themselves to faith cures and divine healing, it would have been inconsistent for Luke as a Christian to practice his profession, especially upon his companions in service.

25. So from the above facts what do we conclude we may and may not do?

²⁵ From these Scriptural facts we rightly conclude that, when we fall sick or certain ailments come on us with age, we may turn to natural methods of cure, or medical remedies. We may resort to doctors of whatever school seems to us to be the best. We may go to sanatoria or to hospitals or have a surgical operation. Such curative methods are not barred to a Christian of faith. We need not delay the proper treatment or care of ourselves by praying and waiting upon miraculous divine healing. It would be wrong to pray and wait for an answer to such a prayer. Why? First, because such healing is not for believers themselves and, second, because such gift of healing by the holy spirit has passed away. To apply to faith healers would do us a spiritual injury, because these carry on their profession, not by power of God’s spirit, but by the Deceiver’s power. Their teachings and works prove they do so. If they understood the Scriptures they would not be in that business.

The Prayer of Faith During Sickness

1, 2. What shows whether James 5:13-15 speaks about spiritual sickness?

THE disciple James speaks about the prayer of faith for the sick. Does he not contradict what has been said above? Let us examine his words on this: “Is there anyone suffering evil among you? Let him carry on prayer. Is there anyone in good spirits? Let him sing psalms. Is there anyone sick among you? Let him call the older men of the congregation to him, and let them pray over him, rubbing him with oil in the name of Jehovah. And the prayer of faith will make the indisposed one well, and Jehovah will raise him up. Also if he has committed sins, it will be forgiven him.”—Jas. 5:13-15, NW.

² The context makes it clear that James is here talking, not of physical, but of spiritual sickness. He first mentions suffering evil. That refers to “suffering evil for the good news according to the power of God”. It means enduring some hardships for serving as a Christian witness of God and keeping one’s integrity toward God. (2 Tim. 1:8, NW) So, if one is suffering thus, let him carry on prayer so as to be helped to continue faithful, advises James. But, James, what if anyone is in good spirits? “Let him sing psalms.” Doing so, he edifies himself and those hearing him. But what if anyone is not in good spirits? In other words, what if one is sick spiritually? The fact that James contrasts being sick with being in good spirits plainly indicates he is dealing with spiritual and not physical sickness. The course of treatment he now recommends also argues it is spiritual sickness. The older men of the congregation, who are full-grown in the faith and full of wisdom from above and acquainted with God’s instructions, are the proper ones for the spiritually sick one to call in. If he were ailing physically, he would call in a doctor, if he could afford it, or would resort to some medicinal remedy.

3. Why were the older brothers to pray over the sick?

³ What are the older men of the congregation to do with the one sick spiritually? They are to pray over him, so that he can hear what they pray and can show he agrees, with his “Amen!” He has fallen into such a spiritual state that he cannot properly pray on his own accord any more. Not able to ask in faith and with an unwavering mind, he has no confidence in his own prayer. (Jas. 1:6, 7) Something has brought on this spiritual illness. The older men must ascertain what this is. Paul, too, refers to this kind of sickness and tells one cause, the improper celebration of the Lord’s evening meal or Memorial supper. “For he that eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment against himself if he does not discern the body. That is why many among you are weak and sickly and quite a few are sleeping in death. But if we would discern what we ourselves are, we would not be judged.” (1 Cor. 11:29-31, NW) Those in this condition were not keeping unity with the Christian congregation, the body of Christ. So Paul as an older brother wrote them for their help and spiritual cure.

4. In what way is it that they rub the sick with oil?

⁴ The older men of the congregation are not merely to pray with the spiritually sick. They must also rub him with oil in the name of Jehovah. Not literal oil, like the so-called “extreme unction” of Catholics, or like that described at Mark 6:13. The “oil” here is the soothing word of instruction from the Holy Scriptures and it restores the spiritually sick one to unity with the Christian congregation which is in God’s favor. As it is written: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard; that came down upon the skirt of his garments.” (Ps. 133:1, 2, AS) Speaking of oil to symbolize refreshment and soothing, Psalm 23:5 (Mo) says: “Thou hast poured oil upon my head, my cup is brimming over.” The healthful effect of God’s message is described at Proverbs 15:30 in this way: “Good tidings make the bones fat.” (AS) And the correction which leads to spiritual health is described as soothing and curative by the psalmist when he says: “Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be as oil upon the head; let not my head refuse it.” (Ps. 141:5, AS) And that it denotes a means of healing is shown when the good Samaritan poured oil along with wine into the wounds of the man waylaid by robbers. (Luke 10:34) So the older men of the congregation are to rub the spiritually sick one with oil in the sense of stimulating him with the soothing, healing, comforting, corrective Word of God.

5. How do they do this “in the name of Jehovah”? And with what effect?

⁵ In the name of Jehovah they are to do this. That is to say, in faithfulness to Jehovah God and according to his purpose, so as to aid the spiritually ill one to recover and have a part anew in vindicating God’s name and proving the Devil a false god and liar. Those older men must pray in faith, believing that God’s Word is right and has power to help the sick one to see the error of his way and to recognize the right way. Such a united prayer of faith, together with the invigorating application of God’s Word, will make the spiritually indisposed person well. It will build up his confidence in God’s promise and in the rightness of God’s Word and way, and will restore him to that way. Thus “Jehovah will raise him up”, giving him strength to go in the way of truth and righteousness, and lifting him up out of his despondency and a feeling of being abandoned by God. His spiritual illness may have been due to getting into the bad habit of neglecting to meet with God’s people or due to failing to feed regularly on God’s Word and active service. Or he may have committed some serious sins for which he has been put out of favorable relationship with God and his organization. But now if he responds to the prayer offered unitedly by older men of faith and to their healthful stimulation of reproof, correction and exhortation from God’s Word, and turns around and resumes the right way, what sins he has committed will then be forgiven him. This forgiveness is not on the basis of any self-righteousness in him, but is on the basis of Jesus’ righteous sacrifice for sins.—1 John 1:7 to 2:2.

