Verse 15b
James adds these words to the end of verse 15: “And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
Not only is God able to heal physically but more importantly he is also able to forgive our sins. And when James writes these words (along with his words in verse 16 in which he says, “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” James does something that might make us uncomfortable: he says that there are times that there is a connection between our personal sin and our current physical sickness.
When we read both the Old and New testament, there are several times that a connection is made between sin and sickness.
1 Corinthians 11, Paul addresses a specific area of disobedience that some of the people in the church in Corinth were committing and Paul says in verse 30, this “is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.” Paul makes a connection between personal sin and personal sickness even death. Jesus also makes the connection. In John 5, Jesus tells a man he just healed, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
King David tells us in Psalm 32 of how unconfessed sin can impact us. It impacts us not only spiritually but emotionally and even physically. David writes, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away…” This idea of his body wasting away could be a sickness that God has brought out of discipline or it could be the sickness/physical pain that could come because of the guilt of unrepentant sin.
Have you ever experienced the guilt of sin and it was just weighing on you. It was eating you up inside. Studies how shown that guilt can lead to physical sickness: headaches, backaches, digestive issues, muscle tension, and problems with sleep.
Now does this mean that every sickness or health issue is the result of personal sin or unconfessed sin. No. But during the time that Jesus was on the earth, many Jews automatically made that assumption. This was the assumption of the disciples.
In the Gospel of John, John records an event where the disciples passed a blind man and the disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
We read those words and we can be appalled at the question. How could the disciples even ask something like that? Guys, don’t you know how inappropriate that is—our insensitive that it.
The disciples asked that question because they had a theology about the fallen nature of man that was partially correct. They thought personal sickness, physical issues (like blindness) was always the result of personal sin. And Jesus corrects them and says, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
And Jesus healed the man giving an opportunity for God to be glorified.
Now it is interesting that Jesus (knowing they had a wrong understanding of sin and sickness) doesn’t say, hey, personal sin isn’t the cause of sickness. No, instead, he simply states that personal sin wasn’t the cause of this man’s physical issues.
I would imagine that most of the time our personal sickness is simply the result of living in a fallen world. We have imperfect bodies in this world that are aging and dying in a world full of diseases. But our seasons of sickness should at least give us an opportunity to examine our hearts and say, “is there sin that I need to confess.” And I would imagine that is not the first thought that comes into our mind.
I was with a man not too long ago who had been recently been diagnosed with cancer and he asked me this question, “could this cancer be the result of my own sin.”
How would you respond if someone asked you that question?
It is a question that makes us want to quickly respond, “No! Don’t blame yourself.” Sickness and death come to the righteous and the unrighteous, the faithful and the faithless. It is the reality of living in a fallen world. And yet as the man rightly observed, there are times Scripture does indicate a connection between sin and sickness.
I told the man it’s a good question. Scripture does say there are times that there is a connection between our sin and our sickness. And I appreciated his vulnerability in even asking that question. And I encouraged him to use this opportunity to bring yourself before God in humility and pray David’s bold prayer in Psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” It is certainly appropriate to use those circumstances to examine your life before God.
And so in this passage on prayer where James is calling those who are sick to prayer and have others to prayer over them, he is also asking them to examine their own lives. This is why James say,” Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
The healing James is speaking of here is both a spiritual healing and a physical healing. The confession and repentance of sin brings us back into a right relationship with God and back into a restored relationship with the one we have hurt in our sin.
When we sin, we first and foremost sin against God. David acknowledged this in his prayer of repentance in Psalm 51:4 where David writes, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…” David is not saying he didn’t hurt others in his sin. In fact, one of his sins he is confessing is that he had Bathsheba’s husbands killed. But what David is saying is that sin is a sin because it is disobeying God’s holy standard. Now that disobedience before God may come about because of how we treated someone people.
This is where we confess our sins to one another where we hurt someone in our disobedience to God. This is the confession that James is referring to. When our sin has hurt someone else, broken the relationship with someone else we need to go to that brother or sister and restore that relationship. There is joy and freedom in the confession of sin. But as James is also implying, there may be physical healing that comes through unconfessed sin.
