(v. 14) Is any sick
among you? 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:
(v. 15) And the prayer
of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have
committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
(v. 16) Confess your
faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous
man availeth much. (James 5:14-16)
[For the
record, the word “faults” in v. 16 is translated as “sins”
in the majority of our Bibles, including Catholic versions.]
James 5:16 is very often used by Catholic apologists
to promote certain Catholic teachings.
In fact, there are two
different teachings in which this passage is usually pressed into service.
I will
address two major points in this article, concerning the misuse of this passage,
but before moving on, I want to say that I am not aware if any official Catholic sources, like the
Catechism of the Catholic Church or papal encyclicals or other documents actually
use this Scripture passage to promote the following teachings, but I have
indeed seen certain Catholic apologists use this passage on numerous occasions
to bolster these Catholic doctrines.
First Major Point – Confession to a
Priest
Ok, the
first major point is that one of the foundational teachings of the Catholic
Church is the sacrament of Confession (also known as Penance or
Reconciliation). This sacrament normally
consists of a member of the Catholic Church confessing his sins privately to a
priest in order to have all his sins forgiven/absolved. This is also called “auricular confession” by
the Church.
But
Protestants will often object and say that a person can, and should, confess
his sins directly to God (Hebrews 4:16). And the Catholic will normally respond with
the previously mentioned James 5 passage, especially v. 16.
But there
are serious problems with trying to use this passage to support the idea of
confession to a priest. First of all,
the Bible does not even recognize a “ministerial” priesthood in the New
Testament church like the one in the Old Testament. See these links:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2010/03/priesthood.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2018/07/where-are-all-priests-in-new-testament.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2016/05/does-exodus-196-support-catholic.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2016/06/martignoni-and-korahs-rebellion.html
Secondly, the
New Testament never says to confess your sins to an elder, priest, rabbi or any specifically-designated person at
all.
Thirdly, James
5:16 says to “Confess your faults/sins ONE TO
ANOTHER.” The context is the
local body of believers confessing their sins which they may have committed against each other. It is about
praying for the sick and about rectifying personal
offenses toward other members in the local body.
But if this really
is about confessing to a priest (as
Catholics suggest), then why would James tell the local body to confess to “one
another”? If a priest is there to hear
sins, shouldn’t this priest also confess his
own sins to members of the laity, just as the laity confesses to him? After all, that’s what “confessing one to another”
means, right? The context of James
5:16 is calling for reciprocal confession. After absolving the sins of the lay person, would
the priest then be willing to use the confessional box to allow a lay person be
in charge of absolving his (the priest’s) sins also? I don’t think so. The context of this passage will not let this
interaction be limited to “one-way confession.”
So I don’t
think that this passage suggests auricular confession to a priest, as is found
in the Catholic Church. So James
5:16 cannot be used to promote the doctrine of confession to a
priesthood.
Footnote in the Douay-Rheims
The
(Catholic) Douay-Rheims Bible has this in its footnotes for James
5:16:
“[16] “Confess therefore your sins one to another”: that is, to
the priests of the church, whom (ver. 14) he had ordered to be called for, and
brought in to the sick; moreover, to confess to persons who had no power to
forgive sins, would be useless. Hence
the precept here means, that we must confess to men whom God hath appointed,
and who, by their ordination and jurisdiction, have received the power of
remitting sins in his name.”
See here:
https://www.drbo.org/chapter/66005.htm
The
publishers of the Douay-Rheims Bible are missing the whole point. They are automatically assuming up front that just because the word “confess” is present
in the text, it is about Catholic
auricular confession, i.e., confessing to a specific person (a priest) in
order to get a “clean slate.”
But the New
Testament elders (Greek, “presbyterous”), not
priests (which is “hiereis” in the Greek), were there to help pray for the
sick, not to “hear confessions” from the “laity.” The publishers of this Catholic Bible obviously
assume that there are priests in the post-apostolic New Testament era who have
the “power to forgive sins,” but this is without biblical warrant.
If modern
“priests” have the power to absolve sins at will (like Jesus did), then they
would also have the power to heal people
at will (like Jesus did in Luke 5:20-26). But they can’t,
and again, there is no biblical evidence for a designated (human) person to whom
one must go to be forgiven. But on the
other hand, we are always free to go directly to God for forgiveness (Psalm
73:25) – even “Pope Peter” said this! (Acts 8:20-22)
Catholics
wrongly turn to John 20:23 to try and justify auricular confession, believing
that Jesus gave men the power to forgive sins in the confessional box. But this is not the case. See this link:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2011/08/hi-jacking-of-john-2023.html
Again, there
is no New Testament “ministerial” priesthood to start with, as indicated in the
four links I listed together above.
Second Major Point – Praying to
Saints
It also seems that this passage (James 5:16) is often
used by Catholic apologists to promote prayer to Mary, saints and angels. Apparently, this would involve the concept of
“communion of saints,” i.e., that spiritual union of all the saints on earth
and all the saints in Heaven. Catholics
will emphasize the latter half of the verse that reads, “… The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much.”
They do this to stress the righteousness of those
saints who are in Heaven. After all,
those in Heaven are certainly far more righteous than we are here on earth, so (according
to Catholics) their prayers would have to be very effective, and we on earth
should be eager to seek their intercession!
Catholic apologists use this particular passage, but
it backfires on them, because once again, James is telling them to pray for one another, which would mean reciprocal prayers.
So, if the saints (including Mary and angels) in
Heaven are (supposedly) praying for us, then likewise, we must need to
reciprocate and pray for them, as
well, right? Once more, isn’t that what “pray
one for another” means?
But if that’s the case, why in the world would we (on
earth) need to pray for THEM? If they
are indeed in Heaven, they are complete
in Christ – they don’t NEED our prayers.
In fact, they have need of nothing!
Why would James be telling us to pray for them? The point is, he’s
NOT.
Ahhh, then
maybe James is NOT referring at all to those in Heaven in this context. James recognizes that there are some people on earth who can pray effectual and
fervent prayers. He is simply telling
the saints on earth (in the local body) to pray for other saints on earth (in
that same local body). That’s the
reciprocal prayer he’s talking about. He
is actually telling them to pray (along with the elders) for each other for
healing (v. 6) and for when they have offended one another. This is about both physical and spiritual restoration for the local
body. I would assert that this is exactly what is happening here in this
context. There is nothing here suggesting
prayers to Mary, saints or angels. See
also these links:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2011/02/praying-to-saints.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2019/01/dave-armstrong-on-praying-to-saints.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2014/11/praying-to-saints-revisited.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2023/10/worship-and-prayer.html
So, this is another misuse of James 5:16 by Catholic
apologists.
Conclusion
I know that James 5:14-16 is not the only passage that Catholic apologists
use to promote auricular confession to a priest or to promote prayer to
saints. I am aware of that, but I wanted
to specifically address these Catholic teachings in relation to this Bible
passage (which they themselves use). I
think that it is clear that James 5 does not support either of these teachings.
For more detailed arguments against these particular Catholic
topics, see the links I posted in this article.
