Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: James 5:13-20 | Date: February 20, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

A Call to Prayer

Number five. Tonight we bring to a close our expositions from the Epistle of James. We come to yet another very practical point of exhortation, as he has been doing through his letter. We’ll call this one a call to prayer. James 5, verses 13 to the end:

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him 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 will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. For three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again. Heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

Let’s pray together. Our Father, we come to the end of this epistle that has been so good for us in so many ways, giving us exhortations that are so needed in every congregation. And now as we come to see this exhortation to prayer, we pray that you would grip our hearts with it and make us to realize the privilege we have of coming before you and knowing that you hear us. Help us in our relationships with one another as this passage gives instruction also. We pray that you’ll protect our congregation from infighting, from division. Keep us one in spirit and in mind and in heart and in love for the Lord Jesus. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

One important lesson that the biblical writers give us is that all of life is lived in the presence of God. A Latin phrase has become popular in the last generation or so: Coram Deo. In the presence of God or before the face of God, all of life is lived before God and we do well to remember that. I think several times, many times as we worked our way through the Psalms a couple of years ago in our prayer group, we made that observation that every aspect of life in the Psalms is brought before the Lord. Every event, every experience, every emotion, every everything is lived in the face of God and brought to him accordingly.

We saw a hint of that a couple of weeks ago in James chapter 4, verses 13 and following, where we are taught to look to God even with reference to the plans that we make for our life, even business plans. What we ought to say is, “If the Lord will, we will live and do this or that,” and so on. And now we come to James 5, verses 13 and following, and we have something of the same thing. Verse 13: “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.”

So whether you’re happy or hurting, bring it before the Lord in prayer or in song. Every experience, every event, every plan, every happy thing, every pressure, every suffering—all of it he is telling us to bring it before the Lord and to live under his care. He’s a God of power, he’s a God of love, he’s a God whose providence is over all, and we are good to recognize that and to make all of life then an experience of worship and bringing it before him. And it’s because of passages like this, I think, that we have that expression that’s been common among Christians for many, many years, and that is to describe prayer as the very breath of the Christian. Whether you’re worried, or concerned, or hurting, or happy, joyful, whatever it is, bring it to the Lord in prayer.

Well, that is the overall atmosphere, I think, of this passage, even though it does have a couple of interpretive difficulties that we’ll have to talk about. And because of those interpretive difficulties, that’s what this passage is known for: the anointing with oil, the prayer of faith that will heal the sick, and so on. And so we’ll have to talk about that, but I think we should keep in mind that this, then, is the overall point of the passage.

So here in these verses, verses 13 to 20, he’s dealing with two issues: the issues of sickness and the issue of sinfulness. Sickness and sinfulness. The primary lesson of the passage is easy enough. When you sin, repent. If you’re sick, pray. Now you’ve got the whole passage; you’ve got it. You don’t have those juicy little questions in the middle about anointing with oil and all of that that we have to talk to. So let’s take this in five questions.

1. What Is the Sickness Involved in This Passage?

James piles up the terminology here in this passage, and I think the point of it is to stress that this is a serious sickness that’s in view. Verse 13, he speaks of those who suffer, or suffer hardship. Verse 14, it’s someone who is weak or sick, depending on the translation that you have. Verse 15, he’s one who is weak or ill. So generally, these are typical words that describe any kind of sickness, but then he goes further.

Verse 14, he’s sick enough that he must call for the elders of the church to pray over him. Maybe that indicates some restricted mobility on his part; some kind of more serious sickness is in view. And even the expression, “pray over him,” seems to indicate that he’s bedridden because of this—a serious sickness. It’s not just “pray for him,” but “pray over him.” There’s no mention of laying on of hands or anything like that, but still it seems to point out that there’s some serious sickness involved. Verse 15, the healing described as “raising up” sounds like some kind of rehabilitation has come. He’s been not able to be up and about. Some kind of more serious sickness, I think, is in view—prolonged enough and serious enough to entail some considerable weakness and also to necessitate calling for the elders to pray over him. This is something more than the common cold, I think.

2. What Is the Sin Connection in This Passage?

What’s that all about here? There’s some suggestion here that this sickness may be due to sin. There’s a suggestion that the sickness may be due to sin. That, I think, is the cohesive factor between verses 15 and 16, and then verses 19 and 20—restoring the wanderer back to faithfulness. Verses 15 and 16: “The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.” “Therefore” there is drawing a conclusion from verses 13 on down to this verse, verse 15, and he’s saying, if he has sinned, pray; therefore confess and you will be forgiven and pray and you will be healed. So we have here “pray that you may be healed.” Confess your sins is involved in this somehow.