CONFESSION

6. To whom may we then confess our sins? Is prayer of value then?

⁶ Hence, in direct contrast with the secret confessional carried on by some religious systems, James instructs us: “Therefore openly confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may get healed. A righteous man’s supplication when it is at work has much force.” (Jas. 5:16, NW) Since the illness is connected with sins, it is apparent that the unhealth is spiritual, not physical. Otherwise, the sinners against God would all be in states of serious bodily disease or sickness. But such is not the case. Oftentimes worldly sinners are in far better physical health than faithful servants and witnesses of Jehovah God. To illustrate the powerfulness of prayers by the righteous man, not a sin-sick man, James calls to mind Elijah’s prayer: “Elijah was a man with feelings like ours, and yet in prayer he prayed for it not to rain, and it did not rain upon the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the land put forth its fruit.” (Jas. 5:17, 18, NW) The land of Israel was smitten with drought and famine because the nation was spiritually sick and out of harmony with Jehovah God. Elijah called for the fire test to demonstrate that Jehovah is God, and when the people at Mount Carmel acknowledged this and shouted, “Jehovah, he is God,” and then turned the demonized prophets of Baal over to be executed, Elijah prayed for rain upon their land. It came. In unshakable faith he prayed seven times for this miracle of rain. Prayer works.

7. By such prayer how are those confessing sins healed? What does this restoration save misled ones from?

⁷ So by praying for those who are spiritually sick and who plain-spokenly confess their sins to us and seek our spiritual aid they “may get healed”, spiritually so. This saves them from lapsing into spiritual death which would end up in their destruction from all future life. In their case Almighty God would destroy “both soul and body in Gehenna”. (Matt. 10:28, NW) To encourage us to thus help brothers who are spiritually ailing and in danger of fearful consequences, James ends up his letter with this powerful reminder: “My brothers, if anyone among you is misled from the truth [this resulting in spiritual illness] and another turns him back, know that he who turns a sinner back from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” (Jas. 5:19, 20, NW) Those sins which the spiritually sick person confessed and from which you prayed for him to be healed will be covered over. God will remember them no more, but will renew his peaceful relations with the returned sinner. It is by the sin-canceling blood of Jesus that the sins are thus covered over, but your prayer helped to move the divine arrangement of things to such a result. For such a privilege of lifesaving service you can be very thankful.

“A THORN IN THE FLESH”

8, 9. May we pray about our physical sickness? How did Paul go about it?

⁸ But are we not also privileged to pray to God in our physical sickness and speak to him about it? Yes, we are. But we are not to pray for divine healing. The day for that is past. That gift of the spirit passed away with the decease of the apostles and their immediate associates. Furthermore, this miraculous healing was to be a sign to outsiders and to be performed upon them. It was not to be used for the selfish comfort of the faithful believers. True Christians, the servants of Jehovah God, do get physically sick. His own Word testifies to that. The apostle Paul had some physical affliction, which he likened to a “thorn in the flesh”. Did he pray about it? Or, so highly gifted as he was, did he miraculously pluck this thorn out of his flesh himself, or did God do it for him with divine power? Hear Paul’s own testimony:

⁹ “No one should put to my credit more than what he sees I am or he hears from me, just because of the excess of the revelations. Therefore, that I might not be overly exalted, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan, to keep striking me, that I might not be overly exalted. In this behalf I three times entreated the Lord that it might depart from me; and yet he really said to me: ‘My undeserved kindness is sufficient for you; for my power is being made perfect in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, will I rather boast as respects my weaknesses, that the power of the Christ may like a tent remain over me. Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in insults, in cases of need, in persecutions and difficulties, for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am powerful.”—2 Cor. 12:6-10, NW.

10, 11. What may have been Paul’s “thorn”, according to some indications?

¹⁰ What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh? Some think it may have been poor eyesight or a pussy affliction of the eye. This may have been a hang-over from the three days of blindness with which Jesus struck him down when, as Saul of Tarsus, he was on his way to Damascus to extend his violent persecution to Christians there. To stop Saul abruptly and to convince him instantly that Christ was resurrected to heavenly glory and that it was the followers of the living, glorified Christ whom Saul of Tarsus was persecuting, Jesus miraculously appeared to him in the way to Damascus. But while not being killed by the vision or having his eyes burnt out of their sockets, he had to pay dearly for it. It was only by another miracle that his eyesight was restored. But likely to only a limited degree.—Acts 9:1-19.

¹¹ Paul seems to refer to dim eyesight when he writes the Galatians: “I bear you witness that, if it had been possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me.” This, too, may be why he added this line to them: “See with what large letters I have written you with my own hand.” (Gal. 4:15; 6:11, NW) For that reason, too, it may be that he dictated most of his letters. Poor eyesight seems to be betrayed when in the Jewish court