Few subjects have excited more interest in recent years than the subject
here presented. So many subsidiary issues are raised that it is
difficult to treat the question adequately in a few pages.
Many varieties of “faith cures” have been before the world. The
so-called Christian Science movement is now the most prominent of them
all, combining an idealistic philosophy and pantheistic religion. This
combination takes up various aspects of Buddhism, Gnosticism, and a dash
of Christian verbiage with the vital elements of Christianity gone, and
uses some of the well-known ideas of modern psychology as to the
influence of the mind on the body. As a whole, it is a hopeless jumble
of absurdities and inconsistencies and is hostile to the worship of
Jesus. It leads astray a certain type of mind without clear reasoning
processes and fattens on the fees for mental healing, a portion of which
goes to the mother church in Boston. There is only the most superficial
parallel between what James here describes and what the Christian
Science “healer” practices.
There is in James an absence of all mercenary ideas. There is no
“commercialized use of prayer,” to use the legal phrase of one of the
New York courts. There is also the use of olive oil, the best medicine
known to the ancient world and still one of the best remedial agencies,
whether used internally or externally. The disciples of Jesus on their
tour of Galilee had the double ministry of preaching and healing (Matt.
10:7 f.), and they anointed the sick with oil (Mark 6:13). In Isaiah 1:6
the prophet says that the bruises were “neither bound up, neither
mollified with oil.” So the good Samaritan bound up the wounds of the
poor victim of the robbers and poured oil and wine upon him (Luke
10:34).
A number of questions come bristling for discussion as we proceed with
this passage in James. The use of the word “church” rather than
synagogue, as in 2:2, is to be observed. The local church undoubtedly
had a close kinship to the Jewish synagogue in origin and worship. The
very phrase “elders of the church” occurs also in Acts 20:17 and in the
plural, like bishops at Philippi (Phil. 1:1). There was a council of
elders in the synagogue (Luke 7:3), and the word appears in an official
sense in the Egyptian papyri.[96]
But a more vital question for our subject is whether these elders come
in an official capacity to perform an ecclesiastical “anointing” with
oil or whether they come to pray as brothers in Christ and rub with the
olive oil (cf. Isa. 1:6) as medicine. Mayor quotes Philo (_Sonm_, M. i.
666), Pliny (N. H. xxiii. 34-50), and Galen (_Med. Temp._, book ii) in
praise of oil as a medicine. In Herod’s last illness a bath of oil was
recommended to him (Jos., _War_ i. 33, 5).
There is, therefore, no doubt as to the ancient opinion about, and use
of, oil as a medicine. It is probable that each one will decide this
question according to his predilections. For my own part, I incline to
the view that we have here not a sacramental or priestly function on the
part of these elders but the double duty of ministry of the word and of
medicine (with prayer). The nearest parallel in modern life is the
medical missionary, who goes with the word of life and the healing balm
of modern science. He heals the sick with the physician’s skill and the
prayer of faith. Paul helped the sick (Acts 20:35) at Ephesus and often
healed the sick, and yet he worked side by side with Luke, the beloved
physician, as in the island of Melita (Acts 28:8 f.).
There is certainly no indication that what is called “extreme unction”
was practiced or urged by James and the apostolic Christians. That was a
later development in Greek and Roman Catholic churches that is foreign
to the tone of this epistle. There is here no such superstition as
sending for a minister when death is at hand to perform a magical ritual
ceremony to stave off death. Mayor has a full statement of the chief
facts about the sacrament of unction in later centuries. He suggests
that the cases of the failure of the simple use of oil as a medicine
probably led finally to the special consecration of the oil or the use
of relics. But in James we seem to have not a ceremony or ecclesiastical
function but rather the simple use of oil as a medicine and prayer “in
the name of the Lord.”
Today we have a more advanced medical science which is, however, by no
means final and infallible. We separate the functions of the minister
and the physician. We prefer the doctor to the oil, but we still need
God with the doctor. It is a great error for one to think that God is
not to be called upon because we have a skilled physician. The minister
still has a place, and a very important place, in the problem of
therapeutics, particularly in those many cases of a more or less nervous
type when the influence of the mind on the body is very pronounced.
