"And to the
angel of the church in Laodicea write; These things saith
the Amen, the faithful and true witness" (Rev.
3:14).
"So that he who blesseth himself in the earth
shall bless himself in the God of truth, and he that
sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of
truth" or as the margin has it, "He
who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in
the God Amen; and he that sweareth in the earth shall
swear by the God Amen" (Is. 65:16).
"For how many soever be the promises of God,
in him is the yea: wherefore also through him is the
Amen, unto the glory of God through us" (2 Cor.
1:20).
You will see from the
passages in Revelation and Isaiah, that 'Amen' is a
title, a designation, a description of God. His Name is
the 'Amen', the God of the 'Amen'. We know what we mean
when we use that word. We mean a note of affirmation,
that there is nothing from which we dissent and
everything with which we agree. We are saying, 'Let it be
like that - Amen!' And that is a description of God; that
is His Name. The description can be summed up in one
fragment of Scripture: "the Father of Lights, with
whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by
turning" (Jas. 1:17). He is always the same,
absolutely reliable, positive, definite, sure, for He is
the God of the 'Amen'.
Isaiah
Looks Beyond the Captivity and the Cross
Now the contexts of
these two passages are very enlightening as to the use
made of the title on each occasion.
In Isaiah 65, you will
see that we are near the end of the prophecies; we are on
the other side of the judgment of Israel, that is on the
other side of the exile and the captivity. We are with
the remnant that returned. The new day is presented in
such verses as:- "Arise, shine; for thy light is
come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee"
(Is. 60:1).
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your
God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her,
that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is
pardoned; that she hath received of the Lord's hand
double for all her sins" (Is. 40:1,2).
Again, in this chapter
in which our verse is found, the Lord says: "I
create new heavens and a new earth" (65:17). A new
day is in view, and on that ground, in that setting and
context, these words occur. They are prospective as you
see: 'he that, then, on that ground, in that day,
blesseth himself... he that sweareth... in that day, on
this new ground...' These words look on into the future
and we may say here at once, that it is to the day which
has come, to the day in which we live, that these
prophecies point so clearly. The prophecies after chapter
53, the chapter of the Cross and the suffering, point so
clearly to this day beyond the Cross, the day of His
resurrection, the day of the Spirit; this is the day -
our day - in which God is spoken of as the God of the
'Amen' - God, re-affirming, and God reaffirmed.
But to revert to
Israel's history: it had looked for seventy long, weary,
tragic, desolate years, as though everything was
hopeless; all seemed lost. Look at Jerusalem during those
seventy years; look at the land in its desolation and
ruin, with the glory gone, everything broken down, and
tragedy written large everywhere. The visitors to that
country wagging their heads, remembering the past, were
saying, 'Aha, aha; well, well; Look at this!' And while
that cry, like a sob, from the prophet: "Is it
nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if
there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow" (Lam.
1:12), may be truly put into the mouth of the Lord Jesus,
on the Cross, it literally relates to this very
situation. It was the cry of the land.
Of such a situation we
should say today, 'Well, that is an end of that! There is
not much prospect there.' But it is in that setting, just
in a situation like that, that these words occur. He is
the God of the 'Amen'! He is re-affirming that, despite
of everything, He has not changed, He has not given up,
He is not in despair. He is the God whose decisions and
determinations are absolute and final, and it does not
matter to those decisions what happens. He remains the
God of the 'Amen'. Here He is then, in this title,
re-affirming, that although all this has happened, a
remnant shall return. There shall yet be a 'taking root
downward, and a bearing fruit upward' (Is. 37:31). God
cannot ultimately be cheated of His purpose; He is the
God of the 'Amen'.
Confidence
in the God of Hope
Here, then, is the
mighty re-affirmation or declaration, like something
rising out of the ashes. Yes, there are ashes and
desolation and mourning and the spirit of heaviness and
all these things, yet, there arises out of the midst an
unchanged and unchangeable God.
And so we come to these
words: "He who blesseth himself in the earth shall
bless himself in the God Amen". What does that mean?
