Prayer and Healing

James 5:13-16

August 20, 2000

 

Life is made up of experiences. Some are bad others are good. Some wrench the emotions others lift the spirits. Some crush us others elate us. Some perplex others satisfy. Since life is full of experiences the Christian must know how to respond before the Lord in every given setting. Often we are caught reacting to our experiences so that we find ourselves sidetracked spiritually. A right response to life's experiences leads to spiritual maturity on one hand and an effective witness on the other.

 

Alec Motyer has rightly observed, "Our religion should cover all experience, finding expression in prayer or praise as the occasion may demand." There is no situation that fails to be an invitation unto the Lord, to know the depth of satisfaction in him and to see the delight of his provisions. Too often we turn inward in depression and disenchantment or outward in anger and venting of our frustration with life. James calls us to look God ward in every situation we face. He reminds us of the seriousness of being called Christian and what goes with such a relationship.

 

How are we to face life? Consider James' simple, pointed instruction for facing life.

 

I. Life's extremes

 

While the issue of divine healing is certainly the primary focus of this text, it is not the total focus of this text. James actually deals with three situations: suffering, happy times, and sickness. In each of these the Christian is to have the right response that brings glory to the Lord and surely helps the believer to press on into spiritual maturity.

 

1. Ups and downs

 

First, James calls our attention to two different, contrasting scenes in verse 13. "Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises to God." We often face criticism for giving what appears simplistic-answers to life's perplexing problems. But James has no hesitation to offer the simple for the crushing times of life. "Suffering" is the same term used in 5:10 of the prophets who suffered and bore such times patiently. The word implies suffering misfortune or suffering trouble. The present tense of the verb suggests persistence in suffering. So it is not just having a bad day, though that certainly merits our prayers, but it points to some enduring affliction that could be brought on by relationships, the economy, political problems, war, persecution, or family situations. Interestingly, it is the same word that Paul used to describe suffering hardship as a good solider of Christ Jesus (II Tim. 2:9).

 

The problem during times of "suffering" is that we often get distracted from looking to the Lord. We either lose our grasp of theology so that we begin to question where God is or question the goodness of the Lord. Or we are so immersed in the suffering that we forget our spiritual moorings so that we enter into complaint, panic, and fear. Suffering presses our minds and emotions to the limit. We find ourselves overwhelmed with a consciousness that life has seemingly turned against us, that all of our plans and desires and ambitions have vaporized before our eyes. Life hurts us.

 

The second term is "cheerful." Surely we are poles apart when comparing suffering and cheerfulness! The word literally means to be happy or to feel good. It has been termed, a "happy mood" or "a sense of well-being." It does not necessarily mean that all is going well on the outside. Certainly the believers James addressed were under the fire of persecution and oppression. They understood what it meant to live in bad times. But in spite of this, they would also find themselves inwardly elated, inwardly warmed, inwardly happy in spite of the external circumstances.

 

All of us enjoy being happy or feeling good. This condition almost appears to be the great goal of life. If only I can feel good or be in a good mood or be happy about everything I face, then life will be wonderful. Sometime those occasions arise when we become oblivious to the circumstances around us and find ourselves downright giddy on the inside. But there is a danger at this point. The danger lies in becoming so "lighthearted [we] are apt to be lightheaded" as Alfred Plummer put it [quoted by C. Vaughan, Bible Study Commentary, 115]. We find ourselves so consumed with our happiness and delight in life that we forget the greater delight, the Lord Jesus Christ. Good times can sidetrack us as much as bad times. At least in the bad times we may see our need for the Lord, but in the happy times we think that we have everything under control and the Lord can wait as far as we are concerned.

 

2. Praying and singing

 

Both of these conditions require the right response. For "suffering" James instructs, "Then he must pray." Tradition tells us that James knees were callused because he spent so much time in prayer. He has been nicknamed, "Camel-knees" for his persistence in prayer. So we know that he was not passing off some trite, well-meaning suggestion for times of suffering by calling for believers to pray. Instead he commands Christians who face suffering to be much in prayer. The verb tense indicates that he is not calling for a brief word of prayer, but persistent prayer. Regular praying in times of suffering is the means God has chosen to come to the believer's aid. Curtis Vaughan wisely tells us, "Prayer to be sure, may not always remove the affliction, but in that case it always brings the sufferer grace to bear it" [115].

