James 5:13–20

5:13 James transitions to this section on prayer using a series of short questions and staccato imperatives. “Is anyone among you suffering?” asks James. “Let him pray.” The verb translated “suffering” (kakopatheō) is broad in meaning and encompasses any form of external or internal hardship. While believers may be tempted to react to difficulties with grumbling, anger, or discouragement, James reminds us there is one clear and proper Christian response: prayer.

The second question stretches to the other end of human experience: “Is anyone cheerful?” He answers: “Let him sing praise.” A reader might have expected James to ask something like, “Are things going well?” (i.e., an inquiry about external realities). James, however, chooses a word that focuses on the internal disposition of cheerfulness/happiness (euthymeō). In referring to suffering and cheerfulness, James covers the broad swath of human experience in this beautiful but broken world. Whether we find happiness or pain in life, we should always go to the Lord. He is a loving heavenly Father who cares for us (Matt. 7:11).

5:14–15 James says a sick person should call the elders of the church to come pray over him. The fact that the elders must be summoned to the house of a sick person indicates he is likely too sick to leave his home easily. Note also that the elders are to pray “over” him (v. 14)—possibly implying that the sick person is bedridden. It is noteworthy that James assumes there will be a plurality of elders in the local congregation. The modern model of a “lone ranger” pastor is a departure from the biblical model of plural eldership.

James instructs the church elders to “anoint” the sick person with oil “in the name of the Lord” (v. 14). Throughout the centuries, Christians have struggled to understand and apply this verse. The Roman church developed the practice of “extreme unction,” in which it was believed that a dying person’s remaining sins were wiped away through a priest-administered sacrament. Partly in reaction to this error, other Christians insist that the oil here was merely a form of ancient medicine. While it is true that oil was used to cleanse wounds in the first century (cf. Luke 10:34), oil did not have medical application to all of the diseases known at that time.

The closest biblical parallel we find to James’s instructions is the disciples’ ministry in Mark 6. There Jesus sends out the disciples in groups of two to preach and perform miracles throughout Israel. In Mark 6:13 we read, “They . . . anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.” The oil, both there and in James 5:14, seems to have been a visible, symbolic means of setting the sick person apart for God’s miraculous intervention—similar to the way that many modern Christians will place a hand on the shoulder of the person for whom they are praying. James does not emphasize anointing as an imperative act in and of itself but specifies it as something done “in the name of the Lord” (v. 14), that is, as an action performed while calling upon the Lord in faith to heal.

In verse 15 James assures his readers, “The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.” This verse has caused consternation for many interpreters. Some understand the verse eschatologically. That is, regardless of how any sickness ends, the Lord has assured his people that he will save them ultimately and resurrect them on the last day. While theologically true, this interpretation does not adequately respect the immediate context, which favors understanding James as referring to temporal healing.

Other interpreters have seen this promise as referring to a special dispensation of faith given only occasionally. In other words, there are times of praying for the sick in which one will be given a “prayer of faith” that will prove supernaturally effective. Again, this interpretation stumbles over a more natural reading of “prayer of faith,” which understands the phrase as referring to a “prayer offered in faith,” or “believing prayer.”

One distorted form of Christianity argues that Christians should always expect to be healed from sickness in this life. If one is not healed, then that person lacks faith, it is argued. Read in isolation, James 5:15 could seem to support this interpretation, but other passages of Scripture make clear that the sick and suffering are not always healed—even when the request is made in pure (even apostolic!) faith (cf. 2 Cor. 12:8–9). The 100 percent mortality rate of humanity testifies to the fact that all of us will eventually succumb to sickness, injury, or old age.

The statement that “the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick” is best understood as a typical promissory statement that does not necessarily list exceptions. We find many parallels in Jesus’ ministry (e.g., “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened”; Matt. 7:7–8). Such invitations are made memorable by focusing attention on God’s gracious invitation and our rightful expectation of response. Of course, submission to God’s will should underlie every Christian petition, and sometimes the authors of Scripture make such an understanding explicit (e.g., “If we ask anything according to his will”; 1 John 5:14). All in all, it is the sovereign God, and no one else, who will determine the answers to our prayers.

