J. Alec Motyer
"Is any among you sick? He is to call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. " James 5:14-15
THIS is, of course, a passage of Scripture which is used in the context of a healing ministry, but I want to suggest that it must be considered in a much wider context if we are to understand it properly.
1. The Context of Trouble
The whole passage concerns the diversity of circumstances in life, and particularly the subject of trouble. It starts off by asking "Is any of you in trouble?" The word used is quite general, not focusing on any particular trouble which we call sickness, but trouble of any kind. Such a man is to pray. It may be that he is feeling cheerful; in that case let him sing praises. It begins with trouble, but I would prefer to speak of this context as that of divine providence. How are we to behave through the whole of life?
It is comparatively easy to be cheerful and to acknowledge God's goodness when the sun is shining and everything is marvellous, but life is by no means always like that. Neither, of course, is it always all of the other sort. Life is an extra-ordinary mixture, containing periods of trouble and periods of cheerfulness and sometimes a blend of both of them. The opening question of this passage in James 5 really amounts to this [5/6] question: 'Is your God big enough for the whole of life?'
Some people have a God who is big enough for the cheerful bits, but then they are completely bowled over by the adversities of life. Their God is not big enough for every experience, and so the call in verse 13 is that we should refer the whole of life to God. He is big enough for every situation; if there is trouble, then He offers the resource of prayer, and if there is cheerfulness, then there is the resource of praise.
2. The Context of Prayer
This gives us the key to the second context relating to our verse, and that is the context of prayer. Really this, I think, is what the whole passage is about. If we look from verse 13 onwards to verse 17, we find that prayer is mentioned in almost every verse. This whole passage is concerned not with a healing ministry but with the prayer life of the believer: "he is to pray" (v.13), "let them pray over him" (v.14), "the prayer of faith" (v.15), "pray for one another", "the supplication of a righteous man ..." (v.16). From then until verse 18 we have our attention drawn to the prophet Elijah at prayer. So the whole passage is about prayer, so much so that if we wish to understand what it has to say about a healing ministry in the local church, we must be careful that we do not interpret the reference to healing in a way that violates the whole doctrine of praying.
There is the wonderful promise that "the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up" (v.15). Does that mean that there is always going to be automatic healing if we operate the technique as specified in verse 14 and get it right? To say that would be to violate the Bible doctrine of praying. When we read what the Scriptures have to say about praying, we find that over and over again we are enticed into the of place of prayer by blank cheques from God. 'Whatever you ask you will receive.' 'Come on,' says God, 'ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.' If we want to change the metaphor, we may say that the door of prayer swings open wide, though I prefer that of the blank cheque. We are drawn into the place of prayer by the sheer bounty of God. We must never forget, though, that there are Scriptural safeguards in this matter. "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7). Commenting on this verse, Calvin says, 'God does not permit us undisciplined asking'. Over and over again, prayer is hemmed in. If we ask contrary to His Name, He will not give us what we ask. Pessimists may comment that they knew that it was too good to be true and that they knew it couldn't happen like that. What I want to ask you is if you ever thanked God that it can't happen like that?
If automatically we got just what we asked, when we asked for it and in the way that we have asked for it, we might soon be frightened ever to pray again. Prayer is such a magnificent instrument that God can never give it in an unrestricted way into the unwise hands of sinners. If we got automatically whatever we asked, we would visit upon ourselves not blessing but a bane and would minister to our friends not blessing but cursing. Prayer is hemmed around by the benefits of the restrictive will of God so that He will only give us that which is good.
I assert that there is nothing that I would not do for my son, yet in fact I would never give him a razor blade, however much he asked for it. He does ask, of course, for small boys have what amounts to a lust for razor blades! The human father safeguards his gifts to his children and our heavenly Father safeguards the wonder of prayer by the wonder of His own will. No, God does not permit us undisciplined asking, and thank God for it! I feel very deeply on this. What makes heaven to be heaven? It is the fact that there God's will is perfectly done. The will of God is not restrictive on the bounty we would grant ourselves; the will of God is the lifting of ourselves into the bounty that He would grant us. It would not be right to focus this section of James' Letter to a ministry of healing in a way that sets it outside its own chosen context as a passage dealing with praying believers and a praying church.
3. The Context of Sin
This third context of sin has to be mentioned. It says here that "... the Lord shall raise him up, and if he has committed sins, it shall be forgiven him" (v.15). There is no automatic connection between the commitment of sin and the onset of sickness. As we know in our own experience, we do not suffer as we might deserve, because the Lord graciously stands between us and the manifold disabilities which our sins [6/7] deserve over and over again. If it were not for grace, they would overtake us. We must remember, however, that equally from time to time He lifts His restraining hand and allows His laws of providence to operate, bringing afflictions upon us in the proportion in which He Himself has judged to be right. A time of sickness is certainly a time for self examination by believers, not in order to find the sin that has caused the sickness but lest there should be anything outstanding in which they have grieved the Lord.
4. The Context of the Local Church
What singularly appeals to me in this passage is that it applies to the continuing ministry of a local church and its officers. There is no reference here to people who have singular gifts, but only to those who in the providence of God hold some status in the local church. The ministry of healing is said to be a continuing ministry of the local church, performed through its regular officers. The words read: "Is any among you sick, then he is to call(3rd person singular, imperative) for the elders of the church". English is a difficult language into which to translate many statements. The expression, "let him call" may suggest to us the idea of what is permissive, but the Greek makes it imperative -- "he is to call".
This command has two implications. The first is that the sick man knows that this ministry is available in his local church. It is clear that the elders must know that this is a God-given ministry which they are to exercise, so that those concerned may know with confidence that they can ask for the ministry of prayer with anointing. The ministry itself is a ministry of prayer but to be performed with the symbolism of anointing with oil: "Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord". The second implication is that of submissiveness -- the prayer is in the name of the Lord.
The practice of the prophets in the Old Covenant was sometimes what we call, the acted oracle. That is to say, the prophets used visual aids, but these were more than illustrations, for they introduced divine actions. We are told that Jeremiah took an earthen vessel and smashed it into pieces. It was a visual aid of the shattering of the community, but it was much more, for it was the embodiment and the release of the almighty word of God which would effect that which it declared. When the prophets used such a visual aid they reinforced their words. They did not just bring home the words with more vividness to the mind of the hearers; they actually enhanced the vigour of the word to be effective in that situation and to accomplish that of which it spoke. So the anointing is an essential and vital part, because it encapsulates the healing word of God. That which is asked for in prayer is accepted in faith and applied in the power of the anointing.
There is no reference at all to the laying on of hands. We need to be very careful to limit ourselves to what Scripture says. This is an action of prayer which is visualised and applied by the action of anointing, but it is all in the name of the Lord. That is to say, it is subject to His all glorious will. It is not a technique for twisting the divine arm -- it is submission to the name of the Lord. It is not a coin in the slot which ensures the value of that coin coming out at the other end, but it is a personal commitment to the will of God. For this reason, although the verse goes on to say that the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up, that is subject to how the Lord wishes to respond to that prayer in that given situation. The Lord may dramatically raise the sick man from his bed or He may leave him on his sick bed and take him dramatically to glory. That is the full Scriptural implication of the capacity of God to answer the prayers of His people in whatever way will best match His own holy name. The whole passage emphasises the effectiveness of a praying church carrying on its Scriptural ministry. What could be greater than that!
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