Often in the most severe illness the deciding factor is not medicine but
hope, as any doctor will say. The minister should make friends with the
physician and be at his service and co-operate with him. The minister
needs to be careful to be a help and not a hindrance in cases of
sickness. He should be a sedative and an inspiration to the patient, not
an irritant or an excitant. It is a just ground of complaint that
physicians have against those preachers who lend themselves to the
schemes of quack doctors with patent medicines for all sorts of ills.
But coming back to the use of prayer, James says, “And the prayer of
faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” The
credit is here given to prayer and the power of God. One is not to infer
that James gives no credit to medicine. The oil was good; God works
through medicine and without medicine. The best that we still know on
this subject is this: prayer and medicine, or God and the doctor. The
promise of James may be compared with those of Jesus in Mark 11:24 and
John 14:14. But the very essence of prayer is acquiescence with us. By
“save” here James means “cure,” as it often does in the Gospels (Mark
5:23; 6:56; 8:35).
The prayer of faith is the only kind that is real prayer, and it is
trust in God with full acknowledgment of God’s power and love. Some men
have always had the idea of a God so aloof from the world that he cares
nothing about it or is powerless to help. There is nothing in modern
scientific knowledge inconsistent with an immanent, yet transcendent,
God who holds the key of life in himself. The wondrous laws of nature
are all of God, and there are many more that we do not yet understand.
Science has vastly increased our sense of wonder about God and his
world. We have only skirted the fringes of knowledge. It is idle to say
that God, if he really sent his Son to redeem men from sin and all
earthly woe, does not care if we suffer in body and mind. The Father’s
hand rests upon us all. He can be reached. He is not far from any of us,
and he loves us.
“And if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him,” not by being
healed in body nor because he is healed of his sickness. The two things
do not correspond, nor does one follow because of the other. What James
means, undoubtedly, is that the cured man, convicted of his sins and out
of gratitude to God for his goodness, repents of his sins and is
forgiven.
This is what should always happen in such cases, but often it occurs
that men who profess repentance on a bed of sickness forget it when they
get up. This is sheer ingratitude and a horrible outcome. But certainly
if the sick man is a sinner, he should be prayed for. It is the time of
opportunity to get him to listen to the voice of God. No undue advantage
need be taken of one’s situation, and yet it is wise to speak plainly
then. Sickness is a great leveler and brings us all down. Beyond any
doubt, Roman Catholics have made good use of their asylums and
hospitals. Other denominations are beginning to take a real interest in
this aspect of Christian activity. In the hour of sickness it is a great
mercy to fall into the hands of those who love God and where the love of
Jesus is mingled with the highest medical science.
During sickness is a good time to confess our sins to one another as
well as to God. “Confess therefore your sins one to another.” Clearly if
the sick man, conscious now of his own weakness, is not willing to
confess his sins against others, God will not forgive him.
As Mayor points out, James expands the words of Jesus about forgiving
those who have trespassed against us (Matt. 5:23 f.; 6:14), so as to
bring out both sides of the subject. Let the sick man ask forgiveness of
those whom he has wronged. Then let them forgive him and pray for him.
“Pray one for another.” The Roman Catholics—Bellarmine, for
instance—sometimes appeal to this passage as a justification for
auricular confession to the priest; but Luther has a pointed answer: “A
strange confessor. His name is ‘One Another.’” Cajetan “speaks the
language of common sense” (Mayor) and admits that James has no such
custom in mind. What James urges is public confession, in particular to
those wronged, not private and secret confession to a priest.
The Roman Catholic confessional is one of the most dangerous of
ecclesiastical institutions. It puts untold power for harm into the
hands of the priest. It is difficult to conceive how a husband or father
could be willing for wife or daughter to make secret confession to a
priest. The abuses of the confessional make a horrible chapter in human
history. Not merely are things wrung out that should not be told, but
evil is suggested that would never be thought of. The original form of
absolution was “precatory rather than declaratory” (Plummer).
But it is a great good to the soul to open the heart and make a frank
confession to the church or to the persons who have been injured. Great
sorrow would be avoided if men would only have the manhood to do this
thing. Tertullian (On Penance viii) well says, “Confession of sins
lightens as much as concealment aggravates them.” Confession of sin was
one of the cardinal tenets in the preaching of John the Baptist. The
Romanists demanded penance for sins publicly confessed, and private
enmity (Plummer) took advantage of it for purposes of revenge.
