The Elder’s Prayer for Restoration
James 5:14-16
The last time we met together, we had just gotten into the difficult passage in James 5:13-15. It’s about the role of elders in their ministry to spiritually weak Christians who often need physical help as part of their recovery.
We noted that the controversy is based on a contemporary emphasis on faith-healing through certain “anointed healers” which is often based on a misunderstanding of these verses in James. But James is not talking about faith-healers or even of physical illness alone. The context shows an emphasis on prayer by the elders for those who are spiritually weak due to prolonged persecution and sin; this persecution often included physical mistreatment as well. So when we concluded last week, we had just gotten into a consideration of the relationship between our physical bodies and our sense of spiritual well-being. God created us this way. We are composite beings. So there’s a relationship between our spiritual wellness and our physical wellness.
This morning, I want to review that discussion and make some additional comments with biblical support. Then I want us to note how salvation and awakening come from the Lord who restores, uplifts, and forgives His broken servants through the ministry of faithful prayer.
First, let’s read the passage beginning with verse 13 and we’ll try to get down to the first half of verse 16. James 5:13-16a. In honor of God and His Word, let’s stand.
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises. 14 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; 15 and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. [NASB]
[Prayer] Last Sunday we considered two main propositions: first, prayer for yourself is prescribed when enduring unjust suffering from persecutors (and this would certainly apply to other forms of suffering as well); and second, prayer from the elders is God’s design for Christians who have grown too spiritually weak from suffering and sin to pray for themselves. For this morning, let’s begin with a review of the role of the elder’s prayers and our spiritual and physical well-being. Here’s the first point…
I. God has created us so that our physical nature is influenced by our spiritual nature (and vice-versa) for good or for ill.
As we noted last Sunday, verse 14 is about the elders [plural] coming by request to minister to a believer who has grown spiritually weak due to wrestling with sin and persecution, which sometimes involved physical affliction as well. “Sick” (v. 14) would be better translated as “weak” and it refers to spiritual and emotional weakness, rather than to physical illness. So the elders come to pray for and encourage a weakened Christian because their faith has been hampered (rather than strengthened) by the trials of life. When a believer is joyful during times of persecution, verse 13 says, “let him sing praises”. But when you go in the other direction and your faith is weakened by one defeat after another, it’s time to call for the elders.
.
The reference to “anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord” refers not to an anointing ceremony, but to the physical application of oil to soften wounds or to massage sore muscles. The elders would physically use oil to bring relief to the hurting believer as part of their spiritual restoration. So oil had a medicinal use in the first century and Christians are free to use medicines as part of their treatment today as long as it’s done with good medical counsel and faithful prudence.
This reference to the “anointing with oil” as a form of medicine and physical relief opened up a brief discussion on the relationship between our physical well-being and our spiritual well-being. The Bible does draw a link between the soul and the body. We said that our modern word psycho-somatic comes from the Greek word for soul (psuche) and body (soma). In a literal sense, there’s a God-ordained connection between our physical nature and our spiritual nature as long as we have life in these bodies, and after the resurrection, that’ll be forever! But I wanted to give you a few biblical examples of this relationship. And I want you to see the connection God makes between our physical well-being and our spiritual well-being.
The first example that comes to mind is Elijah, who’s mentioned later in verse 17. After Elijah’s victory over the 450 prophets of Baal, he was threatened by wicked Queen Jezebel. He went and sat under a juniper tree and asked God to take his life. In 1 Kings 19:4, he said: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.” Notice how Elijah has gone from spiritual victory over the prophets of Baal to a sense of spiritual weakness due to physical exhaustion and fear of Jezebel. So what was the remedy provided by God? Verse 5 says...
And he lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, “Arise, eat.” 6 Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. 7 And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you.” 8 So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. [1 Kings 19:5-8, NASB]
Sometimes our sense of spiritual defeat and unfitness is due to poor health, hunger, or physical exhaustion. God wants His servants to take care of their bodies. He wants us to eat well and get proper rest and sufficient physical activity. Such consideration is linked to our spiritual sense of well-being. There have been times in my life when I’ve felt like I was at the end of my spiritual rope and that if God didn’t intervene, I just wanted to lay me down and die.
