The Visitation of the Sick.
I. To understand the clause which refers to anointing with oil, it must be remembered that in those early and simple days, when little was known about the structure of the human frame, and the healing art resolved itself very much into a rude kind of surgery, oil was regarded as a great restorative as, indeed, it is now and as the best form of medicine. In the Old Testament, Isaiah speaks of wounds and bruises which have never been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment; and in the New Testament, when the good Samaritan bound up the wounds of the traveller to Jericho, he gave oil as a medicine, and wine. Hence the application of oil is here prescribed possibly as the means which it might please God to bless to the sick man's recovery, possibly only as a symbol of that recovery; but whether it be the prescribed means or symbol, no greater perversion of a Scriptural passage can be imagined than that which has found here a warrant for what Romanists call "extreme unction," that is, anointing, as a religious ceremonial, a patient who is given over by a physician and about to die. While we pray for the recovery of our sick friend, we must at the same time remember that Almighty God works by means, and apply to the patient the remedies which a medical man prescribes; in a word, modern medicine, of whatsoever kind it be, corresponds to the ancient oil.
II. "If we have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." The Apostle naturally means, if in respect to his particular sickness he have committed sins. In a general sense we have all committed sins, and it is perfectly true that there is a deep connection between sin and disease; but at the same time it cannot be said of a particular case of sickness that the patient is suffering for his own sins.
III. Visitation of the sick may be made in the way of fraternal sympathy, as well as of ministerial duty. That gracious acknowledgment of the King in the day of final account, "I was sick, and ye visited Me," will surely not be made to the clergy only, but to all who have brought the accents of sympathy and the consolations of religion to the bedside of the sick and suffering.
E. M. Goulburn, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 241.
Reference: James 5:14. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 132.