But some hearts are overjoyed and feel like giving expression to their joy in unusual ways, almost in ecstasy. “Is any cheerful?” There are many in happy mood, in good spirits or “good cheer” (cf. Acts 27:22, 25). These are in good health of soul and perhaps also of body. “Let him sing praise.” The word originally meant to play on a stringed instrument (Sir. 9:4), but it comes to be used also for singing with the voice and the heart (Eph. 5:19; 1 Cor. 14:15), making melody with the heart to the Lord.
There is a wondrous exaltation of soul in the public praise of God. The combination of instruments and of voice enables the soul of man to pour itself out toward God in richness of praise. This is far better than the reckless, unrestrained ecstasy of overwrought emotionalism. Plummer notes properly that there is no merit or demerit per se in excitement. The wild dervish commands only astonishment, not sympathy. Religious excitement may become the occasion of bringing discredit upon Christianity, even when it represents real fervor and an element of worship. The spirit of man cannot always be restrained. Under the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield the audiences were sometimes carried to excesses of emotion. But far better this than the deadness and coldness of mere formalism. Revivals occasionally have been marked by such excesses, like the “Jerks” in Kentucky one hundred and fifty years ago when, however, real change of life took place.
There is wisdom in the words of James here. Let the religious emotions find expression in prayer and praise. The effect is not only good for the moment but is good for conduct and life as a whole. If we could only manage somehow to turn some of the energy that goes into our activities into religious worship, certainly the effect would be more wholesome all around. People cannot help a measure of excitement. Some of it is good for them. There is tonic in communion with God, tonic for soul and body.
God and Medicine (5:14-18)
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.).