The biblical instruction to anoint the sick with oil is rooted in the relationship between faith, prayer and the finished work of Jesus Christ. In James 5:14--15, believers who are sick are instructed to call upon the elders of the Church, who are to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. The passage then declares that the prayer of faith will save the sick and that the Lord will raise them up. The responsibility is significant: Scripture directs the sick person towards spiritually mature believers who are expected to possess knowledge, understanding, wisdom and maturity in exercising their faith. Mark 6:12--13 provides an earlier example, describing how the disciples preached repentance, cast out demons, anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. Their actions were not based upon a medicinal property of the oil, but upon the authority Jesus had entrusted to them and their faith in the power of God. Anointing the sick is therefore not merely a comforting religious custom. It is an outward expression of faith in the healing accomplished through Jesus Christ.
Anointing is a prophetic act of faith: an action performed in the natural world to make visible our confidence in what God has established in the spiritual realm. Isaiah 53:5 declares that by the wounds of the Messiah we are healed. From this understanding, the disciples did not anoint the sick in an attempt to persuade God to make healing available. They anointed in faith, declaring through their actions that the healing provided through Christ was already established, even when its manifestation could not yet be seen. This explains why the prayer of faith is so central to the instruction in James. The oil itself is not the source of healing; it is a tangible expression of the spiritual reality in which those praying place their confidence. Jesus has entrusted His followers with the responsibility to act in His name and authority. Anointing the sick is one way that faith becomes visible, while the glory for every genuine healing belongs exclusively to the Lord.
House of Anointing