James Chapter Five, The Prayer of Faith

 

James 5:15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. [16] Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

 

The prayer of faith is a powerful tool in a saint’s arsenal. When King Hezekiah was told by Isaiah the prophet that God had pronounced his impending death, the king did not fail to immediately seek the Lord. “Then King Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord, and said, “Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly,” 2 Kings 20:2, 3. God’s response through the prophet was immediate and miraculous, 2 Kings 20:5, 6. Tears, it would seem, are prayers in proper context. When we grieve because of this present evil world and its effects upon creation, our Creator grieves beside us, John 11:33-35.

Intercessory prayer is effectual. James tells us that the Lord will raise the sick up; that is, He will restore their health. Forgiveness and healing are an interwoven narrative in Scripture. If the believer in question has sinned, then he is called upon to confess those sins to make healing or reconciliation possible. But forgiveness, human or divine, is not based on anything arbitrary. It is always, and will always, be based upon the sacrificial death of Jesus. In the upper room, when Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper, we read, “Drink from [the cup], all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for the remission of sins,” Matthew 26:28. Remission in this instance, when referring to what our Lord has done on our behalf, infers separation. In this case, separation of sin from the sinner. Though this act of paying for sin needed to be committed just once for all (John 19:30, Hebrews 10:10-14), forgiveness for sins (plural) was and is a normal occurrence for the saints, 1 John 1:9.

 

When Peter inquired of Jesus how often one must forgive the sins of a brother, the Lord answered with a very informative parable. Jesus likened the kingdom of heaven to a certain king who was settling accounts with his servants. One servant was summoned, and this poor soul owed his king ten thousand talents. If the servant represents fallen humanity (and he certainly does), then the amount owed represents sin’s debt symbolically. A denarius in that time constituted a day’s wages, while a talent was worth about six thousand denarii. In short, the servant owed his king 60,000,000 denarii. The servant was hopelessly indebted to the king. But the king’s compassion moved him to forgive the debt and set the man at liberty. Yet the servant accosted and threatened his fellow for an extremely meager slight by virtue of comparison: a measly 100 denarii, see Matthew 18:23-35. The moral of the story being that God’s forgiveness ought to inspire Christians to make forgiveness a virtue they desire supremely. Forgiveness ought to be practiced, and from forgiveness comes the fruit of genuine healing.

 

A good companion piece to these verses can be found in 1 John. John issues a cautionary note about a believer sinning, the nature of his sin and intercessory prayer. We read, “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that,” 1 John 5:16. John encourages intercessory prayer on behalf of one another when we sin a sin “not leading to death.” Discernment appears to be the key here, because John becomes quietly introspective, leaving the determination of attempting to intercede on behalf of a flagrantly sinning Christian to the individual. Jude concurs, telling us to save such people with fear, pulling them out of the fire, Jude 23.

 

That is precisely why James commands the saints to confess to one another. Acknowledging our sins to other Christians puts it out there in broad daylight. We who are confessed to can then come beside our ailing brother to support him. A sin confessed is a sin our brother longs to abandon but may need our prayer and support doing. Herein may provide the insight into the sin leading to death. A lifestyle of unrepentant sin, sin for which a brother in Christ refuses to relinquish, may be the sin leading to death. That is, physical death. We know that many sins such as sexual immorality, drunkenness, drug abuse, violent behavior, et al, can and do come with dire consequences. Left to their natural course death may result simply due to the believer’s pursuit of them. Or God may chasten a saint unto death as He did in the instance of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5:1-11.

 

Nonetheless it is reinforced to us that the prayer of the fervently righteous avails much. To be fervent is to be eager and enthusiastic. The righteousness mentioned of course is our adoptive righteousness as sons and daughters of God. That righteousness can be marred through sinful behavior, as our sin nature challenges the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in us. Sin creates an obstacle that prevents prayer from reaching God effectually, 1 Peter 3:7, Isaiah 59:2. Whereas Christ’s blood separates the sin from the believer, committing sin separates the believer from fellowship with God. The remedy? Confessing our sins one to another; not to a  special clergy, which is a concept foreign to the New Testament, but to each other. Then, with a conscience clear to approach God in the fullness of our faith, fervently pray to the God who hears. “To You who hear prayer, to You all flesh will come,” Psalm 65:2. “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him,” 1 John 5:14, 15.