Ques. 23.-What is the teaching of James 5:13-15, and is it scriptural now to anoint with oil ?

Ans.-Without doubt the Lord can and often does, heal His people in answer to prayer, either with or without the use of means. To deny this would be to limit His power. But we believe it is only too easy to get one-sided or distorted views of the whole question of bodily healing. To demand it as a right belonging to us as redeemed is, we believe, spiritual pride or gross ignorance. Paul called it a mercy (Phil. 2:27). To link these mortal bodies with Christ's risen glorious bodies, save as indwelt by the Holy Ghost, is practically to deny that the saint is subject to death, and involves grave doctrinal error. To "seek to physicians" rather than to the Lord, argues unbelief and self-will at the same time. And yet in the midst of all the erroneous views of the subject, there is unquestionably a "right way."

Bodily sickness is the governmental result of sin; it is frequently inflicted under the chastening hand of God as a result of sin, and its removal would indicate the forgiveness of the sin governmentally. This is evidently the thought in the passage before us. It follows that before there can be any thought of healing, we must know the reason of our affliction. If we were more exercised as to the cause of our affliction than how we can escape it, there would be at least one condition of recovery.

We would by no means claim that all sickness is the result of some special failure. Instead of being for correction, it may have been sent as a preventive (2 Cor. 12:), or as a reminder that we are in the body, and can suffer and be sanctified by it How many a sick bed is a pulpit from which most telling sermons have been preached.

When there is a discernment of the reason for the chastening and a bowing under God's hand, we can then, in submission to His will, humbly ask to be healed. It would be proper to send for-alas! not the elders of the assembly in a full sense, for the assembly is in ruins, and her elders are scattered abroad- but for godly persons of faith who. entering into the sin and its confession, might unite their prayers with the afflicted one for recovery.

In this connection, we can see that such acts of healing would be rather of a private nature. We could not expect that God would set the seal of His public approbation upon a Church in ruins. Pentecostal days, and the fresh energy of the Holy Ghost have gone.

As to anointing with oil, it seems to be an administrative act, and more in keeping with an unfailed condition than the present state. After all, it is the prayer of faith that saves the sick.