James 5 and anointing with oil
There's a series of trickly little questions connected with James 5:14-16. What’s the significance of anointing a sick man with oil? Should Christians practice it? Is the sick person certain to get better? Or is it all about "spiritual" sickness since it mentions sins and forgiveness?
I’m sure the first part of it is the simplest. They aren’t anointing the sick man with oil as a medicinal therapy. It’s an expression of their faith that God can heal the man. Men and women in the West prepare for the usual day by things like showering, shaving (usually the men do that), make up (usually the women do that), after-shave, perfume, clean shirt et cetera, et cetera, et cetera (as the King of Siam would say). It’s a nice routine and it suggests it’s going to be another normal day. Middle-Eastern people and in biblical texts went through a similar procedure. Part of that procedure was to anoint the head with oil.
If they were mourning or fasting or devoting themselves to some special ritual they would leave off the usual sprucing up and it would be easily seen. Christ protested against a hypocritical show of religiosity and urged his followers not to parade their devotion but to do the usual—anoint their heads etc (see Matthew 6:16-18). Then in Mark 6:13 when they were about to heal someone miraculously the apostolic group would anoint them with oil. They were getting them ready to take their usual place in society. Since they were about to heal them miraculously the oil had no medicinal purpose. It was an expression of faith that they would be healed.
When David was anxious for the life of his baby he remained unwashed and used no oil. But as soon as he heard the baby had died and there was little further point in fervent prayer that it might live he rose and anointed himself (2 Samuel 12:16-20 and see Daniel 10:2-3). All that to say that the modern equivalent, I suppose, would be to shave a man and set out his clothes at the ready.
Was it a guarantee that the man would be healed? I don’t think so. There were times (well, at least once) when the apostles failed to heal a man’s child from demonic affliction and Paul’s prayer for healing in 2 Corinthians 12 did not result in healing. You can multiply illustrations of this. A prayer of faith is not a prayer that knows the outcome of a specific petition. A prayer of faith is not an exercise of foreknowledge. It is no failure of faith if a healing does not occur. It is no failure of faith if a loved one dies though we prayer for her recovery. Faith often fervently asks for one thing but gladly, even if disappointed, settles for a "no". A prayer of faith is a prayer of trust and confession. It confesses that God can and will heal if indeed it suits his gracious purpose.
I believe this sickness is some physical or emotional malady. It’s true it is connected with sin in this text. Sometimes sickness is connected with sin (see the hint of this in John 5:14 and see 1 Corinthians 11:30-31) but we shouldn’t draw such a conclusion without having good grounds for it. But the James text may not be linking sin with sickness as a cause of the sickness. James remembers well that his Lord healed people and made the visible healing signify the invisible forgiveness (see Matthew 9:1-8). So here James may well be offering the poor man the assurance that his soul was well with God as surely as his healed body.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.
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