James 5:15

5:12-18 The sin of swearing is condemned; but how many make light of common profane swearing! Such swearing expressly throws contempt upon God's name and authority. This sin brings neither gain, nor pleasure, nor reputation, but is showing enmity to God without occasion and without advantage It shows a man to be an enemy to God, however he pretends to call himself by his name, or sometimes joins in acts of worship. But the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. In a day of affliction nothing is more seasonable than prayer. The spirit is then most humble, and the heart is broken and tender. It is necessary to exercise faith and hope under afflictions; and prayer is the appointed means for obtaining and increasing these graces. Observe, that the saving of the sick is not ascribed to the anointing with oil, but to prayer. In a time of sickness it is not cold and formal prayer that is effectual, but the prayer of faith. The great thing we should beg of God for ourselves and others in the time of sickness is, the pardon of sin. Let nothing be done to encourage any to delay, under the mistaken fancy that a confession, a prayer, a minister's absolution and exhortation, or the sacrament, will set all right at last, where the duties of a godly life have been disregarded. To acknowledge our faults to each other, will tend greatly to peace and brotherly love.

And when a righteous person, a true believer, justified in Christ, and by his grace walking before God in holy obedience, presents an effectual fervent prayer, wrought in his heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, raising holy affections and believing expectations and so leading earnestly to plead the promises of God at his mercy-seat, it avails much. The power of prayer is proved from the history of Elijah. In prayer we must not look to the merit of man, but to the grace of God. It is not enough to say a prayer, but we must pray in prayer. Thoughts must be fixed, desires must be firm and ardent, and graces exercised. This instance of the power of prayer, encourages every Christian to be earnest in prayer. God never says to any of the seed of Jacob, Seek my face in vain. Where there may not be so much of miracle in God's answering our prayers, yet there may be as much of grace.

And the prayer of faith shall save the sick,.... That is, the prayer of the elders, being put up in faith by them, and in which the sick person joins by faith; such a prayer is a means of bringing down from God a blessing on the sick man, and of restoring him to his former health: and the Lord shall raise him up; from his bed of sickness, on which he is laid, and bring him forth to praise his name, and to fear and glorify him. And if he have committed sins; not that it is a question whether he has or not, for no man lives without sin, nor the commission of it; but the sense is, if he has been guilty of any sins, which God in particular has taken notice of, and on account of which he has laid his chastising hand upon him, in order to bring him to a sense of them, and to acknowledge them; which is sometimes the case, though not always, at the same time that his bodily health is restored: they shall be forgiven him; he shall have a discovery, and an application of pardoning grace to him: and indeed the removing the sickness or disease may be called the forgiveness of his sins, which is sometimes the sense of this phrase in Scripture, as in 1 Kings 8:34.

The sick (τὸν κάμνοντα) Rev. gives, better, the participial force, him that is sick. The word originally means to work. Hence, "him that is laboring under disease." And if he have committed sins (κἃν ἁμαρτίας ᾖ πεποιηκώς) The Greek gives a shade of meaning which can hardly be transferred neatly into English, representing not merely the fact that the man has sinned, but his condition as a sinner. Literally the words read, if he be having committed sins; i.e., in a state of having committed, and under the moral or physical consequences of transgression. They shall be forgiven (ἀφεθήσεται) Better, Rev., "it shall be forgiven," supplying the commission as a subject. The verb means to send forth or discharge, and is the standard New-Testament word for forgiving. Forgiveness (ἄφεσις) is a putting or sending away of sins, with a consequent discharge of the sinner; thus differing from τάρεσις (Romans 3:25), which is a passing by of sin, a pretermission as distinguished from a remission. See, farther, on Romans 3:25.

Jam 5:15 . Ἡ εὐχὴ τῆς πίστεως , the prayer of faith ) [ He does not say the oil shall save .—V. g.] When some of the faithful pray, the whole power of faith is spread and exercised through the whole body of the Church. James would have complained that he was greatly misrepresented, if any one were to say, that he attributed the remission of sins to works.— κἂν , and if ) It may happen that a man is sick, even though he has not committed [special] sins.— ἀφεθήσεται , it shall be forgiven him ) the having committed sins . James 5:15

15. prayer—He does not say the oil shall save: it is but the symbol. save—plainly not as Rome says, "save" the soul. but heal "the sick": as the words, "the Lord shall raise him up," prove. So the same Greek is translated, "made (thee) whole," Mt 9:21, 22. and if … sins—for not all who are sick are so because of some special sins. Here a case is supposed of one visited with sickness for special sins. have committed—literally, "be in a state of having committed sins," that is, be under the consequences of sins committed. they—rather, "it": his having committed sins shall be forgiven him. The connection of sin and sickness is implied in Isa 33:24; Mt 9:2-5; Joh 5:14. The absolution of the sick, retained in the Church of England, refers to the sins which the sick man confesses (Jas 5:16) and repents of, whereby outward scandal has been given to the Church and the cause of religion; not to sins in their relation to God, the only Judge.