 

What an important reminder for us when enduring suffering! Do we complain, whine, gripe-or do we pray? Prayer brings the believer into a consciousness of the Lord and his promises. It helps the Christian to know that his satisfaction is never in his circumstances but in the Lord. We are nurtured in prayer; given strength in prayer; awakened to the sovereign purposes of God through prayer.

 

There are those occasions in "suffering" that we tell ourselves we do not "feel like praying." All the more in such times we must pray! We must bring ourselves to read the Scripture to warm our hearts and help us aim our thoughts upon the Lord. Then we must pour out our hearts before the Lord who gladly hears our heart-cries. During the early days of the church the believers faced suffering at the hands of the religious leaders. Peter and John had been thrown into prison. The leadership of the church suffered. Believers had to meet in the quietness of secrecy to keep from being discovered and facing more persecution. But in those moments they prayed. The Lord delivered Peter and John from prison and they all gathered to lift their voices unto the Lord, pouring out their hearts, reveling in the sovereign working of their great Lord. The result was that these believers found themselves emboldened to preach the gospel, filled with the Spirit, and renewed for the days ahead (Acts 4:23-31). Suffering is a call to prayer.

 

But what are believers to do in times of happiness? "Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises." The instruction given is literal and clear: "he is to sing praises." The word indicates the singing of psalms perhaps played to a harp. Again James uses the present tense to indicate that singing praises is to be his practice rather than a perfunctory song. "It is said that Luther, when he heard any bad news, used to say, "Come, let us sing a psalm and spite the devil"" [Vaughan, 116]. Indeed, in bad news or good news, let us sing praises unto the Lord. What is the rationale that James sets before us for singing praises during cheerful times? When we have a sense of well being we are not to waste such times with mere giddiness or worthless frivolity. We are to make the most of the occasion by heartily singing unto the Lord, so that our focus on the Lord does not shift.

 

Our hearts are so deceitful. The Lord works in our midst so that we find ourselves happy in spite of the circumstances about us. Rather than seeing this by his hand, we congratulate ourselves on re-arranging our emotions and thinking so that we feel well. Then we forget the Lord. Nothing can bring us back in our thinking any better than singing of the goodness, mercy, and purposes of the Lord. As we engage our minds upon the rich theology of our hymnody we find ourselves drawn to focus on him, to glory in him for all things. Then our "cheerful" spirit finds its great delight in the Lord.

 

II. Times of sickness

 

James asks yet another question on the condition of the congregation. "Is anyone among you sick?" As long as we live in this life we will face sickness. The term James uses does not imply the sniffles or mild cold. The word means that you are incapacitated, brought low with sickness. Vaughan says it means "a sickness that incapacitates a man for work" [116]. The word is often translated as "weak," implying an illness that has persisted to weaken the believer so that he cannot shake its effects. In such cases, James instructs, "Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." This text has been the object of much discussion and print over the centuries, so let's begin by considering what it does not say.

 

1. What this does not imply

 

First, this text offers no teaching about a gift of healing. Paul speaks of a charismata or spiritual gift of healings (note the plural) in I Corinthians 12:28 in his listing of spiritual gifts with that church. Outside of this we do not find a gift of healing mentioned in the other lists of spiritual gifts (Rom. 12; Eph. 4; I Pet. 4). It has been categorized as part of the "sign gifts" or "miraculous gifts" that were of particular importance in the early stages of the spread of Christianity. Most conservative scholarship would explain that with the establishment of the canon of New Testament Scripture there was less of a need for such miraculous displays that call attention to the Lord, thus these gifts either have disappeared from the normal framework of Christianity or are only utilized in limited ways. But that is yet another subject! No gift is implied in this text.

 

Second, James is not talking about a healing service in the church. There are some churches that have regular healing services. We are not instructed to do this nor is this text about that.

 

Third, James is not referring to a public healing session; rather it is a time of prayer that is done in the privacy of the home of the infirmed person.

 

Fourth, this text is applied to those who are part of the fellowship of a local church not randomly applied to unbelievers or those outside the church fellowship.

 

Fifth, the Roman Catholic tradition has used this verse to shore up its teaching on the sacrament of extreme unction. This is the practice of anointing a person who is near death with consecrated oil and praying for their sins to be forgiven. It is supposed to be preparation for death. As a sacrament it is said to convey divine grace to a person. But there is nothing about extreme unction or any of its practice in this text. James is dealing with healing not death. He is not using consecrated oil or imparting grace in sacramental fashion.