And then James says we have the privilege of praying for one another. If you seek to restore a relationship with one you have hurt, the one who has been hurt now has the responsibility and the privilege of praying for the one confessing. When we pray for one another, we are drawing along side each other. While unconfessed sin separates, the confession of sin repairs and unites, build ups, restores and brings together.
And we also have the privilege of praying for people who are sick even if it is not a sin issue. We have the privilege of entering into the work of intercessory prayer praying on behalf of someone.
Verse 16
Now sometimes the topic of sickness here can side track us from the primary focus of this passage which is prayer. That is what James brings us back to at the end of verse 16. And at the end of this verse he adds these words: “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” Your translation may say the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
I believe with this statement, James is circling us back to verse 13 and the beginning of this passage. And he is reminding us why we are to pray when we are suffering and cheerful and sick. He is reminding us why we are to be people of prayer in all circumstances. And the reason is: prayer is powerful and effective.
Verse 16 is a foundational verse to me when it comes to the ministry of prayer. Verse 16 is a verse that is on the forefront of my mind when I enter into prayer reminding me this is not a casual act but rather a powerful act. Verse 16 shapes my theology about the ministry of God’s people causing me to fervently believe that the first ministry of the church is the ministry of prayer. The man or woman of God who desires to be effective in the work of Kingdom of God is a man or women of prayer.
Now James doesn’t just say prayer is powerful but the prayer of a “righteousness” person is powerful. And this is where many people say, ‘Oh, I am disqualified and will never experience the power of prayer.”
But the word righteous here is simply referring to one who does what is right before God. One who is walking in obedience to God. And so as a Christian, even though I have been forgiven of my sins through Christ and been given the righteousness of Christ, I can still find myself in a place of disobedience where I am not living right before God. That is the righteousness that James is referring to – living right before God.
When we are disobedient before God, Scripture tells us that our sin can actual hinder our prayer life.
1 Peter 3:12, “For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And His ears attend to their prayer, But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” (1 Peter 3:12)
Psalm 66:18 says, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”
That does not mean that God does not literally hear your prayer, it means that before we can have the joy of entering into and seeing the power of God’s work through prayer, we need to first be walking in obedience to God. If we are in rebellion toward God, not seeking the will or desires of God then we can’t expect to see the works of God because we aren’t seeking or desiring God.
But the prayer of one walking in obedience, seeking the will of God will see the works and blessings of God. The one walking in obedience to God will be praying according to the will of God and they will see God at work through them in ways that are powerfully and effectively accomplishing the purposes of God.
Verses 17-18
James gives us the example of the prophet Elijah who prayed that it would not rain in Israel. This was a part of God’s judgment on Israel because Israel had turned away from God. And so God is inviting Elijah into His work and Elijah obeys God and prays that it would not rain. And in describing this event, James begins by saying, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours” meaning Elijah was a human like we are human. Elijah wasn’t a superhero. He did not have some special powers that caused it not to rain. Elijah, like you and I, must live dependent on God relying on God and God alone to work.
When we look at people from the Bible and we see God work through them in supernatural, miraculous ways we tend to think that maybe there was something special about them. But the only thing that was special about them is they were willing to trust God. Nothing that they did that was miraculous or supernatural came from them but they were trusting in a God who was able.
And so James reminds us that even though Elijah was a prophet and a significant figure in Israel’s history, he was an ordinary man trusting in an all-powerful, all-mighty, extraordinary God believing out of obedience that God is able to do what God says he can do. And so Elijah prayed a prayer of faith that it would not rain and it did not rain and then three years later it prayer it would rain and it did.
What is the point of this illustration? We have also been invited into the work of God. A work that is often evident when we enter into the ministry of prayer. A work that we get to be a part of through prayer. Now there is a mystery to prayer. Am I changing the will of God through prayer? Am causing God to do something that he was not going to do? I don’t believe so. But I do believe that God delights in using his people for his purposes and he gives us the privilege to enter into his work through prayer. He allows us to see his power through prayer.
And I believe that when we see God’s people praying we will also see God’s power at work.
This is why I believe the first ministry of the church is prayer. And this is also why I believe that whatever God is going to choose to do through this church right here it will begin with God’s people praying believing that God is able.
The apostle Paul understood this which is why his own prayer for the church in Ephesus was this: “Now to (God) who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”