Studies in the Epistle of James

by A. T. Robertson

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.