James 5

1. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. 2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is 3 cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as 4 it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, erieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 5 Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, 6 as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist 7 you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husband- man waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he re- 8 ceive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming 9 of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be con- demned: behold, the judge stanceth before the door. 10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an ex- 11 ample of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is 12 very pitiful, and of tender mercy. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and 13 your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation. Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. 14 Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have 16 committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man 17 availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnest- ly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and 18 six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth 19 her fruit. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him 20 know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

THERE is no more contradiction between a fixed order of laws and special answers to our asking, than there is between a general household arrangement for their children’s good on the part of earthly parents, and their daily favors granted in answer to particular requests. Through all this stable and mighty system of irreversible decrees—laws of growth and decay, summer and winter, evening and morning, centripetal and centrifugal forces, regimen and health, cause and consequence—there plays for ever the silent presence of God, the unrestricted action of God’s free will. So has he built the world, and organized its constitution. The balance of these two forces—law and liberty—is the wonder of the universe, the supernal sign set upon it. Before we pray, he is love itself; yet he hears the prayer, and sends a blessing that could not have come without. The uniform shelter of laws that we can rely upon in our every-day business is merciful; and so are those direct, impressive tokens of his listening spirit, which make a part of the experience of devout souls that no reasoning can take away. His care extends to your lowly path each morning from street to street, as much as to the august pilgrimage of Arcturus along the “streets of stars,” or to the rise and fall of empires, or the reformation that liberates nations. Believing this, I can no more hesitate to ask a divine direction for the details of my common life than for the salvation of my soul. What companions I shall be thrown among, what tasks I shall have brought me to do, what difficulties I shall have to encounter, what misunderstandings and consequent alienations I shall be rescued from, what words I shall be inwardly prompted to speak, what temptations I may be spared each time I go out of my house or return to it—these, and all the class of events they belong to, are the very material out of which salvation or ruin is wrought; and so they are fit subjects of prayer. They are things wherein God answers. For over the motions of heart and mind—others as well as my own—he holds an unceasing control. And if you watch the history of almost any hour, you will see many junctures in it where two ways parted before you, and the choice was more with God than yourself. In this spirit, and with this faith, a Christian will find no difficulty in asking for earthly good. If he does it regarding its moral connections and influences on character, it is lawful, reverent prayer; such prayer as was often on the lips of righteous men of old, and had signal answers: such prayer as James enjoins, citing Elijah as an example. F. D. H.

1-6. The first six verses are not so much an admonition as a denunciation, wherein the apostle does not so much direct them what to do as fordell what should be done to them, that the godly might be encouraged to the more patience under their oppressions; for that James infers plainly in the seventh verse.

2,3. They would hoard up their goods and money, and suffer them to be eaten out by moths and dust, and thus to be corrupted or perish without any profit at all, rather than lay them out for good uses. God gave wealth, not that men should be hoarders, but dispensers. Covetousness brings the curse of God upon the estates of men. He sends corruption and the rust and the moth. There is nothing in the end gotten by rapine or tenacity, by greedy getting or close withholding. Learn then the meaning of that gospel riddle, that he that will save must lose; and the best way of bringing in, is laying out!

7. Be patient.** The word “patient” is put for long-suffering, which is a further degree of patience; for patience is a sense of afflictions without murmuring and of injuries without revenge; but long-suffering is patience extended and lengthened out to that which our apostle calls its perfect work. T. M.—God is patient because he is eternal; if by his grace we imbibe something of the spirit of the Eternal One, we must then also in long-suffering patience show ourselves his children, bearing his image. God’s work in us and through us stretches from eternity to eternity, and it is completed in the restless but appointed waiting of seconds. Van O.

The husbandman has long patience—must have it—till he receives the early and the latter rain. “The winter frost must mellow the seed lying in the genial bosom of the earth; the rains of spring must swell it, and the suns of summer mature it.” So with us. And God is not unjust that he should forget our labor of love. We shall reap all that we have sown, and more than we sowed. For “he that giveth seed to the husbandman, and bread to the eater,” will “multiply” the seed we have sown, and give us to eat of the fruit of our toils. Let us be patient, therefore; let us be steadfast, and stablish our hearts before him. Cox.

8. The coming of the Lord.** This great event is constantly represented in the New Testament as near, and the view is natural and true. Never does the meeting with a beloved friend come so close to us as when we have just parted from him. It is moreover, in the New Testament, the great event that towers above every other. The heaven that gives back Christ gives back all we have loved and lost, solves all doubts and ends all sorrows. It may surely be for us to consider whether our removal of Christ’s coming farther from us in feeling does not arise from a less vivid impression of its reality and surpassing moment. Such views depend in no way upon peculiar opinions regarding his advent, for the longing expectancy of his appearance should be as common to all Christians as is their hope, and a thousand years are as a day to the grand event which opens everlasting life. At the same time there is included in the view of Christ’s coming the thought of our own death, which brings each one of us close up to his second advent, whensoever it may be. Ker.