Somehow there’s a sin and confession, a sin connection to the sickness and a confession at least possibly related to the healing as well. Verses 19 and 20, then we have the same idea going on: “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” Now that’s not disconnected, I don’t think, from the previous verses.

So we have here, I think, a hint of what James has pointed out many times in the epistle as we’ve seen. We’ve got a congregation here that has had a lot of squabbling. He talks about wars among them. He speaks of fighting among them. He speaks of backbiting. He speaks of slander, speaking evil of one another. We’ve seen this come over and again throughout the letter, and I think we have something of that here, that some of this may be involved, and some of this may be in God’s providence the cause. It may be the cause of some of the sickness. This might be—notice I’m saying a lot of “may” and “might” this evening; I’ll get back to that—but verses 17 and 18, this might be the link here as well. Here we have Elijah praying for sinful Israel whom God had chastised, and in his prayer it brought the famine, and in his prayer the famine was relieved. That might be the connection there with Elijah as well, although there’s another one that we’ll point out as we go along.

Now, I’ve said this several times, that there might be a connection here with sin to sickness. Let me just clarify. I’m sure you all know this—you’ve heard me enough to know this, and you’ve already heard the qualifiers—but let me say it just to make sure. And that is, this is not to say that all sickness is due to some specific sin. That is not what I’m saying. That’s not what James is saying here. It may be the case, however. We have—well, I’m tempted to drift there, but I won’t. “If he has committed sin,” there’s the statement. If he has committed sins which have given rise to this sickness, I think, is the idea, but not necessarily because it does say “if.”

We do have illustrations of people like Job who suffer righteously. We have Jesus’ statement in John chapter 9 that this man who was blind, it wasn’t because of his sin, it wasn’t because of his parents’ sin. It’s tied up in the mysteries of God’s providence for God to glorify himself in other ways. It’s not necessarily the case. Although we do have, as a contrary example, 1 Corinthians 11. Those who have been squabbling among them, and there are problems in the church, and there’s unrepentant sin, and Paul says, for this reason, they have partaken of the Lord’s table unworthily, and for this reason, many are sick, and some even die among them. That’s the possibility that’s entertained here in James 5.

And it does seem to be involved. Verse 15 again: “If someone has committed sins.” Verse 16: “Confess your sins to one another.” Why confess to one another? Why not just confess your sins? I don’t think James has in mind here a confessional, Roman Catholic idea of confession. I think he has in mind here some problems within the church that we’ve seen a sustained addressing of that throughout the letter, and so this might have given rise to some sickness. And so, in that sickness, confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed. So it’s probably not just any sin; it’s probably the sin of division and infighting in the church that we’ve seen so much of in this epistle. And thankfully, we don’t see that in our congregation. This also, by the way, might explain the call for the elders. If there’s infighting in the congregation, people at odds with one another, some of that going on, and there must be confession to one another, at some point or other, faithful elders will get involved. And that seems to be what’s going on here as well.

3. What Is the Anointing with Oil?

All right, we’ve seen then the sickness and the possible sin connection. Number three, now let’s take this question that everybody has: What is the anointing with oil? And if you’ve heard some question marks in my voice, you will hear more as we go through this.

Some observations about this anointing with oil in this passage. First of all, notice it is the prayer of faith that is said to heal the sick. The emphasis throughout the passage is on the prayer, the prayer of the faithful one, and that’s driven home to us with the illustration of Elijah. The emphasis is on prayer and that in its effectiveness in healing, not the oil. Verse 15: “The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick.” It’s the whole thrust of the passage.

Another point that might be good to keep in mind as we narrow it down to the question of the anointing with oil: it’s the Lord who heals. It’s not the elders. It’s not the oil. It’s the Lord who heals. It is not some charismatic faith healer. And it’s the faith of the elders that is called into view here with the effective prayer, not the faith of the one who is sick. You don’t have here the charismatic so-called healer blaming you for your continued sickness because of your lack of faith. It’s the elders’ faith here that is in view. Another point that might be good here: this is not a church ceremony. There’s no mention here of laying on of hands. The whole thrust is the value and the efficacy of prayer.

All right, with all of that still, what’s this business of anointing with oil? Well, there’s not much information given here in this passage. And there are several different views, and I’ll give you the three leading ones. One, and I think we can dispense with this quickly—the Roman Catholic take here—is this is the sacrament of extreme unction. This is the seventh sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church that’s given to those who are dying. It is to rid them of any remnant of sin as they are dying, and to give them peace in their death, and to strengthen their soul in death. The interesting thing about that view is that this passage is not about dying; it’s about healing. And I think we can dispense with that easily enough.