It sounds so strange, does it not? It sounds a little
awkward; but what does it mean? Well, I think it just
means this, quite simply - that the ground of our hope,
of our blessing, of our prospect, and of our new joy, is
that God is the same for ever. We can count on Him. There
never was such a terrible threat to His purposes; there
never was such a seeming desolation in the realm of God's
election. And yet, and yet, He has not accepted that as
an end; He has not accepted that as cancelling out what
He has set His hand to do. He still remains firm, true,
steadfast for ever, the God 'Amen'. What a blessing! if
only we could get hold of it. We are certainly not going
to bless ourselves for this, that, and the other thing;
that is, to congratulate ourselves on things. Very often
it is going to be like this; that there is nothing in the
appearance and condition of things in which we can bless
ourselves, but that we can bless ourselves in God 'Amen'.
Then the verse
continues, "and he that sweareth in the earth
shall swear by the God Amen". What does that
mean? Well, you see, the swearing was always related to
covenant, was it not? And while that would open up far
too large a field for this brief consideration, the point
is just this: you can commit yourself to this God, you
can depend upon Him as the covenant-keeping God, and you
can swear by Him. There is nothing else in all this world
that you can swear by, and no one else; everything else
will let you down, but you can swear by Him - God 'Amen'
- He will not let you down.
The
Lord's Insistent Appeal for Reality
Turning now to the
passage in the Book of the Revelation, notice the context
there. Christ, the Amen, is speaking to the church in
Laodicea. Laodicea - why, that very word
and name is the synonym for what is indefinite,
indistinctive, weak, and mixed! "Thou are... neither
hot nor cold"; 'there is no distinctiveness and no
definiteness about you. You are neither one thing nor the
other.' And there are a lot of other things said about
Laodicea, all representing a situation that is utterly
unreliable and unsatisfactory; in one word, it is false.
"Thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten
riches," and you do not know that it is utterly
false, that "thou art... poor" - thou art...
poor! You think that you can see, and do not know that
you are blind. You say: 'we are clothed; we have apparel;
we have all we need'; and you do not know that you are
naked before God. What a picture of falsehood. And
whenever there is a falsehood, catastrophe is sure to
follow sooner or later; a lie will always be found out.
This is a very insecure position.
"These things
saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness" - you
see, the very context interprets and explains the title.
The Lord is here calling Laodicea back to that which is
represented by His own name and nature. There is nothing
mixed, confused and contradictory about Him. There is no
falsehood with Him, nothing like this with Him, and so
His call is for recovery at the end. This is the last
phase. At the end He is calling His Church back to
complete distinctiveness, that there shall be no doubt
whatever as to where we stand, as to where we are going.
It is a great thing in these days, to meet people who
know exactly what they are after, with no two minds about
it; they are settled; they are fixed; there is no
variableness with them. It is a great thing in these days
to find such people. And the Lord says, It will be a
great thing if the Church can be like that in the end, if
there can be such a testimony. This, surely, is the
meaning of 'overcoming' in the case of Laodicea.
'Overcoming' means that all uncertainty, indefiniteness,
weakness, vaccilation, duplicity, and everything of that
character, is eliminated. The overcomers are people who
know where they stand, where they are going, what they
are after, people who have got the positive note in their
midst, the Amen, the note of certainty.
That is the last word
of the Spirit to the Church in this dispensation.
"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith to the churches" (Rev. 3:22). The last word of
the Spirit to the Church in this dispensation - if we are
to accept the dispensational interpretation of these
messages to the seven churches - a word called out
apparently by the very conditions, is this, 'Away with
all indistinctiveness in your testimony, all uncertainty
in your note, all indefiniteness in your goings, and let
there be certainty, positiveness, confidence and
assurance; let there be no beating the air, but a
reaching the mark all the time.' This is the word of the
Spirit.
The
Great 'Amens' of Christ
Now you notice that
this is not only a title ascribed to God in the Old
Testament, but also one of the titles of Jesus in the
New. It is Jesus who says, "These things saith the
Amen, the faithful and true witness", the Amen, the
I AM.
Now I am quite sure you
are perfectly familiar with the fact that on the twelve
or so occasions, when Jesus said, twice over,
"Verily, verily...", according to our version
and translation, the Greek word is "Amen", so
that we may read, "Amen, Amen, I say unto
you..." And realising what that implies, the mighty
affirmation, you can understand better the things that
follow. If Jesus says, "Verily, verily" -
"Amen, Amen... I am the door...", there is a
tremendous emphasis on that; in other words, you cannot
get in any other way (John 10:7). Now I am not going to
enlarge upon this, but you see the point. Here He is,
affirming that He is the 'Amen'. In all of these twelve
or more different connections He speaks of Himself in
this way. He is the 'Amen'.