10. Two ways are the prophets an example to us: in their sufferings and in their patience. Their sufferings are mentioned to allay discontent; their patience to stir up imitation. “Let us be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Never any went to heaven but these two graces were first exercised, faith and patience: faith in expectation of the future reward; patience in sustaining the present inconveniences.

11. We count them happy which endure.** We that are enlightened by the Spirit of God. God’s people and the people of the world have different principles: the spirit of the world and the spirit of God; they have different lights and rules: that of faith and that of sense. All the beatitudes are affixed to conditions of humiliation or suffering. Happy are they that endure, and thrice happy they that “endure unto the end.” God has promised bountifully to reward patient endurance. There is a blessing in hand, but more in hope.

The patience of Job. In all the expressions of his patience, two are notable, which run through every vein of the whole book, his advancing God, and debasing himself. Good thoughts of God, lower thoughts of himself. In all your affliction, then, look upon this spectacle of misery and example of patience! T. M.—As the Lord sustained him under the tremendous trial, so in due time he took his servant out of it. If Job was very patient, the Lord was very pitiful; and the same tender mercy which tempered the trial was in haste to end it. As if from some huge horn of plenty, there poured on his lot unprecedented blessings, and, along with doubled flocks and herds, the seven sons and three daughters came again. And like those stars which take a sudden start, and burn with a broader luster than of yore, Job in his mellow age, and the Lord in his gracious ending, say to every mourner, “Be patient; the Lord is very pitiful.” And it is not so much the patriarch’s patience as the Lord’s piteousness that we perceive. The patriarch’s history is fitted to show the afflicted not so much Job the mourner’s model as the Lord the mourner’s friend. Hamilton.

12. Swear not.** The nation of the Jews were guilty of three things: frequent swearing; swearing by the creatures; breaking these oaths as not binding and valid; for the Jews, so that they did omit the great oath, thought they were safe. Swearing properly is an act of worship—it is a solemn appeal to the omniscient God; and, therefore, it must be only done in weighty cases. “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and swear by his name” (Deut. 6: 13). T. M.—Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay. He proposes the best remedy for the correction of the vice which he is censuring; namely, that mankind should accustom themselves to truth and constancy in all their words and actions. Since the perfidy, or levity, of man is the source whence the pernicious practice of swearing issues, James, in order to correct the latter vice, warns us that the former ought to be removed.

For the reason of a cure ought to begin from the cause. Calv.

13. We should make use of the present condition; of sadness, to put us upon prayer; of gladness, to put us upon thanksgiving. The apostle shows the chiefest season for singing sacred songs—it is when we are “merry”—but does not mean that to be the only time for the performance of that duty; for, as prayer is to be practiced at other times besides seasons of affliction (though then most needful), so also singing is not only useful when we are merry, but sometimes to beget spiritual joy, and to divert our sadness. Paul and Silas sang in prison; and the disciples sang a hymn after the supper of the Lord, though our Lord was shortly after to suffer. In that sad hour they sang.

14. Anointing with oil.** Oil among the Hebrews was a symbol of the divine grace, and so fitly used as a sign of that power and grace of the Spirit which was put forth in miraculous healing. As long as the gift remained, the accustomed rite and symbol might be used. But he couples it with prayer, which is an act of perpetual worship. In the apostles’ time it was promiscuously used and applied to every member of the Church, but with great prudence and caution; for the apostles only anointed those of whose recovery they were assured by the Holy Ghost. James here seems to restrain it to such an object, where they could pray in faith, for the effect did not depend upon the anointing, but the prayer of faith. The rite ceased when the gift ceased, which God has taken from the world these fifteen hundred years (1644). Gifts of healing are coupled with other miraculous gifts, and ceased when they ceased.

15. He does not mention the anointing, but “the prayer of faith,” to show that this is the standing spiritual means of cure, the other being but an arbitrary rite suited to those times. In primitive times, when miracles were in their full force and vigor, the effect is always ascribed to faith. The efficacy of faith in the use of means is not from its own merit, but from God’s power and grace. The apostle says, faith saveth, but adds, “the Lord shall raise him up.” Faith is but the instrument. It is a grace that has no merit in itself; it is the empty hand of the soul, and deputed to such high services because it looks to all from God. Christ is the true physician. His acts, when upon earth, in taking away sickness, were types of taking away sin. He had “power on earth to forgive sin also”; is his power in heaven less? Truly there is forgiveness with him and plentious redemption.