There are two other views of this passage that I have to mention because we have people on both sides of these fences—good people. And as I say, there’s just not much information in this passage to define what’s going on. So the other two views: one is symbolic. I’ll call it a symbolic view. And that is that this anointing with oil symbolizes a consecration of the person, setting him apart to God. So it takes its background then from the Old Testament when we have those anointed offices—prophet, priest, and king, particularly the priest and the king. You see that a lot where the prophetic anointing is given. The anointing of Aaron, it’s said that the oil would flow down his hair and down to his collar, and lots of oil used. The symbolism of that: that he’s consecrated, now he’s set apart to God for his service. It also symbolizes the Spirit of God at work in them, and so on. And so in this view, then, this anointing with oil symbolizes setting apart of this person to God, consecrating to him, and then praying and asking for God to heal.

The other view, for lack of a better term, we’ll call it the medicinal view. And that is, this is not a ceremony. It’s not a rite (R-I-T-E), not a rite of any kind. There’s no symbolism involved. The use of the oil here, in this view, is to use it as a medicinal practice, or—maybe that’s too strong—as a matter of soothing comfort. Now if that seems odd to you, then consider a few passages from the scriptures that will, I think, clarify it for you. This was a common practice in the ancient world. You find it in ancient sources outside of the Bible as well—some of the Latin writers, the Greek writers as well.

We have, I think, a kind of reference to it in Luke chapter 10, verse 34. You remember the parable of the Good Samaritan. He took this man that was beat up and left alongside of the road. Luke 10:34 says, “He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine.” We have other passages that use actually this word that is used here, translated to anoint. This word can mean to anoint. It can mean to massage, to rub, to apply. This Greek word doesn’t have a definitive meaning either way, whether it’s ritual or medicinal or soothing, but we have several occasions in the New Testament where it’s used in this more—what I’ll call a medicinal kind of a—context.

So for example, Matthew 6, verse 17: “When you fast…” You remember the passage there giving instruction about fasting and don’t show off to everyone that you’re fasting? Jesus says, “When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face and then go out in public.” Don’t let everyone know that you’re fasting. Anoint your head and wash your face. That is, the anointing with oil is a soothing kind of a thing. It’s like freshening up is the idea. In our world, we would say take a quick shower.

Mark chapter 16 and verse one: Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome went to the tomb of Jesus, and they brought spices so that they might go anoint him. That is not a religious rite. It’s just a matter of caring for the corpse in the proper way. Luke chapter 7, verses 38 and 46: we have this account of Mary, the sinner, who came to Jesus and anointed his feet with oil and then dried his feet with her hair. This is that word “anoint” here; she’s the sinner. It’s doubtful that that was a religious rite, but it was a matter of ministering to him in a very practical way.

We have in the Greek of the Old Testament the same word used in Daniel chapter 10. You remember the vision that Daniel had that was so troubling to him, and he said, “I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all for three full weeks.” That is, he didn’t do any of the things that would refresh him. It’s the use of oil in that sense. So this was a common practice in the ancient world. Something that was soothing, something that was refreshing. If they’re sick, it would be rubbed with oil; they would be soothed and refreshed in that way. I don’t know, what’s the equivalent in our day? Take an aspirin, take a shower—I don’t know, something like that. And so the medicinal view then would equate that with that kind of a practice today.

I mentioned there are a couple of different words that are translated anoint. The word that’s used here can mean anoint in a ritual sense, religious ritual of anointing, or it can mean to rub or to massage. This is not the typical word that is used for religious anointing. That would be the word chrio, chrio, where we got our word Christos, Christ, the Anointed One. That’s the typical word for anointing. That’s not the word that’s used here, although the word that is used here can be used in a ritual kind of a context. We have an example of that in Mark chapter six, where the disciples anointed people with oil and healed them. Miraculously is the idea there, so it seems like a religious kind of connotation to the rite of anointing and consecrating to God is in view.

All right, with all of that, how then do we decide what the anointing with oil—kind of pedantic tonight, isn’t it?—how do we decide what this anointing with oil is in this passage? I think we can discard the sacramental view pretty quickly. Is it symbolic or is it medicinal? Which is it? The use—the Greek word here that’s used is not determinative. It might hint to the medicinal view. It certainly helps the medicinal view to say that it’s not the typical word that’s used for anointing, ritual anointing. That might hint in that way.

