Extreme Unction-Best Example of Sacramental Priesthood?

[CollegeKid]

I’ve been thinking about the biblical passage we use to show evidence of the sacrament of extreme unction/last rites. I forget the book, chapter, and verse but it talks about “summoning the presbyters of the church” to “annoint the sick man with oil and pray over him”, so that the person can be healed and forgiven their sins. This seems like a great example, maybe the best, to show protestants to argue for the existence of a sacramental priesthood in the NT. We all know what tired protestant arguments we’ll face if we cite the Eucharist or Baptism (and in most cases we probably won’t get far), but these verses dealing with annointing the sick seem like undeniable evidence for showing that even in the earliest days of the Church, it had rites involving prayer, outward action and matter to convey God’s grace that could only be performed by the clergy:

(priests annointing with oil + prayer = God’s forgiveness/healing).

What does everybody think?

 

[rwoehmke]

It is in the letter of James. Gets problematic however as Luther and possibly other protestants did not accept the letter of James as it spoke of the necessity of “works” You need to be quoteing a KJV to get any traction: sometimes only particular versions of the KJV…

 

[Lazerlike42]

CollegeKid:

I’ve been thinking about the biblical passage we use to show evidence of the sacrament of extreme unction/last rites. I forget the book, chapter, and verse but it talks about “summoning the presbyters of the church” to “annoint the sick man with oil and pray over him”, so that the person can be healed and forgiven their sins. This seems like a great example, maybe the best, to show protestants to argue for the existence of a sacramental priesthood in the NT. We all know what tired protestant arguments we’ll face if we cite the Eucharist or Baptism (and in most cases we probably won’t get far), but these verses dealing with annointing the sick seem like undeniable evidence for showing that even in the earliest days of the Church, it had rites involving prayer, outward action and matter to convey God’s grace that could only be performed by the clergy:

(priests annointing with oil + prayer = God’s forgiveness/healing).

What does everybody think?

It is very good. Clearly it indicates a distinction between the clergy and the laity. What’s more, the word here used, “presbyter” is very closely related to the word translated as “ambassadors” in 2 Cor 5. Comparing the two passages, and then pulling up 2 Cor 2:10, which says that Paul has forgiven sins “in the person of Christ,” and then going to Jude where he says that the same error is happening in the Christian Church as what happened with Korah and Dathan, where they tried to overthrow the priesthood and have all the laity take on the role of priests using the arguement that Israel was a “nation of priests,” which they got from the Scriptures back then, just as Protestants get it from 1 Peter, is a pretty tough arguement to overcome.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

I don’t think that’s clearly a delineation between the clergy and laity, as they would undoubtedly answer that it was the prayer whereby the sins were forgiven. The best example of sacramental priesthood, to my mind at least, is Christ’s clear directive: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins you shall forgive shall be forgiven them, whosoever sins you shall retain shall be retained against them.” They don’t interpret “preysbuteros” as a priest as a conduit of grace, they interpret it as “elder” or “overseer” anyway.

 

[Lazerlike42]

JKirkLVNV:

I don’t think that’s clearly a delineation between the clergy and laity, as they would undoubtedly answer that it was the prayer whereby the sins were forgiven. The best example of sacramental priesthood, to my mind at least, is Christ’s clear directive: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins you shall forgive shall be forgiven them, whosoever sins you shall retain shall be retained against them.” They don’t interpret “preysbuteros” as a priest as a conduit of grace, they interpret it as “elder” or “overseer” anyway.

That’s why you get in to the greek and show wat it actually means. It comes from the same root as the word for ambassador, which Paul says that he and the other apostles are. He says that he acts in “the person of Christ.”:

But that is all deeper than you need to go. The point is that James does show a distinction between the presbyters, whatever way you want to translate the word, and the laity. If there were no distinction, James would not write to get a presbyter, because the fellow who was running off to get one could do just as much. The only objection that could be made to this would be to say that the distinction between the presbyters and the everyday Joe is the same as that between a minister and a churchgoer. However, no Protestant would say that a minister’s prayer is worth any more than the average churchgoer’s. The passage clearly shows that there is something different about the presbyter, something that makes his prayer do what the layman’s cannot. This is practically by definition a conduit of grace.