The
Twofold Work of the Amen
But then, His work also
was the work of the 'Amen'. To this there were two
aspects, namely, death and resurrection. In order to see
something of the significance of His death, let us go
back to the Book of Deuteronomy 27. There you find all
the curses that would come upon the people if they were
disobedient to the Lord, and turned away from Him to
serve other gods, a whole long list of the curses that
would come. We note two things: that the Levites, as
representing the people, are required to affirm the
curses, and then at the end, "all the people shall
say, Amen". By this they meant, 'Yes, if we do turn
away, if we are unfaithful, if we reject the Lord, let it
be like that, let all the curses come upon us'. They
had to accept it.
Dear friends, in the
death of the Lord Jesus, there was the mighty, inclusive
Amen to all the curses. Terrible thought! He was made a
curse for us. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of
the law, having become a curse for us: for it is written,
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal.
3:13). As He hung there, viewing man's sin, departure
from God, unfaithfulness and infidelity, and all that man
had done against God, He entered into the consequences of
the curse. He took the curse for it all upon Himself, and
said, 'Amen, it is quite right, it must be'. He gave His
Amen to the curse! But it was final! He swallowed up all
the curse in His death, with a mighty affirmation, 'God
is right - His judgment is just - Amen!'
But in His
resurrection, we have the other side of His work as the
'Amen'. It is as the risen One that He appears to
Laodicea, as you notice - "I am... the Living one...
I am alive for evermore..." (Rev. 1:17,18). Here we
are on the resurrection side, and in the resurrection, as
Paul tells us, we are justified by His life (Rom. 4:25).
Here is the Amen of justification! In His death, as we
have seen, is the affirmation that God is right. You see,
we never get through until we have come to the place
where we say: 'In that judgment of the Lord Jesus on the
Cross, God was right, where I am concerned. I was there,
and God was right'. Until we come right down there, and
say, 'Yes, Amen, God was right in judging me as a sinner,
as an unfaithful one, God was right', we never get
through to the other side. When we have got there, to
that terrible Amen of judgment and death, by faith, we
come to the place where we can stand on the other side of
the Amen, the Amen of justification by His life. Yes, the
mighty affirmation of God is that we are justified by His
life! We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ. You see
then, that God has committed Himself. God has put His
stamp and His seal upon that Amen! Just as truly as you
are condemned to judgment in His death, so truly are you
raised to justification in His life, for, "Jesus our
Lord... was delivered up for our trespasses, and was
raised for our justification" (Rom. 4:25). Amen! God
says: Amen! He is committed to that.
Faith
in the God of the Amen
Now we must close. Is
not this word needed in our day? Was there ever a time of
greater uncertainty, perhaps even amongst many of the
Lord's people? On every hand there are questions and
doubts, weakening, loosening and disintegrating lives,
with discouragement, disillusionment and disappointment
all weakening the heart and loosening the springs of
confidence and faith. There is so much today to cause a
great questionmark to stand over everything. Are you
feeling like that? We are all tempted to ask big
questions about the biggest things, are we not? As we
look within and without, our hearts could very often lose
their confident assurance.
In a day such as this,
it is well for us to come back and hear Him say
concerning the purpose to which He has committed Himself,
'I am the Amen'. He has committed Himself to it as the
'Amen', the unchangeable, the unalterable One, with whom
there is no variableness. He is holding to it through
everything. Amen is written over His purpose. God is the
God Amen. Christ is on the throne, and His Name is the
'Amen'; His rule is the rule of the 'Amen': He has the
last word in everything.
We must also see that
it is the Holy Spirit who is speaking the words of the
'Amen' - "These things saith the Amen... He that
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith..."
The Spirit is the power for realising the purpose and
effecting the rule. The Three Persons of the Trinity are
one God; they share this Name, this title, this
description, the 'Amen', the 'Amen'. The Lord strengthen
our faith in Himself.
First published by Witness & Testimony Publishers as a booklet in 1957