Objection: Anointing with Oil in James Is Intended to Be Medicinal

This is another one of those go-read-your-Bible-for-crying-out-loud objections.

Someone based this on the (supposed) fact that the word for anoint means to smear or rub in, and that in effect the sick person was to be given a massage with oil.  This word can be demonstrated to be used in a different context in the Greek Septuagint (where it does mean anoint as we would do it as opposed to smearing all over in one instance).  However, I don’t consider it necessary to prove that, given the obvious English in the passage in James.

James 5:15 plainly states, “The prayer of faith shall save the sick.”  It is the praying in faith, not the oil, that does the job.  Then we see, “The Lord shall raise him up.”  James did not say that the oil massage would raise the person up – it is the Lord’s doing, not the oil’s doing.  This should be obvious to anyone with any sense who is not reading through religion-colored goggles.

Because James 5:14-15 covers instructions for “any sick” (including “incurable” cases), does it make sense that merely putting oil on any sick person, even an incurable one, without the prayer of faith, would heal him?  If oil could cure incurable diseases, sinners would already be selling it by the tanker load to hospitals, which could then mark it up astronomically and rebill it to the patients using a cryptic name such as Viscous Healing Enabling Substance on the invoice (using the same logic as billing a box of Kleenex for $11 as a “Disposable Mucus Recovery System”), thus becoming almost as profitable as the 3-question pop-your-head-in visits from doctors that are somehow billed at steep prices as Comprehensive Examinations.  Everyone would be buying oil instead of the latest “superfood” concoctions.  Instead of Deceptive Weird Eastern Religion Healing and Wellness Centers, there would be Secular Oil Message Healing Centers, and they’d make a fortune.  If the objector is serious, he can start the first one and see how far he gets.

Given that James’s instructions are for “any” sick, not just the sick with curable conditions, you would have to prove that an oil massage can cure an otherwise incurable ailment.  Otherwise, “any” sick would not be healed, and the oil must not be medicinal after all.

The last gasp for the objector is what the Good Samaritan did:

Luke 10:34:
And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

This could be presented as additional proof that oil can be medicinal.  But even if we assume that oil does have some kind of therapeutic value for wounds if you pour it in, it would be hard to see how oil would be the cure for internal bleeding, diabetes, high blood pressure, colon cancer, or most other ailments.

James was not advocating aromatherapy or massage treatments.  It is the prayer of faith, not the oil, that gets the job done.