“Is anyone among you sick? 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.”
Is anyone among you sick? In other words, James was not expecting anyone among them to be sick. Why? Apostle James knows that God had made a covenant of provision for them and as long as they’re walking in that covenant of provision, he knows that they should be free from sickness.
God has made the provision for you to live in health. If you’re walking under that covenant of provision, you should not be sick. You should all be well and healthy.
In case you’re not walking in that covenant provision of healing and health for some reason, there’s still provision to get you healed and get you back into divine health.
“...and the prayer of faith...” In other words, it could be that one of the reasons this person is sick is because he is not operating in his faith. That may not be all the reason, but it could be one of the reason.
“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”
Health and healing are two separate things.
Healing is when you are sick and you recover from that sickness. So, you have to be sick to be healed.
Health or “...in health” as John puts it, is a state of being free from sickness. Health is a greater blessing than healing.
For example, someone who has a heart condition, a skin condition or appendicitis will need healing. But a man who is in health does not have any of these conditions. He is healthy and doesn’t need to go to the hospital except for medical check up.
James is referring to God’s double covenant of healing and health.
When you get sick, you can get well. When you get well, you can stay well.
“So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree...”
“who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness— by whose stripes you were healed.”
The tree God showed to Moses was a type of the Cross on which Jesus was going to be crucified. Whatever provision God was giving to Israel here in Exodus under the old covenant is based on what is about to happen on the cross.
God was giving Israel a promissory note based on what is going to happen at Calvary. At Calvary, Jesus Christ would actually cash that promissory note.
“and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”” Exodus 15:26 NKJV
Christ bore it all for me. I refuse to be afflicted by any of these conditions.
“Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.”