Then it is a good time to pray “that ye may be healed.” Then the power
of God is with men to heal both soul and body. Many a revival has
started in a church because those who have been estranged have buried
the hatchet and seen eye to eye again. There is power in prayer when the
soul is open to God, as can be true only when hate disappears from the
heart. “The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its
working,” “the prayers of the righteous have a powerful effect”
(Moffatt).
This short sentence is clearer in the Greek than in any of the English
renderings. Plummer suggests, “Great is the strength of a righteous
man’s supplication, in its earnestness.” The word for “supplication” is
more specific than the usual term and suggests a sense of need. But the
crucial word is the participle, which may be either middle or
passive.[97] Our word “energetic” is derived from the verbal adjective.
The notion of energy is present, at any rate. The great word in modern
science is this very word “energy,” which is made luminous by
electricity and radium. The only prayer worthwhile is one with energy in
it, whether inwrought (taking the participle as passive) by the Spirit
of God or at work (middle voice) through the spiritual passion of the
man’s own soul. Such a prayer has much force in it and is not a mere
ceremony or rattle of meaningless words.
The emphasis on “a righteous man” here does not mean that God will not
hear the cry of a sinner for mercy but probably that a righteous man is
more likely to put the proper energy into his prayer. We may reflect
sadly that our prayers often have no power with God because they have no
energy when said. There is no power in the dynamo; the engine has gone
dead; the steam is not high enough to move the driving wheel. Oesterley
quotes aptly the words of Rabbi Ben Zakkai in _Berachoth_, 34_b_, when
prayers for a sick child are desired: “Although I am greater in learning
than Chaninah, he is more efficacious in prayer; I am indeed the Prince,
but he is the Steward who has constant access to the King.” They have it
because they live close to God. With a great price they have won this
high prerogative. Ofttimes they are the humblest of men in earthly
station and store. Very mechanical, surely, is the idea of Rabbi Isaac
(_Jebamoth_, 64_a_), who says: “The prayer of the righteous is
comparable to a pitchfork; as the pitchfork changes the position of the
wheat so the prayer changes the disposition of God from wrath to mercy.”
James has a typical case to illustrate his point. “Elijah was a man of
like passions with us,” “with a nature just like our own” (Moffatt).
James emphasizes the human frailties of Elijah to show that he does not
refer to ceremonial or sacramental rites when he urges prayer for the
sick. Such prayer is the privilege not merely of the elders of the
church but of any good man who has the ear of God. That power is not a
function of ecclesiastical position but the reward of holy living and
trust in God. Elijah had his weaknesses as we all have, but God heard
him. The point for us is that if God heard Elijah, he will hear any of
us who puts the same amount of spiritual energy into his prayer. “He
prayed fervently.” There is no use to pray in any other way. Elijah
prayed seven times before the rain came. Halfhearted prayer defeats
itself (cf. doubting prayer in 1:6 ff.).
Many modern men have no faith in prayer of any kind save as a wholesome
reaction on the mind of the one who prays. They scout the idea that the
God of the universe would condescend to listen to the feeble chatter of
such worms in the dust as men. They conceive it as impossible that God
would alter his will in any particular because of such insignificant
requests. Least of all do they admit the possibility that God would
change the weather in response to the prayer of one or many individuals.
They argue that the laws of the weather are fixed by the laws of nature
and that God does not alter his own laws. A very pretty network of
impossibilities is fixed up, but all the same, the experience of
Christians breaks right through these entanglements.
A real God is greater than his own laws, and his own will is the chief
law of his nature. God is not an absentee God; he is our Father and
loves for us to tell him our troubles. Certainly God knows how to work
his own laws. We do not have to think that Elijah had the matter of
drought and rain in his own hands at his beck and call. Far from it.
Elijah won by strenuous prayer and perseverance, not by lightly
informing God of his wishes. Besides, when rain came in response to the
prayer of Elijah, it came out of clouds, as rain always does. God made
the clouds gather from the west (the Mediterranean) till the rain came.
As the hot winds from the east and the south brought the drought, so the
west winds brought rain. Many times in my own experience I have known
people to pray for rain, and the rain came. The rain may not have come
in response to the prayer; that I do not know. But it came the very
night in which prayer was made for it at the prayer meeting. The
difficulty in the matter of rain is no greater than in cases of
sickness. The root of the trouble is the lack of trust in God, the
broken relation with God, the loss of power with him.