Considering the number of Christians we have prayed for and they have still died or their health is not improving how do we explain what we say James told the twelve tribes of the dispersion. Do we understand what he really said? If the people called for the elders and the elders did their job how would anyone die? James makes no exceptions for the appointed unto men to die argument.
James 5:14-16
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. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Was James' giving instructions in a time of miraculous gifts?
That in addition to physical healing if he had committed sins they will be forgiven. James is apparently identifying a way we can have our sins forgiven without having to repent of those sins. If James' instructions are applicable today, if the sick called for the elders as James tells us (or someone) and the elders carried out James's instructions, no one would ever die and we know it is appointed that we will all die…
The book of James is thought to have been written during the 40s or 50s AD but we do not see the practice carried over in the books written later. In those books Christians became sick and died. James allows for no exceptions and guarantees results, physical healing and forgiveness of sins. Paul had the ever present thorn in the flesh, Timothy had tummy problems and Paul left Trophimus in Miletus
It suggests the elders had been given miraculous gifts by the Apostles.
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