SECRETS, MYSTERIES, AND SPIRITUAL ELITES

“The Gnostic Echo in Arome Osayi’s Teachings”

By Akin Ojumu

Secrets. Dimensions. Hidden protocols.

Arome Osayi’s teaching seems perpetually fascinated with the hidden: secret realities, mysterious principles, spiritual dimensions, concealed protocols, and privileged spiritual intelligence.

Listening to him—and to his fellow travelers in the realms, portals, dimensions, and “deep mysteries” movement—you could easily come away with the impression that they belong to an elite caste of Christians whom God has taken into His private confidence and entrusted with Top Secret, classified intelligence from Heaven, while ordinary believers are left standing outside the celestial briefing room.

But this fascination with hidden spiritual knowledge is hardly new. The early Church encountered people who spoke in remarkably similar terms.

They were the GNOSTICS.

These speculative mystics claimed possession of a higher, secret knowledge, called gnosis, that was supposedly unavailable to ordinary believers. In effect, they divided humanity into two classes:

1. the spiritually enlightened elite who possessed the mysteries; and

2. the unenlightened hoi polloi who did not.

The Apostles had very little patience for such pretensions. Paul explicitly warned Timothy against teachings masquerading as superior “knowledge”:

1 Timothy 6:20–21

“O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called ‘knowledge,’ for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.”

Notice Paul’s prescription.

He did not tell Timothy to search for deeper mysteries. He did not command him to unlock hidden dimensions. He did not instruct him to pursue secret spiritual protocols.

He told him to “guard the deposit already entrusted to him.”

That distinction is enormously important.

The Christian faith is not an esoteric scavenger hunt in which believers spend their lives searching for increasingly obscure revelations. The apostolic message was delivered, taught, entrusted, proclaimed, and preserved in Scripture.

Paul knew that novelty would always have tremendous religious appeal. He warned that a time would come when professing Christians would grow tired of sound doctrine and accumulate teachers capable of satisfying their appetite for something new, exciting, mysterious, and supposedly “deeper”:

2 Timothy 4:3–4

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

Again:

1 Timothy 4:7

“Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness.”

Likewise, Paul instructed Titus concerning religious teachers who trafficked in deception and fables:

Titus 1:10–14

“For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers…They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach…Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.”

The contrast could hardly be clearer.

Biblical Christianity is fundamentally opposed to a religion constructed around endless mysteries, celestial protocols, spiritual tech-speak, secret codes, hidden dimensions, and privileged revelations supposedly available only to unusually “deep” Christians.

There is no spiritual aristocracy in the Kingdom of God. 

The Apostles proclaimed a public faith. They preached Christ openly. They taught doctrine plainly. They wrote letters to entire congregations. In some cases, the same apostolic letters were circulated among Churches in different cities.

Christian truth was not locked inside some heavenly vault accessible only to a spiritual upper class.

Again and again, the Apostles warned Christians against myths, speculation, false knowledge, religious novelty, and teachings that wandered beyond the apostolic faith.

Paul told Timothy:

2 Timothy 1:13–14

“Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me…By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.”

The emphasis is unmistakable:

Guard what has been given. Not: discover what has been hidden.

Yet Arome Osayi appears determined to revive this ancient impulse and repackage it in modern Pentecostal and Charismatic vocabulary.

And this is where his rhetoric becomes deeply troubling.

His recurring preoccupation with mysteries, dimensions, spiritual intelligence, hidden principles, secret realities, encounters, and deeper revelation bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the ancient tendency to divide Christians between those who possess ordinary faith and those supposedly initiated into a superior level of spiritual knowledge.

Calling something “mysteries,” “dimensions,” “spiritual intelligence,” “encounters,” or “protocols” does not make it biblical. Christian terminology cannot baptize speculation into divine revelation.

To justify this fascination with hidden things, Arome Osayi appeals in the video clip to two passages of Scripture.

Neither passage teaches what he wants them to teach.

And rather than merely dismiss his interpretation, we should examine both texts in context.

MARK 4:11 — WHAT IS THE “MYSTERY OF THE KINGDOM”?

Mark 4:11

“And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.”

The context is the Parable of the Sower.

Jesus had taught the crowd in parables. His disciples then came to Him asking about their meaning. It was in answering them that Jesus spoke about the “mystery of the kingdom of God.”

The word *mystery* in the New Testament does not ordinarily refer to some perpetually concealed spiritual information available only to a tiny circle of elite Christians. It refers to something once hidden but now revealed by God.

And in Mark 4, the subject is plainly stated: “the mystery of the Kingdom of God.”

Jesus is explaining the revelation of God’s Kingdom through His own messianic mission and teaching. 

The contrast in the passage is not between ordinary Christians and elite Christians. It is between those to whom the truth of the Kingdom is graciously revealed and those who remain outside in unbelief.

