AROME OSAYI AND THE THEOLOGY OF THE MUTE BUTTON

By Akin Ojumu

In the theological loony bin that Arome Osayi resides, the reason the Bible describes God as immutable is because God cannot be muted.

Yes. That is the theology. Not a parody. Not a skit. Not a Saturday Night Live sketch about Pentecostal excess. In Arome’s doctrino-lexicon world, immutable means you cannot mute God.

Apparently, somewhere between Genesis and Revelation, the doctrine of divine immutability became a matter of celestial audio control.

You cannot press the mute button on God. Therefore: Immutable.

This is where we are now. The historic Christian doctrine confessed by theologians across centuries has finally been cracked by staring long enough at an English word until a smaller English word appeared inside it.

The Church Fathers missed it. Augustine missed it. Athanasius missed it. Aquinas missed it. The Reformers missed it. The Westminster divines missed it.

But thank God. A Nigerian apostle looked at the word immutable, spotted mute, and Heaven opened. Revelation descended. The mystery was solved.

Somewhere in the congregation, no doubt, somebody shouted, “DEEP!” And the keyboard player probably found D minor.

If you think I am exaggerating merely to ridicule the man, hear him explain the doctrine himself:

“One of the things that Satan knew in the Garden of Eden was that, even though man had fallen, God still had the right to speak again. And that’s why the Bible calls Him ‘Immutable.’ It means you cannot mute Him.”

Ladies and gentlemen, Revelation by spelling. 

This is no longer exegesis. This is Scrabble with a microphone. This is what happens when a preacher stops asking, “What does the text mean?” and starts asking, “What smaller English word can I discover hiding inside this larger English word?”

Apparently, theology is now a crossword puzzle. Find the hidden word and receive your revelation. 

Soon, we may be told that atonement means God performs something “at one moment.” Maybe propitiation concerns real estate because it begins with “prop.” Perhaps sanctification has something to do with sanitation. 

Maybe justification means God adjusts your text alignment until everything is justified. And, of course, predestination must mean God already entered your destination into the divine GPS before you were born.

Why stop there?

At this rate, every English dictionary is a prophetic scroll waiting for an apostle to decode it.

This is the tragedy of modern Nigerian pulpit culture. A man notices a coincidence in English spelling. He lowers his voice. He pauses dramatically. He says, “The Lord began to show me something…”

The congregation leans forward. A chord begins playing beneath him. Then comes the linguistic accident dressed up as revelation. And before you can say Strong’s Concordance, five hundred people are screaming, “DEEEEEEP!”

Deep?

No. The puddle is not deep because you fell face-first into it. And the presence of enthusiasm in a congregation does not convert nonsense into theology.

This is precisely how error becomes fashionable. Confidence replaces competence. Performance replaces interpretation. Charisma replaces scholarship. Word association replaces word study. And grammatical coincidence becomes “revelation.”

Then anybody who asks the inconvenient question, “Sir, where exactly is that in the text?” is accused of lacking spiritual discernment.

Because in this ecosystem, asking for context means you are “too intellectual.” Asking for lexical accuracy means you are “religious.” Asking for sound doctrine means you “don’t understand spiritual things.”

But the preacher who discovers mute inside immutable is apparently operating in dimensions.

No.

He is operating in English. Very bad English.

IMMUTABLE DOES NOT MEAN “CANNOT BE MUTED”

The word immutable means unchangeable. That is it.

When Christians confess that God is immutable, we mean that God does not change in His being, character, attributes, purposes, or promises.

God does not become more holy. He does not become less righteous. He does not become wiser tomorrow than He was yesterday. He does not increase in knowledge. He does not mature. He does not evolve. He does not improve. He does not deteriorate. God is not a work in progress. He is eternally perfect.

Malachi 3:6

“For I the LORD do not change…”

Notice what the text does not say:

“For I the LORD cannot be muted.” 

Also:

James 1:17

“…the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Again: Change. Variation. Constancy. Not microphones. Not speakers. Not mute buttons.

Numbers 23:19

“God is not man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind.”

The biblical idea is not difficult. The problem begins when people become intoxicated with the sound of their own “revelation.”

GOD DOES NOT CHANGE IN HIS BEING

Created things change. We grow. We age. We learn. We forget. We become stronger. We become weaker. We gain what we once lacked. We lose what we once possessed. 

God does none of this. God cannot become more perfect because He is already infinitely perfect. And God cannot become less perfect because He would cease to be who He is.

Exodus 3:14

“I AM WHO I AM.”