 

Sixth, James was not just concerned with a first century need. Sickness rests upon humanity for all times. The fact that he deals with this in a pastoral manner and gives instructions to the elders as officers in the church demonstrates that what he sets forth is for the church in any age.

 

2. Process called for

 

Let us outline what James tells the sick person to do. You will notice in the text that he tells the sick person what action he is to take and then gives instructions for the elders.

 

First, "Then he must call for the elders of the church." The sick person initiates the process not vice versa. The elders are not to be on the hunt for anointing with oil and praying for healing. They may certainly encounter plenty of times to pray over sick people in their normal course of shepherding the flock. But this is a significantly different occasion where the sick person, evidently unable to leave his home, calls for the elders to come to his bedside for special prayer.

 

This is one of the things that we seem to dodge in Baptist life for a number of reasons. One is that we are concerned that we might appear to be charismatic. But there is nothing in this text to suggest even a hint of claiming a gift of healing and randomly applying it. Another thing is that we are afraid that we might not have success. But it is better to attempt to follow what Scripture calls for and fail to see the results we desire than to never obey the text and always wonder what God might have done.

 

I must admit that I have never anointed anyone with oil along with the elders and prayed over someone. I have prayed for and over many people, often in times of sickness, but I have never done this practice. There is only one reason I have not. No one has ever asked. As an elder in the church I am not to be an initiator of this practice. This belongs to the one who is sick, who considers what is happening in his life and believes that he is to call for the church elders to come to his aid in prayer.

 

Second, the elders are commanded, "to pray over him." The expression, "pray over," seems to indicate either that the person is in bed so that the elders gather around him for prayer or perhaps that they lay their hands on him in prayer. The phrase is a bit unusual, so there is some speculation on its meaning. Quite simply, whether the elders lay their hands on the sick person as an expression of their oneness in concern for him or whether they simply gather around him to pray for him, the primary concern is that they pray.

 

The third part of the process is one that is somewhat foreign to us: "anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." First, I think we must consider the important prepositional phrase, "in the name of the Lord." For that leads us to understand that the elders doing the praying and anointing with oil were unusually conscious of the will of the Lord. To pray in Jesus' name or to do an action in the name of the Lord implies that we are sensitive to his sovereign will and purposes, that we are submissive to his will in all things. Some have used the name of the Lord as though it were a 'lucky rabbit's foot' to accompany healing declarations. I recall watching one man who considered himself having a gift of healing, using the name of the Lord in this fashion. He kept commanding the portion he wanted healed to respond and would interject "in Jesus' name" throughout the process. Frankly, that is a misuse and superstitious use of the name of Jesus Christ. To pray "in the name of the Lord" is to pray in concert with his will, to recognize that the requests offered honor him and have originated with him through divine promptings or instructions from the Word. So this anointing is not done carelessly or without discernment. There may very well be situations in which a person calls for the elders to pray and they decline because they do not sense that the Lord is directing the situation.

 

There are various opinions about the "oil" spoken of in the anointing. The term originally referred to olive oil. So we must assume that this is the normal practice simply because olive oil was the most common type of oil available. Some say that this oil had medicinal values so that the elders were praying and medicating at the same time. While it is true that the first century valued olive oil in medicine, it did not resort to oil in every illness. It would seem unlikely then that the purpose was for medical reasons since James does not specify any limitations on the types of illnesses the elders can address.

 

Others have viewed the oil as consecrated oil so that it conveys some type of grace when put upon the person. Here is the Roman Catholic tradition of extreme unction in which the priest anoints a person who is dying with consecrated oil. But James does not mention anyone dying nor does he mention consecrated oil. It was just plain oil!

 

The most logical reason for the oil was its religious implications. Oil was used often in the Old Testament settings for both kings and priests in setting them apart to the Lord. When David was set apart as king, Samuel anointed him with oil. The oil implied that the person anointed was consecrated for whatever the Lord had purposed for them to do. They belonged to the Lord and would serve at the Lord's pleasure. In the same way it is likely that anointing a sick person with oil during the time of prayer indicates outwardly that both the elders and the sick person recognizes that this one is set apart to the Lord for his work in their lives. The oil may indicate their submission to the will of God, whether in healing or continued infirmity. They were under "God's special attention and care" [Doug Moo, TDNT, 179].

 

3. Critical components

 

The greater priority was upon praying in faith not upon the anointing with oil. I remember a man who was attending Fuller Seminary with me who showed me a small bottle of olive oil he carried with him at all times, "just in case." But we must see that in the normal circumstances of praying for one another in times of illness we are not instructed to first anoint with oil. There is no magic in using oil. There is no sacramental function in it. Instead the emphasis is upon the "prayer offered in faith."

