What Is the Use of Anointing Oil in the New Testament Church?
1) Direct answer
Anointing oil in the New Testament Church is used as a simple, God-given ordinance for the sick. It is a sign of consecration, pointing to the Holy Spirit, while the healing itself comes through faith in the Name of the Lord Jesus and the prayer of faith.
2) Scriptural explanation
- The Bible says, “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: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up” (James 5:14–15).
- When the disciples were sent out, “they anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6:13).
- The real anointing is the Spirit: “You have an unction from the Holy One” (1 John 2:20) and “the anointing…abides in you” (1 John 2:27). Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me” (Luke 4:18).
3) Simple clarifying logic
- Now notice, the oil itself has no healing virtue. The Scripture puts the emphasis here: “the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” The oil is a token of obedience and a sign that this person is set apart to God for His intervention.
- You see, God uses simple tokens—water in baptism, bread and cup in communion, oil in prayer for the sick—to point to the unseen reality, which is the Holy Spirit working through the Word.
- James directs the sick to call for the elders. They anoint in the Name of the Lord, pray the prayer of faith, and the Lord performs what He promised. That keeps the glory with God, not with the ritual.
- This does not make oil a charm. Without faith and the Name of the Lord, oil is just oil. Nor should we throw it away as “just a custom,” because the command is given to the Church in the Epistle.
- For ordaining workers, the New Testament shows laying on of hands (Acts 13:3; 1 Timothy 4:14). For healing the sick, it shows anointing with oil and prayer. We keep each ordinance in its place.
4) Short reinforcing statement
Use it the Bible way: the sick call, the elders come, anoint with oil in the Name of the Lord Jesus, confess faults, pray the prayer of faith, and expect the Lord to raise them up. The oil is the sign; the Holy Spirit is the Anointer; the Word is the ground of our confidence.
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What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Church Order
63-1226 §28
Like a person coming up here and say, "Do you believe in divine healing?" We preach that, we believe it, we believe in anointing with oil. But here's some man says he can't get through, what's the matter? Then it takes God, through tongues, interpretation, through prophecy, or some way to go down in that man's life and pull out that thing that he's done, and tell him about it. That's a ministry that doesn't belong to the pastor, it belongs to these ministering gifts, but they're not to be done out there in the audi...
The Prophet Elisha
54-0723 §31
And your pastor ... your founder John Wesley was a great believer in divine healing too. He even anointed his horse with oil after it broke its leg, and got on it and rode it away. That's what he did; that's in his own notebook. I have it. Yes, sir! He was going to pray for a woman, and the horse fell and broke its leg. He couldn't get the horse up, and he seen the horses leg was broke, took the cruse from his pocket, anointed the horse in oil, jumped on his horse, and rode away. That's right. Preach that in a Meth...
Why some people can't keep the victory
57-0324 §31
Now, that's the way it is today. You can't take this brand new, heaven-born, Pentecostal wine and mix it up with an old time creed of some sort; some old set-in-the-way, dyed-in-the-wool. Why, if you do, you go to preaching about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Divine healing, and signs and wonders, that old skin will try to stretch and it'll blow up: "The days of miracles is past. I can't stand it no more. I can't even stand through this sermon." Blowie! Out the door it goes. That's right. You can't do it. But to...
A Hidden Life
55-1006A §14
Now, God has made it so wonderful that in the Old Testament, where usually I go to for refuge for a text once in a while... He's made the Old Testament in parables and in symbolic forms to express Himself and His doings, that the simple-minded might be able to have a conception of His will and what He's done. Many times in the Old Testament, how I have went back to find the Old typing the New. Always, God did and what He's doing now in the New Testament, He foreshadowed it in the Old Testament. And all of those who...
Trying to do God a service without it being God's will
65-1127B §65
Like on my message of the antichrist. "There shall rise false Christs." Now, He didn't say false Jesuses. See, nobody would stand still to be called "Jesus," in the term of the Lord. But false Christs means "the anointed." Oh, each one thinks they got anointing. "Glory to God, he can do this and do that!" But put him on the Word test and find where he comes out at, see, or the message of the hour. They had anointing in the time of Jesus, but not on Him. They had anointing in the time... Even Dathan had anointing in...