There’s no consensus among what I would consider faithful, good, informed, reliable theologians and commentators on this passage. There’s no real consensus on that. Luther, Calvin, B.B. Warfield—all three of them took the medicinal view. But there are plenty of others. Certainly the symbolic view is the dominant view in charismatic churches, but by no means is it limited to the charismatic churches. There’s just no consensus then on what this signifies. Is it something soothing and medicinal, or is it symbolically consecrating them over to God?

Notice there’s no mention of the gift of healing here. The elders are coming to do this; that I think is probably a strong argument for the symbolic view. Why would you call elders to come and give medicinal support and to massage? They wouldn’t be the ones normally to be called upon to do that. If this sickness is due to sin, is the oil symbolic? Is it given upon repentance? There are just lots of questions here in this passage. It’s the only instance in the New Testament that we have of this, and of course you’re waiting for me to say it: What is your view of this, Pastor Fred?

And I will tell you what I told Pastor Boyd and Pastor Greg when we were talking about it a week or so ago. At least four days a week, I take the medicinal view of this passage. The other three days of the week, I have to say I’m not sure. I told them that; Pastor Boyd said, “Make sure the night that you preach, it’s one of those four days.” So now you know what view he takes on this.

Let me say this, though. If this is a symbolic ritual that is to be performed, a couple of things would have to be kept in mind. One, it seems to be generally reserved for very serious sickness. And number two, if the sick call for the elders to come and anoint with oil and pray over them, they should be prepared to hear an exhortation from the elders asking whether or not there is a sin connection to the sickness. I myself have never practiced this in a ritual sense, in a symbolic view. Like I say, four days a week at least, I hold to the medicinal view, and I think I love the company of Luther, Calvin, and Warfield on that, but I do have questions about it, and I don’t think the matter is cut and dried. I have some very highly respected friends, pastor-theologians on both sides of this—some that have practiced it. I’ve asked them if they’ve practiced it. “Yes, we have.” And “Have you ever seen someone healed through it?” “No, I have not,” which is an interesting observation as well. Some have, though, I’m sure. I don’t want to discount it.

But there, I think I have to leave it. What is clear about this passage, and I hope finally to come down to that in a minute here, what is clear about this passage is the efficacy of prayer. That’s what the passage is about. Verse 15: “The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick.” That’s the emphasis of the passage. If God chooses to heal, it will be in response to the prayer. That’s the point.

4. What Is the Prayer of Faith? / 5. How Are We to Understand This Promise?

So that brings us then to the fourth and fifth question that I said we would try to answer. What is this prayer of faith? And how do we understand this assurance of healing? “The prayer of faith will heal the sick.” Well, what’s this prayer of faith on the part of the elders? Is it just a positive mental attitude? You crank yourself up—”I believe it, I believe it, I believe it, God’s going to heal, God’s going to heal.” That’s what faith is often represented as today. It’s more or less a positive mental attitude.

George Whitefield, the famous evangelist of the Great Awakening, had a son who was very ill, a young boy, and he prayed that God would heal him. He announced to everyone that God had given him assurance that God would heal him. He had great faith that God would heal him, and the little boy died. And Whitefield fell into a slump for several months as a result of it. He had some false expectations. And of course, in pastoral ministry, you see all kinds of emotions on this side of the question. Why didn’t God answer our prayer? And that’s a tough question sometimes. We’ve dealt with that ourselves, as you know.

Fact is, God does not always give healing to the sick, and he never promised that he would. And we certainly cannot pray any better than the Lord Jesus, who prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done.” Well then, what’s the alternative? If this is faith, this prayer of faith is not just a positive mental attitude—talking myself up into believing that God will do it—maybe then this prayer of faith is a supernatural faith, a faith that is God-given. This was Warfield’s view of the passage, and it certainly makes better sense than the previous one, and that is that God gave me assurance, and if God actually gave me assurance in the prayer, and it’s a prayer of faith in that sense, well, that would account for the certain healing that comes as a result of the prayer. That could be what’s going on here.

Or should we just understand this in light of the sin connection that’s going on in the passage? Having all of these questions, we’ve forgotten that sin connection that’s going on here, and should we define this accordingly? Verses 15 and 16 again: the sickness is closely associated with sin. We have that, I think, connected in verses 17 and 18. We certainly have it again in verses 19 and 20 with this erring brother who is brought back to repentance. So the sickness is due to sin, then? Is that how we should understand it? That if he repents, God will forgive, and then you pray for this man who has repented and who is sick because of his sin, and he will be healed. That could be the right view of the passage.

