Opportunity not only knocks, but sometimes it even breaks the
door down, but still we miss it. Such was the case in the sad story of
the great Viennese surgeon Dr. Lorenz. When he was in America
some years back he was flooded with more requests with help then he
could begin to meet. One woman who sought his help for her child
could not even make contact with him. Dr. Lorenz was in the habit
of taking a walk after lunch, and he instructed his chauffeur to come
after him if it should storm. One afternoon as he was walking it did
begin to rain. The woman who was seeking the doctors help went
out on her porch to put the wicker furniture in a safe place so it
would not get wet. While she was there an elderly gentleman came
up to the door half soaked. He asked if the could set on her porch
until the rain stopped.
In differently, she motioned him to a chair, and without a word
she left him and went into the house. After awhile a car stopped in
front and a chauffeur ran up to the porch with a rain coat and
umbrella, and he took the man with him. The woman who saw all
this paid no mind to it until she read the paper the next morning. An
article told of how the famous Dr. Lorenz was marooned in the rain
storm, and had take shelter on a strangers porch where he suffered
two chills. One from his damp clothing, and the other from the
woman of the house. The woman was shocked and ashamed. She
rushed to the hotel where Dr. Lorenz was staying only to learn that
he had left on a train that morning, and would never return. She
had lost her opportunity forever even though she had it at her
fingertips, and it was all because of her indifference. She neglected
to care for the needs of another, and in so doing she failed herself as
well.
This true story is more than a fact. It is a parable on the danger
that all of us face. It is the danger of being indifferent to the needs of
others, and, thereby, cutting ourselves off from the blessings of God.
One of the reasons why many churches and individual Christians do
not believe in, an experience the healing power of Christ is because
they have no great concern about His healing ministry in the lives of
others. They are indifferent to what Scripture teaches, and how the
early church applied it, and how it ought to be applied today. The
result of this is, though it is at our fingertips, we miss the opportunity
to see the Great Physician work in an through us.
We have established in the two previous messages that the New
Testament teaches that sickness is of the kingdom of evil, and that to
be delivered from it is a part of Christ's plan of salvation. This
means that the ministry of healing is as perpetual as the ministry of
the Gospel of the forgiveness of sin. This means that this passage in
James is not a mere fact of antiquity preserved only for the interest
of the curious. It is still God's Word to us today. It must still find
application and expression in our church, or we deliberately exclude
a part of its clear instruction. To neglect this portion of Scripture
because we are indifferent, or because we are ignorant, it is to reduce
ourselves to the level of those cults we delight in ridiculing because
they pick and choose which parts of the Bible they will stress, and
which they will ignore. We cannot ignore it, for we have an
obligation before God to understand it and obey it along with the rest
of Scripture. We want to examine it and strive to see how it applies
to us today.
In verse 14 we see the action of the sick Christian. The initiative
must come from the person who is ill. They are responsible for
calling in the aid which the church has to offer. They are to call the
elders of the church. The elders played a major role in the Old
Testament, and the office continued into the New Testament church.
They were basically the godly men of each congregation that were its
leaders. They governed, taught, visited the sick, and in every way
represented the church. Acts 14:23 says that Paul and Barnabas on
their first missionary journey ordained elders in every church.
Every church needed some leadership, and these were called elders.
The elders were more fundamental than the concept of deacons,
for deacons were not needed in every church for specific ministry as
they were in the church in Jerusalem. Not every church would have
a problem of Greek widows not getting the proper care. The elders
would handle this if the need arose. The elders in the New Testament
are just about equivalent to what we call the official board. All who
are elected to office should be able to fulfill the role described here.
When a Jew was sick he went to the Rabbi or the priest. Jesus,
you recall, sent the 10 lepers to the priest, and they were healed on
the way. Only the priest could pronounce them clean, and restore
them to society as in the Old Testament, so in the New Testament
God's people were united in all things around His Word. They took
care of one another, and they were like an island in a sea of
paganism. There was a clear distinction between the world and the
church. It was a totally different setting than what we have today
where the church and secular society are interdependent.
We no longer pool our goods as the church did at Pentecost. We
no longer have deacons delivering groceries as a regular ministry.
We no longer do hardly any of the work of welfare that the church
once did. The government now does this, and has taken this ministry
almost entirely out of the churches hands. Some larger churches still
do quite a bit, but the average church no longer plays the role it did
in New Testament times. Because of this people no longer look to the
church, but to secular society, for their needs. This is true for
healing as well. When this passage is applied in a Christian home it
is usually only after the doctor has been called, and the problem is
beyond his ability to cure. If he can cure it, Christians never even
give a thought to getting the church involved in healing.
