Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

God (or the appropriate human agency), personal confession and community
confrontation, are all essential, never as a man-made cause to a mandetermined
effect, but certainly as the God-ordained means to the Godordained
end. Still as such God-ordained means their operational presence is
indispensable for any profit, sheer profit, both temporal and eternal, to materialize!
To be sure, “I cannot make the flow of heavenly life happen, but I can
stop it. If I refuse to be an open conduit for God’s power to come into a person,
it will stop” (Richard Foster, quoted in Nystrom, 317). In short, if the
heavenly flow is present, I have only God to thank. If it is absent, I have only
myself to blame! A truly and thoroughly biblical reminder that is worth turning
to on a daily basis, if not more frequently!
b. Effectiveness of a God-centered Attitude (5:15-18)
(15) And the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the
Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sin, he will be
forgiven. (16) So confess your sins to each other, and pray for
each other, so that you would be healed. The energized prayer
of a righteous man is very powerful. (17) Elijah was a human
being just like we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not
rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six
months. (18) And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain
and the earth produced its fruit.
(1) Power of Prayer (5:15-16)
According to James, the prayer of faith will “save” the sick. The word “save”
in this, as well as other contexts, means “restore to health” (Mt. 9:21-22; Mk.
5:34; 6:56; 10:52; see also Burdick, 181), even if in the two previous times
that this term occurs in James (Jam. 1:21 and 2:14) it signifies spiritual salvation.
372 Similarly, the phrase, “the Lord will raise him up,” aims at physical
recovery as well (Mt. 8:15; 9:5-7; Mk. 1:31; 2:9,12; 3:3; 5:41; 10:49; Lk.
5:23-24; 7:14; 8:54; John 5:8; 11:29) (See also Nystrom, 307). At times it is
viewed as a precursor and proof of the spiritual salvation in Jesus (Acts 3:16;
4:10-12.). But it should not be identified with the latter.
Note the following considerations in the explanation of James 5:15.
372 According to Brosend, 154, “The term ‘save’ (sozo) is used almost interchangeably in the
NT for healing (e.g., Mk. 6:56), physical deliverance (e.g., Acts 27:20), spiritual salvation
(e.g., John 3:17), and the occasional fascinating mix of all three (e.g., Mk. 5:34).” Furthermore,
“The uses of egeiro extend from ‘waking up’ (Mk. 4:27) to the resurrection from the
dead (1 Cor. 15:15); it is also used for physical healing (John 5:8).” And finally, “The overtones,
however, of combining sozo and egeiro are decidedly soteriological.”
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