God simply is. He does not graduate into deity. He does not develop into omniscience. He does not practice until He becomes omnipotent. He does not wake up every morning hoping to become a better God than He was yesterday. God is eternally God.

GOD DOES NOT CHANGE IN HIS CHARACTER

His holiness does not fluctuate. His righteousness does not fluctuate. His goodness does not fluctuate. His truthfulness does not fluctuate. His love does not fluctuate. God does not suffer from mood swings in His moral nature.

Psalm 102:27

“But you are the same, and your years have no end.”

The same. Not, “You cannot mute Him.”

GOD DOES NOT CHANGE IN HIS PURPOSES

Human beings revise plans because we lack complete knowledge. Something happens. We panic. We regroup. We hold an emergency meeting. We write a new strategy document.

God never does this. Nothing surprises Him. Nothing catches Him unprepared. Nothing enters creation and causes heaven to shout, “Who saw that coming?”

Isaiah 46:9–10

“I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning… saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’”

His counsel stands. His purpose stands. His decree stands. That is immutability.

GOD DOES NOT CHANGE HIS PROMISES

And here is why this doctrine matters.

If God could change in character, His promises would be unstable. If He could cease being faithful, salvation itself would hang by a thread. If God's nature were subject to alteration, Christian assurance would be impossible.

But Hebrews 6 speaks of:

Hebrews 6:17–18

“So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the UNCHANGEABLE CHARACTER OF HIS PURPOSE, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by TWO UNCHANGEABLE THINGS, in which IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO LIE, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.”

Our confidence rests in the unchanging God. Not in a pun. Not in a spelling coincidence. Not in somebody discovering mute inside immutable while pacing across a stage.

BUT DOESN'T SCRIPTURE SAY GOD “REPENTED” OR “RELENTED”?

Yes. It does.

Genesis 6:6

“And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth…”

Jonah speaks of God relenting from announced judgment. But this does not mean God acquired new information and revised His eternal nature. Scripture is describing a genuine change in God's dealings with creatures whose relationship to Him has changed.

God consistently opposes wickedness. When the wicked repent, His dealings with them change. But His character has not changed. In fact, the change in His dealings demonstrates the consistency of His character.

The creature changes. The relationship changes. God does not.

This distinction has occupied theologians for centuries. But apparently all that careful theological work can now be replaced with:

“Immutable. Mute. You cannot mute Him. Catch this revelation!”

And somewhere a congregation erupts. DEEP!

THIS IS THE REAL PROBLEM

The issue is larger than one bad definition. The issue is a religious culture in which high-sounding nonsense has become more important than being correct. 

A man can say something completely indefensible, provided he says it slowly enough. Put some strings underneath it. Lower the lights. Walk away from the lectern. Say, “Can I go deeper?” And suddenly nonsense has acquired anointing.

That is how lexical accidents become doctrines. That is how etymological fantasies become sermons. That is how grammatical abuse becomes revelation. And that is how congregations are trained to applaud theological errors rather than test them.

Nobody asks, “What does the Hebrew say?” “What does the Greek say?” “What is the context?” “How has the Church historically understood this doctrine?” “What does Scripture actually teach?”

No. The modern oracle has spoken. And because he called it a “dimension,” everybody must tremble.

This is not spiritual depth. It is anti-intellectual theater. It is the pulpit equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a dictionary.

IMMUTABILITY IS NOT A WORD GAME

The Christian doctrine is simple. God is immutable because He is eternally perfect and unchangeable in His essence, attributes, character, knowledge, purposes, and faithfulness.

His actions toward creatures may differ according to their changing circumstances, but God Himself does not mutate from one state of being into another.

Hebrews 13:8

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

That is the doctrine.

And as you can see, it has precisely nothing to do with God being impossible to silence with an imaginary mute button.

But this episode illustrates something deeply troubling about modern Nigerian Christianity. We have produced a church culture in which a man can butcher a word in public and his audience will call it revelation.

He can confuse spelling with etymology. He can confuse association with interpretation. He can confuse cleverness with truth. He can confuse a pun with doctrine. 

And instead of someone quietly handing him a dictionary, the congregation erupts:

“DEEP!”

No, beloved. It is not deep. It is wrong. And the fact that it was delivered with confidence, cadence, dramatic pauses, and background music does not make it less wrong.

Arome Osayi’s “immutable means you cannot mute Him” is not profound theology. It is a pun wearing apostolic robes.

And perhaps, after this latest excursion into dictionary divination, the one thing desperately in need of a mute button is this kind of theology.