AROME OSAYI IS THE RAINMAKER (PART IV)

“If I Stand Before Asthma, the Person Will Be Healed”

By Akin Ojumu

Arome Osayi’s claim that he possesses power over the weather is extraordinary enough. But his remarks go much further.

After asserting:

“I have power. I know I have that power.”

Osayi declares:

“If I stand before asthma, the person will be healed.”

Then he explains:

“I don’t need to…this…it’s given unto me. It is given unto me.”

Those words deserve careful attention.

Osayi does not merely say: “God can heal asthma.”

That is unquestionably true.

He does not say: “I have prayed for people with asthma and God has healed some of them.”

That would be a testimony.

He does not even say: “I believe God has used me in a ministry of healing.”

Instead, he makes an effectively guaranteed assertion: If asthma encounters me, healing will occur.

The decisive factor has become the minister’s presence.

That moves us from faith in God’s ability to heal into a theology of personally possessed supernatural power.

And Scripture gives us good reason to challenge it.

GOD HEALS

Let us begin where biblical theology requires us to begin.

God heals.

Psalm 103:2–3

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases.”

During Christ’s earthly ministry, Jesus healed the blind, the lame, the deaf, lepers, paralytics, and people suffering from numerous diseases.

The Apostles also participated in remarkable healing miracles.

Peter told the lame man at the Beautiful Gate:

Acts 3:6

“In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”

Paul likewise became an instrument through whom extraordinary miracles occurred.

So, biblical Christianity must never become embarrassed by the supernatural.

The question is not: Can God heal asthma? He certainly can.

The question is: Has God promised Arome Osayi that whenever he stands before someone with asthma, that person will necessarily be healed?

That is a completely different proposition. Where is that taught in Scripture?

SPIRITUAL GIFTS REMAIN UNDER THE SPIRIT’S SOVEREIGNTY

First Corinthians 12 is indispensable here.

Paul writes:

1 Corinthians 12:4

“There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.”

He continues:

1 Corinthians 12:6

“There are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.”

Then comes the controlling statement:

1 Corinthians 12:11

“All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills.”

Three words destroy any notion of autonomous spiritual power:

“As He wills.”

The Holy Spirit remains sovereign. The gift never becomes independent of the Giver. The recipient never acquires a private reservoir of divine power that he may deploy at will.

Even if one holds a fully continuationist theology of spiritual gifts, 1 Corinthians 12 still does not say:

“The gifted person now controls the gift.”

It says:

The Spirit distributes and operates according to His will.

That distinction is critical.

A continuationist can believe God still heals miraculously while simultaneously rejecting Osayi’s claim of guaranteed healing ability. Continuationism does not require belief in ministerial omnipotence.

“GIFTS OF HEALINGS”

Paul’s terminology is itself intriguing.

First Corinthians 12:9 speaks literally of:

“gifts of healings”

Both nouns are plural in the Greek.

Whatever theological conclusions one draws from the grammatical detail, the language hardly sounds like an unlimited healing office in which someone permanently possesses comprehensive authority over a category of disease.

It is entirely consistent with the larger emphasis of the chapter:

God sovereignly gives manifestations of His grace.

The Spirit acts according to His will. The person through whom the gift operates remains dependent upon Him. The spotlight never moves from the Giver to the gifted individual.

That makes Osayi’s language troubling: 

“It is given unto me.”

By itself, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that God gives gifts. But when paired with: “If I stand before asthma, the person will be healed,” the gift is being described almost as guaranteed spiritual equipment.

I encounter asthma. My gift activates. Asthma leaves.

That mechanical understanding is exceedingly difficult to reconcile with the New Testament.

WHAT ABOUT PAUL’S SICK ASSOCIATES?

The apostolic record itself destroys simplistic theories of automatic healing power.

Paul tells Timothy:

1 Timothy 5:23

“No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.”

Think about that. 

Timothy suffers from frequent ailments.

Paul does not say: 

“Come stand before me and you will be healed.”

He recommends an ordinary remedy.

Then there is Trophimus.

Paul writes:

2 Timothy 4:20

“I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus.”

Again, this is Paul. An Apostle. A man through whom astonishing miracles occurred. Yet Trophimus remained sick.

Epaphroditus likewise became seriously ill:

Philippians 2:27

“Indeed he was ill, near to death.”

And Paul attributes his recovery not to an automatic apostolic healing ability but to divine mercy:

“But God had mercy on him.”

That language is beautiful precisely because it preserves divine sovereignty.

God had mercy.

Paul does not say: 

“I have healing power, so I fixed Epaphroditus.”

THE POWER BELONGS TO GOD

Acts 19:11

“God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul.”

Every word matters.

Who was doing the miracles? God.

Through whose hands? Paul’s.

That is the proper biblical order.

God is the actor. Paul is the instrument. This is radically different from constructing the minister as the owner of the power.

When Peter and John healed the lame man in Acts 3, the crowd stared at them in amazement.

Peter immediately corrected their interpretation:

Acts 3:12

“Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?”

That verse should be written over every modern miracle ministry.

“Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety…”

Peter refuses both possibilities.

Not our power. Not our piety.

CHRISTIAN FAITH IS NOT FAITH IN POWERFUL MEN

The Church must recover this basic truth.

Our confidence is not in the anointed man. Our confidence is not in the prophet. Our confidence is not in the apostle. Our confidence is not in the missionary. Our confidence is not in whoever claims to possess the greatest supernatural authority.

Our confidence is in Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 4:16 does not say: 

Find someone with greater spiritual power and approach him boldly.

It says: 

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.”

Christ Himself is our great High Priest. God Himself is our Father. The Spirit Himself indwells every believer.

The Church does not need a new class of supernatural intermediaries.

Yet Osayi’s comments raise precisely that danger.

For he connects unusual supernatural endowment with obedience and speaks in the language of one who possesses capabilities unavailable to ordinary believers.

In Part V, we will examine where that theology leads: The creation of a spiritual elite.