And the prayer of faith; i.e. proceeding from faith; the cure is ascribed to prayer, the moral means, and standing ordinance, not to the anointing, which was but ceremonial and temporary; and to faith in prayer, to show that this remedy was effectual only when faith (requisite to the working of miracles) was active, viz. in a certain persuasion that the sick person should be healed. Shall save the sick; restore to health, (if God see it fit, and the health of the body be good for the soul), Mark 10:52 Luke 7:50 18:42 . And the Lord shall raise him up; the elders pray, but the Lord raiseth up, being prayed to in faith. Raise him up; the same as saving before, only the word seems to respect the sick man’s lying upon his bed, from which he riseth when he is healed, Mark 1:31 . If he have committed sins; if he have by his sins procured his sickness; or, those sins for which particularly God visits him with sickness; sin being often the cause of sickness, Matthew 9:2 John 5:14 1 Corinthians 11:30 , though not always, John 9:2 . They shall be forgiven him; God will take away the cause as well as the effect, heal the soul as well as the body, and prayer is the means of obtaining both.

15 . and the prayer of faith shall save the sick ] The context leaves no doubt that the primary thought is, as in our Lord’s words to men and women whom He healed, “Thy faith hath saved thee”—“thy faith hath made thee whole” ( Matthew 9:22 ; Mark 5:34 ; Mark 10:52 ; Luke 7:50 ; Luke 8:48 ; Luke 17:19 ; Luke 18:42 ), that the sick man should in such a case “recover his bodily health.” The “prayer of faith” was indeed not limited to that recovery in its scope, but the answer to that prayer in its higher aims, is given separately afterwards in the promise of forgiveness. and the Lord shall raise him up ] Here, as in James 5:14 , we have to think of St James as recognising not merely the power of God generally, but specifically that of the Lord Jesus, still working through His servants, as He worked personally on earth. So Peter said to Æneas, “Jesus Christ maketh thee whole” ( Acts 9:34 ). if he have committed sins …] The Greek expresses with a subtle distinction, hard to reproduce in English, the man’s being in the state produced by having committed sins. Repentance, it is obvious, is presupposed as a condition, and the love of God in Christ as the fountain of forgiveness, but the prayer of the elders of the Church is, beyond question, represented as instrumental, as helping to win for the sinner the grace both of repentance and forgiveness.

It is noticeable that the remission of sins thus promised is dependent not on the utterance of the quasi-judicial formula of the Absolvo te (that, indeed, was not used at all until the 13th century) by an individual priest, but on the prayer of the elders as representing the Church. Comp. John 20:23 , where also the promise is in the plural, “Whosesoever sins ye remit.”

Jam 5:15 . ἡ εὐχὴ τῆς πίστεως : Cf. Matthew 21:22 .— σώσει : for this sense cf. Matthew 9:22 ; Mark 5:23 ; John 11:12 .— κάμνοντα : in this sense only here in the N.T., though it is used in a somewhat similar sense in Hebrews 12:3 .— ἐγερεῖ : it seems most natural to take this as referring to the sick man being raised up from his bed of sickness, though the use of κάμνειν in Hebrews 12:3 suggests the possibility of spiritual comfort being also included.— ὁ Κύριος : this must probably refer to Christ, though the O.T. reference in the context would justify the contention that Jahwe is meant.— κἂν . Cf. Mark 16:18 ; Luke 13:9 , as showing that this does not necessarily mean “even if”.— ἁμαρτίας ᾖ πεποιηκώς ἀφεθήσεται αὐτῷ : Cf. Sir 38:9-10 , Τέκνον , ἐν ἀρρωστήματί σου μὴ παράβλεπε , ἀλλʼ εὖξαι Κυρίῳ , καὶ αὐτὸς ἰάσεταί σε · ἀπόστησον πλημμελίαν καὶ εὔθυνον χεῖρας , καὶ ἀπὸ πάσης ἁμαρτίας καθάρισον καρδίαν ; The Jewish belief on this subject may be illustrated by the following: in Test. of the Twelve Patriarchs , Simeon, Jam 2:11 ff., because Simeon continued wrathful against Reuben, he says, “But the Lord restrained me, and withheld from me the power of my hands; for my right hand was half withered for seven days”; in Gad. Jam 5:9 ff. the patriarch confesses that owing to his hatred against Joseph God brought upon him a disease of the liver, “and had not the prayers of Jacob my father succoured me, it had hardly failed but my spirit had departed”.

That sin brings disease was, likewise in the later Jewish literature, an article of faith, indeed here one finds specified what are the particular sicknesses that particular sins bring in their train. According to Rabbinical teaching there are four signs by means of which it is possible to recognise the sin of which a man has been guilty: dropsy is the sign that the sin of fornication has been committed, jaundice that of unquenchable hatred, poverty and humiliation that of pride, liver complaint (?) ( אסכרה ) that of back-biting. In Shabbath , 55 a , it says: “No death without sin, no chastisement without evil-doing,” and in Nedarim , 41 a it says: “No recovery without forgiveness”. Leprosy may be due to one of eleven sins, but most probably to that of an evil tongue (see Weber, Jüdische Theologie , pp. 245 f.).