As James concludes his discussion of praying for the sick, he asserts, “And if [the sick person] has committed sins, he will be forgiven” (James 5:15b). Here we are reminded that Scripture testifies that some sickness, even death, comes upon believers as a result of God’s fatherly discipline (Acts 5:1–11; 1 Cor. 11:30). Pastors should be wary, however, of always drawing a one-to-one correspondence between sickness and sin, as the Pharisaical opponents of Jesus did (John 9:34). Most human sickness, while not outside of God’s divine will, is simply the result of living in a broken world.

5:16 After implying that unconfessed sin could result in physical sickness (v. 15b), James draws the conclusion (“Therefore”; v. 16) that all believers should regularly confess their sins (and, implicitly, turn from their sins in repentance). Although confession to God is the most necessary form of confession (Ps. 51:4), any genuine Godward repentance will be mirrored in relationships within the Christian community. Believers should not only confess their sins to those whom they have wronged (Luke 19:8); they should also confess their “secret sins” of pride, lust, resentment, and greed to a trusted fellow believer or believers. Such confession, James tells us, will result in spiritual, if not physical, healing (James 5:16a).

In the latter part of verse 16, James transitions from the subject of praying for spiritual/physical healing to the matter of effective prayer more generally. Specifically, James points out that one can expect tremendous divine power to be unleashed through the prayer of a “righteous person.” In one sense, all Christians are “righteous” (dikaios) in that we are justified before God. But the Greek word dikaios can also refer to practical and visible godly behavior (e.g., Matt. 1:19), as it seems to here. In other words, those who walk closely with the Lord can expect to see a powerful response to their petitions (cf. Matt. 17:19–20; 1 John 3:22).

5:17–18 James presents Elijah as an example of a righteous man who prayed effectively. We might be inclined to write off Elijah’s life as inimitable because of his prophetic status. Not so, says James: Elijah was “a man with a nature like ours.” In other words, Elijah was a sinner like us, with his own failings and weaknesses, and yet through his prayer the Lord did mighty things.

Specifically, James reports that Elijah’s prayer was used by God to withhold rain for three and a half years and then to restore it again. The OT text that reports this episode states, less specifically, that God called to Elijah “in the third year” of the drought to go to Ahab and announce the coming rain (1 Kings 18:1). As the number “three and a half” symbolically implies God’s judgment in apocalyptic literature (Rev. 11:2; 13:5), perhaps James finds theological significance in reporting the more specific length of the ancient drought. Also, we note that the OT narrative does not explicitly mention that Elijah prayed at the outset of the drought (1 Kings 17:1), but in light of his regular intercessory work as a prophet of Israel, it is a reasonable inference, confirmed by this inspired text.¹

5:19–20 Inevitably, any true Christian reading James’s letter will experience conviction of sin and a desire for confession, repentance, and restoration. Readers will also likely be reminded of those formerly within the Christian community who have strayed from the fold. James ends his letter with a loving exhortation not to neglect the straying sinner but to seek him out with love and truth.

Underlying James’s exhortation is a biblical understanding of perseverance. To “wander from the truth” (v. 19), never to return, proves that one never truly belonged to God (cf. 1 John 2:19). One of the means God has instituted to preserve his people is the loving brotherly concern Christians are to show to one another. As the wandering person is brought back to repentance, the “death” and “sins” referred to in James 5:20 most naturally refer to his sins that are now forgiven and his former visible trajectory toward death that has been arrested by the grace of God communicated through the body of Christ. Only God knows who is truly elect, so if a member of the Christian community begins to live as a nonbeliever, the only right thing to do is warn the person that, from all appearances, he is running toward eternal death. That very warning may be the instrument God uses to preserve his salvation.²