The Church's Toolkit: Prayer, Oil, and Confession Text: James 5:13-18
Introduction: The Body at Work
The book of James is intensely practical. It is concerned with shoe leather Christianity, with a faith that has hands and feet, a faith that works. And here, at the conclusion of his letter, James provides us with what amounts to a spiritual toolkit for the local church. He addresses the most basic and raw experiences of human life within the covenant community: suffering, joy, sickness, and sin. Our modern world has two primary responses to these things. The first is a kind of stoic individualism, where you are expected to bear your burdens silently, to keep your stiff upper lip, and not trouble anyone else with your problems. The second, and more fashionable, is the therapeutic culture of endless emoting, where every internal flutter is to be broadcast, but without any real solution offered beyond "validation."
The Bible rejects both of these dead ends. The church is not a collection of isolated individuals, nor is it a group therapy session. It is a body, the body of Christ. And a body, if it is to be healthy, must have all its parts working together. What James gives us here are the divinely ordained procedures for how the body is to function when its members encounter the inevitable pressures of life in a fallen world. This is not a list of helpful suggestions or pious options. This is the Lord's command for how His people are to care for one another. This is how we are to live together under the pressures of both affliction and blessing. This is corporate religion, applied religion, and it is the only kind of religion that the Bible knows anything about.
The Text
Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the earth produced its fruit.
(James 5:13-18 LSB)
The Basic Spiritual Reflex (v. 13)
James begins with the two most fundamental states of the human heart, sorrow and joy.
"Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises." (James 5:13)
Here we have a divinely installed binary response system. Whatever your state, the response is to be Godward. If you are suffering, afflicted, in any kind of trouble, the first move, the instinctual move, is prayer. It is not to complain to your neighbor, not to post about it online, not to sink into morbid introspection. The command is simple: pray. Take it to God. This assumes that God is sovereign over your circumstances and that He is good. Prayer in the midst of suffering is a profound act of faith. It declares that you are not an orphan of the cosmos, but a child of a heavenly Father who hears and cares.
The flip side is just as important. "Is anyone cheerful?" When things are going well, when your heart is light, what is the reflex to be? "He is to sing praises." Or, more literally, to sing psalms. This sanctifies our happiness. It prevents our cheerfulness from curdling into self-congratulation or shallow hedonism. Your joy is not ultimately about your cleverness or your good luck. It is about the goodness of God. By singing praise, you are directing that joy back to its source, acknowledging the Giver of all good gifts. You are also edifying the church. A man singing psalms because his heart is glad is a profound encouragement to the saints. So whether in sorrow or in joy, the Christian's life is to be a vertical one. Everything is to be referred to God.
When Sickness Strikes the Body (v. 14)
Next, James moves from the general states of suffering and cheer to a specific and serious kind of suffering: sickness.
"Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." (James 5:14 LSB)
The sickness envisioned here is clearly serious. This is not a case of the sniffles. This is a sickness that lays a person low, to the point where they must "call for" others to come to them. And notice the initiative lies with the sick person. This is an act of humility. It is an admission of need. It is also an act of faith, a step of obedience to God's prescribed means of grace.
And who is he to call? Not a faith healer from the television, and not just his best friends. He is to call for "the elders of the church." This is an official, ecclesiastical act. The elders are the shepherds of the flock, the overseers appointed by God. Their involvement signifies that this is not a private matter, but a concern for the whole body, represented by its leadership. Their authority is ministerial, not magisterial. They come as servants of Christ to minister His grace.
Their task is twofold. First and foremost, "they are to pray over him." Prayer is the main event. But it is accompanied by a physical action: "anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." Now, we must be clear about what this is and what it is not. This is not the Roman Catholic sacrament of Extreme Unction, preparing a man for death. The context is a prayer for life and healing. Nor is the oil some magical potion. In the Scriptures, oil is a common symbol of consecration, of setting apart, of the Holy Spirit's presence and blessing. This anointing is an enacted prayer. It is a tangible sign that this sick brother is being set apart and solemnly commended to the special attention and healing power of God. And it is all done "in the name of the Lord." The authority and power are not in the elders, the oil, or the prayer itself, but in the name of Jesus Christ, the great Physician.