 

Here we understand that the elders were to rest in the Lord as they approached praying for the infirmed person. What does it mean to offer a prayer in faith? Does this imply that you work very hard to work up enough gumption to believe the Lord? Perhaps, but that is not very satisfying. I realize that it is the rationale offered many times in the "faith healing" circles. When someone is not healed of an affliction they are told that they just did not have enough faith. But is faith something you work up? We are told to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Is this faith something we work up or fail to work up in adequate quantity?

 

Faith is a gift of God! That is Paul's record in Ephesians 2:8-9 and also in Philippians 1:29. Faith comes from the Lord. The grace needed to believe comes from the Lord. Is this not just as applicable in the matter of praying for the sick? To offer "the prayer...of faith" means that the Lord has given grace to the elders to believe him for healing. It is this kind of faith praying that has the assurance that the Lord "will restore the one who is sick."

 

We can convince ourselves that the Lord is going to do something, but this is not faith. Let me be personal at this point. Many years ago while serving as pastor in Alabama there was a 25 year-old lady who gave birth to her first child near Christmas time. Just a day or two after coming home from the hospital she noticed that her skin was quite yellowed. She returned to the doctor who immediately placed her in the hospital diagnosing her with liver cancer. The diagnosis was accurate. We were on our way out of town for Christmas and received word of what happened, so we immediately returned. I recall the agony I felt in knowing that I would be visiting her and would need to offer some sort of comfort. I first went to my study and prayed fervently for God to speak to me in some way to be able to give her assurance that she would be healed. After some time I felt that God would heal her. I was very positive with her during my visit, stopping short of declaring that healing would happen. The next three months were filled with ups and downs as she endured chemotherapy and had only a brief time back home with her newborn. Her condition worsened. In the middle of the night in February her husband called me with the terse news that she had died. At first I did not believe him because I was so convinced that she was going to be healed. So he repeated the news in blunt terms, "Diane is dead." I was stunned. I spent much of the next several days questioning what went wrong with my faith. I finally realized something: nothing went wrong with my faith. God had chosen for her to endure this illness for three months-and she did so with an incredible testimony to the glory of Christ-then to take her to heaven. I learned that I needed to pray more about the will of God than about healing.

 

Does the Lord heal every time elders pray over someone and anoint them with oil in the Lord's name? No, he only does so when it is his will. It is on those occasions that the Lord gives special grace to the elders in obedience to his instruction in praying for the sick, that they offer the prayer of faith and the Lord restores the sick one and raises them up from their bed of affliction. Do the elders always know when such times occur? I do not think so due to the deceitfulness of our own hearts. So what are the elders to do? They are to pray fervently, asking for healing if they have the liberty to do so, and trust that the Lord will unfold his will in the situation. Alec Motyer is right: "Prayer is a commitment to the will of God, ad all true prayer exercises its truest faith in patiently waiting to see what he has determined to do" [The Message of James, 199].

 

James sets the priority on a higher level than physical healing: "and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him." This does not mean that every illness has corresponding sin. Jesus cleared the air on this in John 9. But it does indicate some important issues. First, the illness might have been brought on due to some sin, whether of divine discipline or the actual sin that caused it. In this case, the Lord grants forgiveness. Or it might be that during the time of illness there is an unusual degree of heart-searching. I think of the testimony of a good friend of mine during his time of illness. He was an athlete on a college basketball scholarship when he came down with mononucleosis. For ten days he was in the hospital with most of that time flat on his back. He said that it became a turning point in his life, as he got very honest with the Lord about his own life and his sin. The assurance James gives, in such a case, is that the Lord forgives. Or it might be simply the serious nature of illness and calling for the elders' assistance that causes both the sick person and the elders to evaluate their lives before the Lord. Such heart searching ends with forgiveness through the provision of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Conclusion

 

Are you suffering? Then see it as a call to prayer and a more enriching relationship to the Lord as your King.

 

Are you cheerful? Then engage your voice and spirit in hearty singing of hymns of praise to the Lord. Glorify and worship him.

 

Are you sick? Then you may need to ask the elders to proceed with this special time of prayer for the Lord's healing 

in your life.

 

All of life, every situation, every circumstance is an invitation to enter into his presence and know that the Lord is your Lord.

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