countries because of their Christian faith. So, this man may just go back. How tragic.
As he shared his testimony with us, he said in Nigeria where he’s from, many Christian men are brought before the Muslim authorities and they are told to renounce Christ, told to renounce Christ and to embrace Mohammed, confess Mohammed. Their children are dragged in front of them and killed one by one until the father will renounce Christ. Then the wife is brought, and she is killed in front of him until he will renounce Christ. Can you imagine? Do you care? Are you grateful you don’t live in a country like that? I mean on this Memorial Day weekend, are you grateful for those who gave their lives that this nation might be free, and we might have religious freedom?
But don’t think for a second that in this nation Satan isn’t trying to destroy faith because he is. As surely as he’s trying to destroy the Christian faith in Nigeria and all over the world, he wants to destroy the faith here and he wants to destroy your faith through materialism, hedonism, ego and self, through hardships and tests and trials that come our way. He wants to destroy your faith so that you can no longer say the Amen. He wants you to just walk away from your side of the covenant. But, you see, every time we say the word Amen, it’s a reminder of the covenant we’ve made with the Son of God, the commitment that we’ve made in Him, that He is our Savior, and He is our Lord. He is the truth.
In a world of darkness, He’s the truth. All the promises of God are fulfilled in Him. Every time we say the word Amen, we’re reminded of these things, that His testimony is true, the promises are fulfilled in Him, and we have a covenant relationship with Him sealed in His blood. He is The Amen. Every time we say that word, we recommit ourselves to that covenant in Christ. Let’s close with a word of prayer.