5th January 2025 question-box

Today’s question from the box is:

Why do some Christians use anointing oil? (e.g. on themselves, their possessions, etc). Should we be doing it?

Good question: You’ll find that in Catholic Churches, Orthodox and also some Charismatic churches, oil is used to anoint people and things. And it comes from the Old Testament where oil was used to set apart prophets, priests, kings and temple furniture for God’s service. And so when Christians do it today, they are generally trying to say: “this person or thing is dedicated to God.”

Should we be doing it? We generally don’t in evangelical churches, because we want to guard against confusion about how we relate to God as Christians compared to the ceremonies of the Old Testament. See, prophets, priests, kings and the temple all pointed to Christ. You might remember the title “Christ” literally means the “anointed one.” So He is the priest we can go to directly, He is king of our lives, He’s a prophet who speaks to us directly in his word, He is the true temple. We don’t need a particular holy place to connect with Him, because our connection with Christ is not through a place, it’s through his Spirit.

In 2 Corinthians 1:21 it says: “God anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts…” And I think we’re supposed to understand this is not a physical anointing with oil, rather the anointing is with the Holy Spirit… the Spirit is the reality that the oil always pointed to.

There is one situation where I have anointed people with oil, and it comes out of a specific instruction in the letter of James. James says: “Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:14). And so I can remember two occasions, when someone has asked me to bring the elders and anoint them with oil. And when I did, I said to them something like this: “in your sickness, when you might sometimes feel like God has abandoned you, let this oil be a reassurance that you are part of the body of Christ, the Anointed One; and so God is with you and will save you.”

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This question was originally answered in our evening service on 22 September 2024. I’ll aim to post another question and answer next week. You can read about how our question box works here.

Andrew Vines