Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Is the practice continuing as per James 5:13?
but the practice seems to have been carried out by ordinary elders of the church.
Prayer for the sick, from afar, or at the bedside is something that continues after the Apostolic dispensation ceases.
No doubt, but it is ridiculous and reckless to suppose a special privilege in "elders" and a special gift to heal by anointing and laying on of hands, particularly where the cessation of the miraculous gift is presupposed.
But is this anointing intended to be anything other than an ordinary work of the church through which God may choose to work? I think you may be reading too much into the passage here. I do not see how the cessation of an apostolic gift would entail the cessation of a particular ordinance of apostolic origin that has no necessary connection with such a gift.
In the absence of an ordinary institution the "elders" are merely mimicking an apostolic gift and usurping authority they do not possess.
Except that James seems to be assuming this as an ordinary institution.
"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." It is tied to the miraculous gift.
"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." It is tied to the miraculous gift.
So prayer is no longer used of God as an instrument of healing? News to me.
The text speaks of an intermediary for both the prayer and the healing, namely, elders.
This is less than clear. I do not see anything more or less than the ordinary forms of intercessory prayer, with oil used on some occasions. We do believe that prayer over people on the part of the elders of the church is a biblical practice, don't we?
To clear up any confusion--
It is not the case that Calvin (and the Genevan Consistory) did not believe in the Visitation of the Sick for the purpose of prayer and ecnouragement. The Ecclesiastical Ordinances adopted in Geneva in 1541, in fact, required ministerial notification on the part of anyone taken to their bed for three or more days for that very purpose.
What Matthew cites here from the Institutes has particularly to do with Calvin's rejection of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction that has, since Vatican II, been renamed as the "Anointing of the Sick." Rome bases its sacramental theology of the administration of the so-called last rites on this passage in James and Calvin is zealous to refute that and to argue that there are only two dominical sacraments.
Because Calvin rejects the sacramental sense that Rome gave to the James' passage does not mean that he did not believe in visiting the sick and praying with and for them. The Ecclesiastical Ordinances also assigned special care of the sick, beyond or in addition to the ministerial visitation, to the deacons, acting both as procurators and hospitallers. Calvin and company, in other words, were quite active in caring for the sick, both by prayer and visitation and by active collecting and physical provision for the sick.
Peace,
Alan
Thomas Goodwin in his volume on Government of the Churches of Christ,
is at pains to dissociate James 5:14 from extreme unction and from the
miraculous gifts of healing eg, Mark 6:13. I will précis some of his treatment.
" this is not the anointing of Mark 6:13 which was a miraculous gift, but this is a standing
ordinance.All precepts in the James epistle concern the church for ever. The administration
is by elders, standing officers, which stand for ever. They do not have miraculous gifts.
The sick persons are members of the church, and have curable diseases. Miraculous
healing extended to all a sundry without distinction.
The healing is applied by means, oil, miraculous healing had no necessity ,eg Take up thy
bed and walk. The oil is added to confirm faith and the promise,"they shall be healed."
This is an ordinance to restore health, and forgiveness if there is any temporary guilt of particular sins
that provoked God's chastisement .
Believers should exercise a special faith and dependence in the use of this means for recovery.
This also is proof that only elders are to administer ordinances, as here they only are to anoint.
The elders are to be sent for. " (My addage-----which infers faith by the sick person in reliance
on the promise.)
Secondly, "the prayer of faith" is naturally understood as the faith of miracles. Without a word of revelation there is no basis for faith that a person shall be healed. In ordinary circumstances one prays for healing with the condition, If it be the Lord's will.
Certainly Sir. It is found in the Nichols series of Standard Divines and in Volume 11.
Chapter 11, Of the Annointing with oil. Pages 458-462. As I intimated, I precised or
condensed the substance. It is covered in his treatment on Government in the churches of Christ.