The prayer of faith will save the sick

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 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. 15 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. 16 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. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit (Jas 5:13-18).

How does this passage fit into the cessationist paradigm? 

i) One strategy would be to say it represents miraculous healing, and, as such, this promise was confined to the apostolic age. We've retired this passage from our practical canon of Scripture. 

Remember, cessationists distinguish between miraculous healers and miraculous healing. They deny the ongoing existence for the former, but allow for the ongoing occurrence of the latter. Yet this passage clearly involves human intermediaries. So is it past or present? 

ii) Another strategy is to say this represents non-miraculous healing. Ordinary providence, or maybe a "remarkable" providence. 

In order for it to be miraculous, the elders would have to exercise the "gift of healing" (1 Cor 12:9). We know that elders lack the gift of healing since not every one they minister to is healed. If they had the gift of healing, this exercise would be uniformly successful. 

What are we to make of that explanation?

iii) If it's non-miraculous, then is a homeopathic remedy? It just a cheap alternative to modern medicine? Would the patient have the same results if he went to the doctor? Took a pill? Had a shot? 

That explanation makes cessationism indistinguishable from a naturalistic, rationalistic interpretation. 

iv) What about contemporary Christians who turn to Jas 5:14-15 because modern medicine has failed them? This is their last resort. They have terminal cancer, or some incurable chronic or degenerative illness. A debilitating or life-threatening condition which medical science is unable to cure. 

If Jas 5:14-15 represents nonmiraculous healing, then there's no point in medically hopeless patients resorting to this promise. Is that the position cessationists take?

iv) Did James expect the prayer of faith to be a fail-safe? Or does v15 presume an implied proviso, which is made explicit in Jas 4:15? 

v) Is the "prayer of faith" in Jas 5:15 categorically different from the "gift of healing" in 1 Cor 12:9? Paul prefaces the gift of healing with the gift of faith (v8). The gift of faith evidently refers to a wonderworking faith. The "mountain-moving" faith of 13:2. 

In other words, faith that works miracles. A miracle-effecting faith, of which miraculous healing is a special case. The gift of healing and the gift of faith go together, where the latter depends on the former. 

But isn't that precisely what Jas 5:15 has in view? The prayer of faith effects the cure. The prayer of faith heals the sick. The same linkage we find in 1 Cor 12:8-9. 

vi) Does the gift of faith ensure healing? Paul was a healer (Acts 14:8-10; 19:11-12; 28:7-9), yet he didn't heal Trophimus (2 Tim 4:20). Did he leave Torphimus uncured because he was able, but unwilling to heal Trophimus, or willing but unable to heal Trophimus? It's hard to see why he'd refuse to heal a valued coworker if it lay within his power to do so. Likewise, why didn't Paul heal Timothy (1 Tim 5:23)?

If, then, the gift of healing doesn't guarantee success, the fact that Jas 5:14-15 isn't uniformly successful doesn't mean it's non-miraculus. Hence, (iv) & (vi) disprove (i). 

vii) What about the parallel with Elijah (vv17-18)? James uses that to illustrate the prayer of faith. Elijah was a wonderworking prophet–second only to Moses. Although rain and drought are natural conditions, in the narrative, these are the natural effect of a supernatural cause. God answering his prayer. Isn't the reader supposed to view that as something miraculous? A nature miracle? Controlling the forces of nature? Nature acting at your bidding? 

viii) Incidentally, in James, the prayer of faith refers to the faith of the elders, not the patient. If the patient remains ill, that doesn't represent a deficiency of faith on his part. He exercises faith by calling in the reinforcements to add their faith to his.