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.
Trying to do God a service without it being God's will
65-1127B §73
So you see, David, being inspired... Now, you remember I said the anointing, the false anointing? Remember the Holy Spirit can come and anoint a person, and still it's out of the will of God? Here, it proves it right here. We have to go through God's way of doing it. Not our ways, God's way of doing it. Because David, being a king, anointed, anointed with the Spirit of God upon him (a type of Jesus Christ), but that wasn't God's channel. When all the congregation, "it pleased them," the Bible said. Notice. Captains...
Balm in Gilead
59-1124 §22
People refuse the new birth. They don't like the thoughts of being born again. And some of the modern teachers teach: The new birth is to walk up and take fellowship with the church; that's the new birth. That's wrong. The new birth is a birth, just what it says it is. It's being borned again. Any man knows that any birth is a mess. Let it be in a barnyard, let it be on a hay stack, let it be in a decorated hospital room. Wherever it is, it's a mess, any birth. And the new birth is no exception. It's no difference....
Questions and Answers
59-0628E §64
Now remember, oil in the Bible is a symbol of what? Can anybody say? [Congregation replies, "Holy Ghost."] Holy Ghost! Then you could be clean, and pure, and sanctified without having the Holy Ghost. Cleansing is what you are... Now watch, I'm going to take like this bottle. And it's laying out here in the chicken yard, and it's all full of filth. I pick it up; that's justification: "I'm going to use this sinner." And the next thing I do if I'm going to use it, I will have to cleanse it. And then, if I cleanse it,...
The anointed ones at the end time
65-0725M §169
Notice, the Scripture now. Teaching a historical God (see), just like they're trying to live in the past, like, "Well, Wesley said so-and-so; So-and-so said so-and-so." Your refusing the promised Word of the day, the manna that's clearly identified of the day. They try to put their old Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal wines in our new bottles. It don't work. And our new wine in their old bottles won't work. If they try to put this new wine in the denomination, their folly is made manifest. They can't do it; it blows...
Church Ages, part 4: The Smyrnaean Church Age
60-1206 §51
And this church was called Smyrna, because it was dying. Smyrna means bitterness. In other words a root of bitterness was coming up, and was choking it out. It was on its road out to myrrh. That's what they anoint bodies with---myrrh, see. Was ... myrrh and frankincense is an ointment. Myrrh is used to anoint dead bodies after they embalmed them, and so forth. Associated with death, and the church was dying. And, oh, can't you see today, friends, the great Pentecostal move that did have life a few years ago ... Can...