“What about the Believer and anointing oil?”

May 2023 – Grace & Truth Magazine

QUESTION: What is the position of a believer in the use of anointing oil?

ANSWER: This question is obviously based on the instruction in James 5:14-15 ( NKJV ), which reads: “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 sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

It is always important in studying God’s Word to examine verses and portions of a verse in their context. Let’s do a little of this briefly. This final section of the epistle of James begins in verse 13, where one who is suffering is directed to pray and one who is cheerful to sing. The verses then go on with instruction for one who is sick and seem to connect this with him possibly having committed sins. Not all sickness is the direct result of a specific sin in a person’s life, we know, but we see in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 that sickness definitely can be a consequence of sin in a believer’s life. When one who is sick is convicted in his conscience that some sin of his was the cause for his sickness, he will certainly want to have this matter addressed.

At the time James wrote, the Church on earth was recognizable by man as being one body. Before God, the true Church still is one body, but, sad to say, the professing Church is divided into thousands of denominations and independent churches, most of which are a mixture of true believers, professing Christians and rank unbelievers. We see in various places in the New Testament* that under the Holy Spirit’s guidance the apostles or their delegates appointed elders to shepherd churches which the Lord was bringing into being in the places where they had preached the gospel. Such elders had the spiritual wellbeing of their local fellow-believers on their hearts. Nowhere is there even a hint that the churches chose their own elders or that a church had only one elder. Sheep never choose their shepherd! Authority comes down from God.

The one who was sick was to call the elders. He may have confessed his sin to them, but this is not stated. What is important here is that they were to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Back in those days, oil – olive oil – was the normal item used to soothe and to heal. We see the good Samaritan using this together with wine to help the man who had fallen among thieves in Luke 10:34. Also, our Shepherd uses this oil to anoint the heads of His sheep (Ps. 23:5).

While we look to God for healing, we do not despise or refuse medications. All ultimately come from God. Nor is the oil given the credit for the healing. The person who called the elders was anointed in the name of the Lord. “The prayer of faith will save [heal] the sick, and the Lord will raise him up” (Jas. 5:15). The verse goes on to show us what we also find in Mark 2:3-12 in the healing of the paralytic man brought to the Lord by his four friends. The forgiveness of sins came first with the Lord, who also was able to heal the body, and did so. Likewise in James, the Lord placed greater emphasis on the forgiveness of sins than on the healing of the sickness.

Coming to the present we see a rapid decline in Christendom. How can we call the elders of the Church when the Church is thoroughly divided in almost every locality today? Who are the elders of the Church in that place? How did they become elders?

While we see we cannot follow these instructions literally, we certainly can learn from them. James 5:16 is very helpful and encouraging. We can and should confess our sins to one another and pray for one another. Let’s do this! We surely appreciate wise, godly, concerned, older brothers who can pray with us and for us, but how wonderful that they do not need to be official elders. They don’t even have to be old. “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (v.16). Elijah is given to illustrate this point.

It is not a matter of forbidding the use of olive oil, but in this kind of situation the oil is no more a necessity than the elders. Proper medication used prayerfully may well be more helpful than olive oil. However, as Christians we do not want to put our faith in elders, oil or medicines, but rather in the name of the Lord Jesus. His name brings before us all that He is and all that He has done. God has accepted the work of His beloved Son, and He delights to answer prayer made in His name.

ENDNOTE
* Acts 14:23, 20:28; Ti. 1:5; Heb. 13:17; 1 Pet. 5:1-4 and elsewhere.

Answered by Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.