Loving People To Jesus
Throughout all these three case-histories words are used which are capable of physical or spiritual meaning: 15, save … raise up; 16a, healed; 20, save … death. This shows how James is thinking of all three as belonging together in his concluding teaching on mutual care. But the third case is different from the other two. We have a care for each other not only when someone in physical (14–15) or spiritual (16a) need makes an approach for help, but also when there is no such call. This is when the evidence of our own eyes tells us that someone within the circle of the fellowship is slipping away into the path of sin and death.
Introduction
The issues
Rescue is an appropriate word, for issues of life and death are involved. James says that to bring the wanderer back is to save his soul from death and to cover a multitude of sins. ‘Covering’ sin is a basic Old Testament idea. When Noah built the ark he was commanded to cover it with pitch (Gn. 6:14). Anyone who has done such work will recall the gradual disappearance of the original woodwork under its new covering, until at length it is all hidden from sight with none of it left, as the painters say, ‘grinning through’. It is this same verb (though not in the same form) which the Old Testament uses to describe how God deals with our sin. He covers it over, hides it right out of his and our sight; nothing is left to ‘grin through’. But it is more than sweeping sin under the carpet; it is atonement; it is a putting of sin out of sight by the provision of a sufficient sacrifice. In effect we must move away from the illustration of pitch ‘covering’ the ark, and think rather of the way we use the idea of ‘cover’ in financial transactions. Perhaps we are planning something for the future and we set aside a sum of money saying, ‘That will cover it’, so that when the bill comes in it can be paid in full and the thing forgotten. In this way the verb ‘to cover’ comes to mean a totally sufficient payment, through the blood of sacrifice, by which God has dealt with our sin. And, of course, if we do not avail ourselves of the death of the lamb, then we must forfeit our own lives, for the wages of sin is death.