The Prayer of Faith (v. 15)
James then attaches a stunning promise to this act of obedience.
"And the prayer offered in faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him." (Genesis 5:15 LSB)
The "prayer of faith" is what is effective. This is not a prayer generated by the force of our own will. It is a prayer offered by righteous men (v. 16), in obedience to God's command, trusting in God's character. It is a prayer that aligns itself with the will of God. And the result is that it "will save the one who is sick." The word for save here, sozo, is a broad one, but in this context, it certainly includes physical healing. "The Lord will raise him up." Notice the agent. The Lord does the healing. The elders pray, the oil symbolizes, but the Lord raises up.
But then James adds a crucial qualifier: "and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him." The "if" here is hugely important. James is not teaching that all sickness is a direct result of a particular sin. The book of Job stands as a monumental refutation of that simplistic and cruel idea. Jesus Himself rejected this notion when His disciples asked about the man born blind (John 9:3). However, the "if" also tells us that some sickness is directly related to sin. The Corinthians were sick and dying because of their profane conduct at the Lord's Table (1 Cor. 11:30). So, the ministry of the elders is holistic. It involves not just prayer for the body, but pastoral care for the soul. They must be prepared to deal with the possibility of unconfessed sin, and to announce the grace of forgiveness when that sin is confessed.
A Culture of Corporate Health (v. 16)
This reality, that sin and sickness can be intertwined, leads James to a general principle for the whole church.
"Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." (James 5:16 LSB)
The "therefore" connects what follows to what came before. Because sin can be at the root of our troubles, the church must be a place of open and honest confession. This is not auricular confession to a priest. This is a horizontal, "to one another" reality. This is the death of pride and hypocrisy. It requires a community that is drenched in the gospel of grace, a place where a man can admit his faults without fear of being destroyed by accusation. The world runs on accusation. The church is to run on grace. We confess our sins to one another so that we can bear one another's burdens, and so that we can pray for one another.
And the goal of this mutual confession and prayer is healing. "So that you may be healed." This is a comprehensive healing. It is spiritual, relational, and sometimes, physical. A church that practices this kind of robust, honest, prayerful community life will be a healthy church. And the reason this works is stated plainly: "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." This is the principle undergirding the entire section. Fervent, energetic prayer, offered by a man who is right with God, has immense power. It gets things done.
Elijah Was Just Like Us (v. 17-18)
Lest we think this kind of powerful prayer is reserved for a spiritual elite, James gives us a case study.
"Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the earth produced its fruit." (James 5:17-18 LSB)
This is one of the most encouraging statements in all of Scripture. "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours." He was not a demigod. He was subject to the same passions, fears, and frailties as we are. We see him running in fear from Jezebel right after his triumph on Mount Carmel. He was human. The power was not inherent in Elijah; the power was in the God to whom Elijah prayed. This makes him a model for us, not an exception.
And look what the prayer of this man accomplished. He prayed, and the heavens shut up for three and a half years. He prayed again, and the heavens opened. His prayers, aligned with the covenantal purposes of God for Israel, had nation-altering, atmospheric consequences. James's logic is inescapable. If the prayer of a man just like us could do that, then surely our fervent prayers for the healing of a sick brother or the forgiveness of a penitent sister can be effective. This example is meant to embolden us. It is meant to make us take prayer, particularly corporate prayer, with the utmost seriousness.
Conclusion: Put the Tools to Use
So what James has given us here is a blueprint for a healthy, functioning church body. This is practical Christianity in the trenches. Our emotional states, whether suffering or joy, are to be immediately directed to God. Serious sickness is a corporate affair, requiring the humble faith of the sick and the prayerful ministry of the elders. And the entire life of the church is to be characterized by a culture of honest confession and powerful intercession, rooted in the knowledge that God hears and answers the prayers of His people.
We are not called to be stoics, and we are not called to be sentimentalists. We are called to be members of one another. This means we have obligations. It means we must be humble enough to call for help, and faithful enough to give it. It means we must build a community where sin can be confessed without hypocrisy and where prayer is the first resort, not the last. This is God's design. Let us therefore take up the tools He has given us and build His church.