At the very least—and here we come back to the point that I said the passage is all about—at the very least, I think we should understand this assurance that the prayer of faith will heal the sick. At the very least, we should understand this—that God—put it this way: understand it in general terms, not in absolute terms. Surely the takeaway of the passage is that God rewards the prayers of the faithful. He does that. He does that often. He does it frequently. He does it regularly. And the fact is that in response to our prayers, God does give healing. He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t always. But in response to our prayers, God does give healing.

We have seen that countless times in our own congregation. I’ve seen it in my family. There have been times when he hasn’t. There have been countless times when he has given it. I’ve seen it with my grandchildren. We pray, and God gives healing. Think in terms of the psalmist in Psalm 103, verses 2 and 3: “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your sicknesses.” Now, do you think the psalmist there in Psalm 103, when he’s praising the Lord who has healed all of our sicknesses, do you think there that the psalmist is thinking that I will never get sick and I will never die? Or is he looking back and saying, in fact, God has healed our sicknesses? Countless times we have prayed, countless times God has answered, and many of those times we haven’t even noticed enough to say thank you.

At the very least, I think we should understand this passage in those terms. Countless times that God has answered prayer, and he is encouraging us here to pray, precisely because God hears the prayers of his people. And pray if there is sickness. Yes, if there’s a sin connection, deal with that. And pray. And God is the kind of God who gives. We saw that in chapter one, and he loves to give. And he keeps on giving. And so, if there is sickness, pray. God is entirely able to save. God is entirely able to raise up any sickness. Sometimes he will do it by means of medical treatments, sometimes in a more mysterious way, but God has healed in many, many ways. And at the very least, we should understand this then as saying, if there is sick, pray. And God loves to answer prayer.

I should say it again that there’s never been a promise given to us that God will always answer our prayers to heal. We all will at one point have some kind of a sickness that will take us in death, or you get hit by a truck instead or something like that. There’s no blanket promise that God will always give healing. And we should pray as we saw in chapter four, verse 15: “If the Lord wills, we will live.” But James’ point is that God is able to heal and he does so in response to prayer. And so if you are sick, pray. Confess your sins to one another, and particularly within the church body, if there’s division and infighting, confess your sins to one another and pray.

And so he gives us the Old Testament example, verses 17 and 18: Elijah. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. He prayed fervently that it might not rain, and it didn’t. He prayed that it would rain, and it did. And I know what you’re thinking when you read this passage. It’s what we all think when we read it: “That’s Elijah. He’s a prophet of God. How many of us have prayed for God to stop the rain or to start the rain, and it’s worked just like that? This is an exceptional guy.” And it’s just because we want to think that way that James says what he does at the beginning of verse 17: “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.”

His point is that he is made of the same fallen stuff that we are made of. He had the strengths, but he had the same weaknesses as well. In fact, I’ve just jotted down a couple here so I wouldn’t forget them. Elijah was a man of great faith. And he was a man of great depression and despair as well. He was a man who was brave and resolute in serving God, and yet he’s a man who runs for his life at the whiff of a danger. He’s a selfless man in concern for others, and at the same time he’s a man filled with self-pity. Sounds like the rest of us. And that’s James’ point here. Sounds like an ordinary believer. He’s flawed, but he’s a righteous man. And the prayer of a righteous man, God hears.

And as I say, God has heard our prayers more times than we have taken time to notice. In the prayer of a righteous man, verse 16 is effective. That is the thrust of the passage—an encouragement to pray. The point here is not the oil. The point is certainly not a ceremony. The point is prayer. And God gives healing. Must never give way to desperate feelings—”Well, if God is going to heal, he’s going to heal. What difference does prayer make?” I’ve said it before, and I love to say it often, because we need reminding of it: We should never assume that God will do, apart from prayer, what he has purposed to do through prayer.

Now if you can figure all that out, that’s great, and tell me about it at some point. But the important point is not that you can figure out the mysteries of the divine providence and how he works through us, and how he accomplishes his purpose through means and secondary causes and all of that. The point is God accomplishes his will, but he often does it through means, and one of those means is prayer. And that’s what’s being encouraged here. Verse 16 again: “The prayer of a righteous person has great power in its working.” So for whatever the questions are in this passage, and there are several that I’m still left with as well, please don’t let those fun questions to chase distract you from the thrust of the passage, and that is that it’s an encouragement to pray, because God hears prayer. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father,