Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
And the prayer of faith; shall save the sick - That is, God will often make these the means of a sick man' s recovery; but there often are cases where faith and prayer are both ineffectual, because God sees it will be prejudicial to the patient' s salvation to be restored; and therefore all faith and prayer on such occasions should be exerted on this ground: "If it be most for thy glory, and the eternal good of this man' s soul, let him be restored; if otherwise, Lord, pardon, purify him, and take him to thy glory."
The Lord shall raise him up - Not the elders, how faithfully and fervently soever they have prayed.
And if he have committed sins - So as to have occasioned his present malady, they shall be forgiven him; for being the cause of the affliction it is natural to conclude that, if the effect be to cease, the cause must be removed. We find that in the miraculous restoration to health, under the powerful hand of Christ, the sin of the party is generally said to be forgiven, and this also before the miracle was wrought on the body: hence there was a maxim among the Jews, and it seems to be founded in common sense and reason, that God never restores a man miraculously to health till he has pardoned his sins; because it would be incongruous for God to exert his miraculous power in saving a body, the soul of which was in a state of condemnation to eternal death, because of the crimes it had committed against its Maker and Judge. Here then it is God that remits the sin, not in reference to the unction, but in reference to the cure of the body, which he is miraculously to effect.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
James 5:14
James 5:14
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