All of us do this. We get medicine to get through our sicknesses.
We could not imagine calling the church, for who there knows
anything about medicine? We will take a doctor over a deacon any
day, and I believe that God would have us do so. But does this mean
the church is now irrelevant to the whole matter of healing? Must
we give up this ministry completely, and leave it to the medical
profession? If we do so, it is not totally bad, for the wisdom and skill
of the doctor is a direct and indirect benefit of the church of Christ.
The whole ministry of compassion for the suffering of man has
grown out of the compassion of Christ, and the healing ministry of
the church. Hospitals, nursing, and the search for medicine have all
come from the church. The church has lifted the whole world to a
higher level of concern for man's health.
The benefits of healing that we receive through non-Christian
doctors and secular institutions are still benefits gained by the grace
of God and the love of Christ. The Christian is not in any way
opposed to the use of medicine in healing. But the Christian does not
stop there, for he seeks spiritual resources as well as physical. The
ideal will be a Christian doctor who represents the church and the
medical profession, and who uses, as the elders did, both prayer and
medicine. The elders were to come and pray, and anoint with oil.
Both physical and spiritual resources were used. The oil had both
physical and symbolical value.
Galen, the famous Greek doctor, said, "Oil is the best of all
medicines." The use of oil was equivalent to our use of medication.
It was the best they had in that day. Jesus sent out the 70, and Mark
6:13 says, "They anointed with oil many who were sick and healed
them." When Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan He said
in Luke 10:34 that He, "Bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and
wine." Jesus recognized the medical power of oil and healing. Jesus
recommended the use of the best physical medicine you can acquire.
Oil was used by Christians and non-Christians alike. Emperors even
bathed in oil when they were sick. There are testimonies of the use of
oil for healing into the fourth and fifth centuries.
This means that by calling the elders to anoint with oil one was
doing what is equivalent today of calling a doctor and getting a
prescription. Since oil is no longer the best medicine we have, it
would be foolish to use oil for all ills. Applied to our age this text
would simply support the role that medication plays in fighting
sickness.
Dr. Luke certainly used medicine as well as prayer to heal in his
day. Medical missionaries go forth with various medicines rather
than oil, healing the masses as they go. There is no reason to suppose
that any of this is a sub-Christian ministry because they do not use
oil. Medical help is important to the Christian, and no one has any
biblical reason to reject what can be gained through medical help.
Does this mean that the church no longer has a ministry growing out
of this passage because the medical world can do it better? Not at all,
for it is the symbolical and spiritual that is the source of power in this
passage. The prayer is the source of the healing power, and the faith
of the sick in the love and forgiveness of Christ. Spiritual healing is
the great ministry of the church, and this need has not changed at all.
So much sickness is psychosomatic, that is, it is in the body but
caused by a mind filled with guilt. The cause is spiritual, and so a
real healing must also be spiritual. This can only come from Christ.
Just about everything you can think of can be caused by the mind.
The anointing with oil becomes a symbol of the Holy Spirit. It
becomes a point of contact by which the sick person can let their
faith flow out and receive the healing power of Christ's forgiveness.
The church does not compete with medicine in spiritual healing.
We only reach to a depth of a persons being that medicine can never
reach. Our world needs this kind of healing. It has made great
advances in the medical field, but the church still has the greatest
resource for spiritual healing, and that is what this passage in James
is all about. We can dodge this passage, and just say pray for
yourself in faith and forget the calling of the elders. The question is,
why didn't James leave it at that, and why didn't the early church?
James says that the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord
will raise him up and forgive his sins, will He not do so without all of
this bother? We are trying to use the same reasoning as Naaman
did when he was asked to dip seven times in the Jordan. He said he
had better rivers back home, and so why all this bother?
Why God does things the way He does is usually for the very good
reason of calling forth the faith of man through action. God uses
means, and Jesus used means, and James says the church is to use
means in spiritual healing. It is not for us to ask if it might not be
done differently, but to seek to fulfill that which is established by
God as a way of doing it. If we want to see the power of Christ in
spiritual healing, we must be prepared to admit it when we are
neglecting the revealed means, and then get busy in making provision
to obey what is revealed to us here in James 5.