Those are low times when you can’t even pray for yourself and the Bible doesn’t seem to yield any insight as before. Often the remedy for my problem was very practical: sometimes I needed to eat a good meal; or I needed to get some good rest; or I needed to get some more physical activity to clear my mind from the stresses of life. There are times when laughing with friends or family is the best medicine for your soul. Calling for the elders in verse 14 reminds us that none of us can function all alone; we need each other. We need the body of Christ. So there’s a link between our physical and spiritual well-being.
But it also works the other way too. Sometimes, a believer’s unconfessed sins and lack of repentance can cause physical weakness and sickness. Remember what happened to King David after he sinned with Bathsheba? He ignored his sin and kept it to himself. Some figure it was nearly one year later that Nathan the prophet confronted David with his sin. During that year of hiding his sin, his body was wasting away; but when he sought forgiveness and repented, he began to recover physically. Listen to David’s words in Psalm 32…
1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!
2 How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
Through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. [Selah].
5 I acknowledged my sin to Thee, And my iniquity I did not hide;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”;
And Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. [Selah].
6 Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to Thee in a time when
Thou mayest be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not reach him.
7 Thou art my hiding place; Thou dost preserve me from trouble;
Thou dost surround me with songs of deliverance. [Selah]. [Ps 32:1-7, NASB]
So physical weakness due to suffering or lack of proper food and rest can make us feel spiritually defeated; and spiritual weakness due to unconfessed sin or disobedience can make us feel physically withdrawn and drain our vitality; and there’s one more I want to add: emotional or spiritual brokenness (due to loss or a sense of prolonged deprivation) can have detrimental physical effects, if the application of God’s Word is not brought to bear with prayer and encouragement from other believers.
Now look at verse 15 in James 5: “and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.”
II. Salvation and awakening come from the Lord who restores, uplifts, and forgives His broken servants (15).
The prayer offered in faith generally applies to all true prayer. Whenever a believer prays, it must be a prayer offered in faith. Any believer can pray this kind of prayer because it’s the only kind of prayer God hears. But the prayer in verse 15 refers specifically to the prayer of the elders who pray for a spiritually weakened Christian who has requested their ministry. So this is the prayer of godly spiritual leaders in the local church. Then it says that God (through the instrument of the prayer offered in faith) will restore the one who is weak (not physically sick, as the translation seems to suggest). We mentioned last week that the word translated “sick” in these verses is translated as “sick” 18 times in the NT, especially in the Gospels. But it is also used 14 times to refer to emotional or spiritual weakness.
.
It’s this latter translation (“weak”) that best fits the context of James. And the word “restore” is from the Greek word sozo which is usually translated “save” in the NT. The idea here is that the prayer of the elders will deliver weak, discouraged believers from their spiritual weakness and renew them to a state of spiritual wholeness. They are spiritually reawakened and are better able to fix their eyes on King Jesus as the object of their faith because the elders prayed and applied God’s Word to their life.
Then it says, “and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.” Prayers don’t save people, for the same reason that people don’t save people. It is God in response to the prayers offered in faith that brings about salvation and restoration. So God restores His broken servants through the ministry of other godly believers who pray in faith and get involved in the recovery of those who are spiritually weak from extended struggles with sin.
“And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.” This is yet another sign that this text is not referring to physical illness because the Bible nowhere teaches that all illness is the direct result of an individual’s sins. This phrase about sins is most likely referring to those sins a believer may have committed when their faith was weakened through prolonged persecution; such as an attitudinal sin (thinking that God isn’t really good or loving; or that God has made a mistake somehow). Or it may refer to a besetting sin that has tormented a believer to the point of hopeless despair. If the believer has committed such sins, he should confess them as sins and repent (which is implied from verse 16) and they will be forgiven him.
And finally, because it’s true that forgiveness comes through confession and repentance through faith in Jesus Christ, look at verse 16: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” The word “healed” refers to spiritual wholeness.
This is the third form of prayer mentioned in this brief passage. First is prayer for yourself in verse 13; second is prayer by the elders in verse 14; and third is prayer for each other in verse 16.
We’ll pick it up here next week, Lord willing, and consider God’s design for confession and prayer among the body of believers. Should believers openly confess their sins to anybody in the church? Should we each have personal accountability partners? And are there some confessions that would be sinfully inappropriate in a mixed audience and if so, what are the boundaries of confession? We’ll get into that as well as the meaning of the effective prayer of a righteous man, next Sunday. Until then, let’s close in prayer.
(c) Charles Kevin Grant
July 26, 2006