16. There is a season for confessing our sins, not only to God, but to man. Sometimes it may be well to confess our faults to some prudent minister or praying friend, that they may help us to plead with God for mercy and pardon. In like manner it may be of good use to Christians to disclose their peculiar weaknesses and infirmities to one another, where there are confidential intimacies and friendships; and where they may help each other by their prayers to obtain pardon of their sins, and power against them. Those who make confession of their faults one to another should thereupon pray with and for one another. The thirteenth verse of this chapter directs persons to pray for themselves. The fourteenth verse directs to seek for the prayers of ministers; and here in the sixteenth verse are directions for private Christians to pray one for another. So that here we have all sorts of prayer recommended to us! T. M.

Pray one for another. No wonder that the heart of man should feel strangely yet sweetly at home in the region of spiritual intervention; no wonder that intercession for others, which is but the practical extension of the atonement, the pouring out of one human soul for another in prayer, even as Christ’s soul was poured forth for the world in agony and death, should become the natural language of every heart whose highest energies divine grace has touched and kindled into life. Intercession is the mother-tongue of the whole family of Christ. Koble.—Seek to make your prayers for others specific, as far as your knowledge of their character and circumstances allows. Bring before your mind their trials and their needs, and endeavor to place yourself in their point of view, from which point you may be sure the trials and needs will look very different than they do from yours. Then offer for them the petitions which, if the case were yours, you would offer for yourself. And if the prayer seem as regards them to be ineffectual, yet it shall be accepted on your own behalf as an act of love. E. M. G.

The prayer of a righteous man that availeth much, which our English Bible so infelicitously describes as “effectual, fervent,” is in the original an “energetic” prayer, a “working” prayer. Some conception of the inspired thought in the epithet may be derived from the fact that the same word is elsewhere used to intensify the description of the power of the Holy Spirit in a renewed heart. Thus: “According to the power that worketh in us”—the power that energizes us in a holy life; such is the inspired idea of a good man’s prayer. What else is the force of the frequent conjunction of “watching” and “praying,” in the scriptural style of exhortation to the duties of the closet? Thus: “Watch and pray,” “watch unto prayer,” “praying always and watching,” “continue in prayer and watch”—there is no mental lassitude, no self-indulgence here. A. P.

It availeth much. The apostle does not say how much—you will find that upon trial and experience.

This we may assuredly know: that prayers rightly managed can not and will not want effect. This is one of the means which God has consecrated for our receiving the highest blessings. Prayer is the key by which the saints of God could lock heaven and open it at their pleasure. As faith is so great among graces, so is prayer among duties. It is wonderful to consider what the Scripture ascribes to faith and prayer. Prayer sues its blessings in the court of grace, and faith receives them. T. M.

It is a fact worthy of earnest consideration that Scripture never attempts to remove the doubts and difficulties which human reasoning advances against the efficacy of prayer. If reason therefore says, in various forms, “Prayer is unnecessary, because God knows all things, and is full of goodness to bless and to help,” or “Prayer is of no avail, because there is no room for its action, as all things are ordered and under the reign of fixed and all-wise law,” the Scripture method of dealing with these erroneous inferences is simply to ignore them. As Scripture always presupposes faith in the existence of God, so it does not prove the reality and efficacy of prayer, but continually takes belief in it for granted, asserting and illustrating it in every variety of form. A. S.—Prayer and the answer of prayer are simply the preferring of a request upon one side and the compliance with that request upon the other. Man applies; God complies. Man asks a favor; God bestows it. T. C.—God commonly answers prayer by natural means appointed for this purpose from the very beginning, when he gave to mind and matter their laws, and arranged the objects with these laws for the accomplishment of his wise and beneficent ends, for the encouragement of virtue and the discouragement of vice, and, among others, to provide an answer to the acceptable petitions of his people. God, in answer to prayer, may restore the patient by an original strength of constitution or by the well-timed application of a remedy. The believer is in need of a blessing, and he asks it; and he finds that the God who created the need and prompted the prayer has provided the means of granting what he needs. McCosh.

17. A man of like passions.** The greatest saints who ever lived, whether under the old or new dispensations, are on a level which is quite within our reach. If we had the same faith, the same hope, the same love which they exhibited, we could achieve marvels as great as those which they achieved—not, indeed, in marvels which change the outward face of nature, but those higher marvels, whose field is the heart and soul of man. A word of prayer in our mouths would be as potent to call down the gracious dews and the melting fires of God’s Spirit as it was in Elijah’s mouth to call down literal rain and fire, if we could only speak the word with that

full assurance of faith wherewith he said it. Let us no more say, “God has put the great standards of holiness out of my reach.” It is not so. As if with the design of meeting such an objection, he exhibits to us in his word the occasional failures and feebleness of his most illustrious servants. They were “men of like passions with ourselves,” though under the empire of principles which brought God into immediate relation with them, and thus lifted them above self and the world. E. M. G.