James 5:15

James 5:15. And the prayer of faith. Some understand by this, prayer uttered in faith believing prayer confidence in God as the Hearer of prayer. Others, supposing that the reference is to those miraculous gifts of healing with which the primitive Church was endowed, understand by faith what has been called miraculous faith a belief that one was called upon to perform a miracle a secret impulse from God to that effect. This faith was one of those extraordinary gifts which were conferred on the primitive Christians, but which are now withdrawn from the Christian Church. ‘To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles' (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). It would appear from Scripture that this faith must be possessed by both parties; the person who performs the miracle must be endowed with this miraculous faith; and the person on whom the miracle is wrought must have faith to be healed (Acts 14:9).

shall save the sick: here, as is evident from the context, shall recover the sick man, restore him to bodily health. There is here no reference to the salvation of the soul. The Greek verb here rendered ‘save' is often used in the New Testament of bodily healing. It is to be observed that the recovery of the sick is not attributed to the anointing with oil, but to the prayer of faith.

and the Lord, that is, Christ, in whose name he is anointed, shall raise him up, bring him out of his sickness, raise him from his bed.

and if: some render the words ‘even if;' but our version is admissible, and to be preferred as simpler.

he have committed sins the sins being here regarded as the cause of his sickness. Even in the present day sickness is often occasioned by sin; but this appears to have been particularly the case in the apostolic age. Then it would appear that sickness was inflicted by God in the way of extraordinary punishment for sin. Thus it is said concerning those who profaned the Lord's Supper among the Corinthians: ‘For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep' (1 Corinthians 11:30). Compare also John 5:14.

they shall all be forgiven him: the removal of the sickness as the punishment of sin was a proof of its forgiveness. Such is the exegesis of the passage; but very different interpretations have been attached to it. Of these there are three which merit consideration. The first is the opinion of the Romanists. It is from this passage chiefly that they derive their sacrament of extreme unction. The anointing with oil has a sacramental efficacy, like the sprinkling of water in baptism, or the participation of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. When a man is on the point of death he is to send for the priest, who, after hearing his confession, is to administer the communion to him, and to anoint certain portions of his body with the holy chrism in the name of the Lord, so that his sins may be forgiven him. But there is in this practice a manifest perversion of the words of the apostle. The anointing which St. James recommends has reference not so much to spiritual as to bodily healing. It was administered with the view of recovery from sickness, not, as is the practice of the Romanists, administered when, humanly speaking, all hope of recovery is gone. A second view is to consider the anointing with oil as a mere medicinal remedy. It was generally so used throughout the East. It was enjoined to be administered in the name of the Lord, because the Divine blessing was to be implored on all occasions; and there was good hope for restoration to health resulting from the use of proper remedies, and given in answer to believing prayer. But the great objection to this view is that it is contrary to the spirit of the passage. The whole description certainly leaves the impression that this anointing was a religious service, and that the recovery of the sick was not the result of natural means, but a supernatural effect resulting from the prayer of faith. If the anointing were a mere medicinal remedy, it would have been performed by the physician rather than by the elders of the church. We therefore give the preference to the third view, which considers that we have here a reference to the miraculous gift of healing practised in the primitive Church. We learn from the First Epistle to the Corinthians that this gift of healing was conferred by the Spirit upon many of the early Christians (1 Corinthians 12:9); and from the practice of the disciples of Christ, that they combined the anointing of oil with the exercise of this gift (Mark 6:13). Hence, then, we give the following meaning to the passage: That the elders of the church being sent for anointed the sick man with oil in the name of Christ, and by the prayer of faith miraculously restored him to health. Oil was employed as an external symbol, in a similar manner as our Lord in His miracles sometimes made use of external signs (Mark 7:33; John 9:6). It had a sacred import among the Jews, being the emblem of consecration, and perhaps was here employed to denote that the person cured was consecrated to the Lord. Of course this miraculous gift of healing was not a permanent power to be exercised on all occasions, otherwise there would have been neither sickness nor death in the primitive Church; but it was conditioned by the will of God. Paul undoubtedly possessed and exercised the gift of healing; but still he had to leave Trophimus at Miletum sick, and he could not cure himself of the thorn in his flesh. In the performance of a miracle, then, there was a peculiar impulse of the Spirit. The great objection to the above view is that the sick man was enjoined to call not for those possessed with the gift of healing, but for the presbyters of the church. It is, however, highly probable that those would be selected as presbyters who were the most highly endowed with miraculous gifts.