The mystery is therefore not some Gnostic body of classified spiritual intelligence obtainable through extraordinary fasting, marathon prayer, mystical encounters, or years of spiritual experimentation. It concerns God’s redemptive purposes in Christ.

The Kingdom of God is the sphere of God’s rule and dominion over His people. In the present age, that reign is manifested spiritually among those who belong to Christ. Scripture also looks forward to the consummation of His reign.

The “mystery” therefore belongs to the unfolding revelation of God’s saving plan and His Kingdom through the Messiah. It is not permission for modern preachers to invent secret spiritual systems. It is not a blank check for celestial speculation.

And it certainly does not establish a spiritual hierarchy in which a select group of believers have penetrated realms of knowledge inaccessible to everyone else.

JOB 28:11 — MINING IS NOT A METAPHOR FOR GNOSTIC REVELATION

The second passage Arome Osayi presses into the service of his Gnostic theology comes from Job:

Job 28:7–11

“There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen: The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it. He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots. He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing. He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.”

The portion that apparently attracts Arome’s attention is the final clause:

“…and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.”

And there it is.

Hid. Bringeth forth. Light.

Apparently, those few English words are enough to construct an entire theology of spiritual secrets.

Context, however, has other plans.

Job 28 is not teaching Christians how to retrieve classified intelligence from the spiritual realm. The chapter is a magnificent meditation on the inaccessibility of divine wisdom through human effort.

In Job 28, Job describes mining as an illustration of the extent humans would go to explore things that are hidden.

Men descend into places animals cannot reach. They cut through rock. They overturn mountains. They dig shafts into darkness. They expose precious metals and stones that had been concealed beneath the earth.

Human beings can uncover astonishing things. They can bring hidden treasures to light. But then Job asks the question upon which the entire chapter turns:

Job 28:12

“But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?”

That is the point.

Man may dig gold out of the earth. He may extract silver. He may discover iron, copper, sapphires, and precious stones. He may illuminate the deepest darkness underground.

But he cannot mine the wisdom of God out of creation.

No amount of human ingenuity can excavate divine wisdom. No amount of religious exertion can force God to disclose what He has not chosen to reveal. No spiritual mining expedition can penetrate the mind of God.

The remainder of the chapter makes that point explicit.

Wisdom cannot be found in the land of the living. It cannot be purchased with gold. It cannot be weighed against silver. It is more precious than jewels. Neither the living nor the dead can discover it independently.

Only God knows the way to wisdom.

And Job concludes:

Job 28:28

“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

That is Job’s conclusion.

Not: “Fast until you unlock the hidden realm.”

Not: “Pray until celestial secrets are downloaded.”

Not: “Enter dimensions inaccessible to ordinary Christians.”

Not: “Discover the protocols by which hidden spiritual realities may be brought to light.”

The conclusion is: “Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.”

Ironically, therefore, Job 28 teaches almost the opposite of what a theology obsessed with secret spiritual knowledge would require.

The chapter emphasizes the limits of human investigation.

Men can excavate the earth. They cannot excavate God. Men can uncover buried treasure. They cannot force divine wisdom out of hiding. What God has not revealed remains beyond human reach. And where God has spoken, wisdom consists in receiving His revelation with reverence and obedience.

To seize the phrase “…the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light” from a description of mining and transform it into a theology of mystical revelation is precisely the kind of proof-texting that context exists to prevent.

THE CHURCH DOES NOT NEED HEAVEN’S CLASSIFIED FILES

The Church today does not need a new caste of spiritual elites claiming privileged access to classified files from Heaven. It needs faithful pastors and teachers who will guard the truth already entrusted to the saints.

The stakes could hardly be higher.

Paul issued one of the most terrifying warnings in the New Testament concerning anyone who alters the apostolic Gospel:

Galatians 1:8–9

“But even if we or an angel from Heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed…If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”

Notice again the apostolic emphasis:

The Gospel we preached. The Gospel you received.

Christianity does not advance by abandoning the apostolic deposit in pursuit of the latest alleged revelation.

No number of encounters can authenticate error. No alleged supernatural experience can sanctify false doctrine. No secret code can improve upon apostolic truth. No mystical dimension can authorize a preacher to wander beyond what God has revealed. And no amount of supposed spiritual depth can transform speculation into Scripture.

The Church does not need to chase Heaven’s classified secrets. It needs to believe, guard, teach, defend, and proclaim the truth God has already revealed.

Perhaps, the truly mature Christian, therefore, is not the man who perpetually announces that he has discovered yet another mystery.

Perhaps, it is the believer who can stand with the Apostle Paul and say:

I have received the deposit. I will guard the deposit. I will proclaim the deposit. And I will not pretend that God forgot to tell the Apostles something that He has now revealed to me.