By Oyewole Sarumi
There are moments in the life of the Church when theological disagreement transcends the ordinary boundaries of denominational difference and touches something far more foundational.
This is such a moment. The gravity of the moment is too great and grievous. A four-minute sermon excerpt by Dr. Abel Damina has surfaced, and within its brief compass, it has managed to raise questions that strike at the very heart of Christian orthodoxy, not merely about the atonement, but about the authority of Scripture itself.
I have examined the full sermon and its transcript with the care that over thirty years of studying hermeneutics and theology have taught me to exercise. I have not relied upon summaries or second-hand reports.
I have gone back to the primary texts, to Hebrews, to Isaiah, to Acts, to John, to Romans, and I have read them in their contexts. What follows is not a personal attack upon any individual. It is a forensic theological analysis of propositions that, if maintained consistently, move outside historic Christian orthodoxy.
The Nigerian Supreme Council for Ecclesiastical Affairs has already described certain teachings emanating from this quarter as “heretic and fallacious,” noting that they “undermine the gospels”. Other Christian leaders have labelled such doctrines “heretical and dangerous”. But my concern here is not with labels. It is with truth. It is with the faithful handling of God’s Word. And it is with the protection of Christ’s flock from teaching that distorts the very heart of the gospel.
The Central Question: Who Killed Jesus?
The first and most consequential proposition in the teaching under examination is this: “Who used the power of death on Jesus? Satan.” Then: “At no point will the Father be responsible for the death of His Son.” And again: “The Father doesn’t require death. Neither does the Father orchestrate death.”
On the surface, there is an element of truth embedded in this assertion. The New Testament certainly presents Satan as an adversary of Christ and as intimately associated with death. Hebrews 2:14 explicitly declares that through His death Christ destroyed “the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” So the preacher is not inventing Satan’s connection with death. The problem lies elsewhere: it lies in the logical leap from “Satan had the power of death” to “therefore Satan killed Jesus independently of God’s sovereign purpose.”
That conclusion does not follow from Hebrews 2:14. It is an illegitimate inference, equivalent to saying that because a jailer has the power to imprison someone, therefore whenever someone enters prison, the jailer independently decided that the prisoner should enter. The conclusion does not necessarily follow, and in the case of Christ’s death, the canonical witness explicitly contradicts it.
Hebrews 2:14: What It Actually Says
Let us look carefully at the text. Hebrews 2:14 states: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (ESV).
Notice the sequence. Jesus, through death, destroys the devil, who had the power of death. The text does not say Satan killed Jesus. It does not say Satan possessed autonomous sovereignty over death. It does not say God had no involvement in Jesus’ death. Quite the opposite. The magnificent paradox of Hebrews is that Christ enters death voluntarily and thereby defeats the very power associated with the devil.
As John Calvin commented on this passage: “The originator of death is Satan, both as to the soul and the body”. But Calvin also understood that “Christ by his death deprived Satan of his power to cause death”. The emphasis is not on Satan’s autonomous power but on Christ’s decisive victory. The devil’s power over death is real yet provisional, formidable yet forfeited. Through His incarnate death, Jesus neutralized Satan’s dominion over death, liberating humanity from the bondage of mortality.
The preacher’s error is to read into Hebrews 2:14 a sovereignty that the text never attributes to Satan. The devil has power over death only in a derivative and permitted sense. As one commentator rightly observes, “It were a mistake to infer that the power of the devil in reference to death is absolute. Such power … of Him who, as occupying in His own right the throne of the universe, has the ‘keys of death.’ The power of the devil in reference to death is simply permitted power”.
Jesus Himself Destroys the Argument
There is a devastating problem with the assertion that Satan exercised the power of death over Jesus. Jesus Himself says in John 10:18: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (ESV).
Jesus does not present Himself as one whom Satan took. He presents Himself as the One who voluntarily surrenders His life within the Father’s redemptive purpose. The crucifixion is therefore not fundamentally the story of Satan successfully killing Jesus. It is the story of Jesus willingly offering Himself.
Satan participates in the conspiracy. Judas participates. The Jewish authorities participate. Pilate participates. The Roman soldiers participate. Human sin participates. But none of these agents possesses ultimate sovereignty over the event. That distinction is crucial and must never be lost.
Acts 2:23: The Apostolic Witness
Peter’s Pentecost sermon presents a theology that makes the preacher’s proposition extraordinarily difficult to sustain. Peter declares that Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” and then immediately says, “you crucified and killed” Him (Acts 2:23, ESV).
Look carefully at the theology. Peter simultaneously holds together God’s sovereign purpose and human responsibility. This is biblical theology at its finest. God planned. Human beings acted. Human beings were morally responsible. And God’s purpose was nevertheless accomplished. This is not a contradiction. It is precisely the biblical doctrine of providence.
The early church prayed in Acts 4:27–28 and explicitly identified Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel as participants in Jesus’ death. But then they said that these people did what God’s “hand and plan had predestined to take place.” This is almost impossible to reconcile with the proposition that “the Father does not orchestrate death.” The apostolic church explicitly understands the crucifixion as an event occurring within God’s predetermined redemptive purpose. This does not make God morally evil. It means that God’s sovereignty operates through human history without making God the sinful author of the wicked intentions of human agents.
Isaiah 53: The Divine Purpose in Suffering
We now come to one of the most serious problems in the teaching. Isaiah 53:10 says: “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief” (ESV). The same passage describes the Servant’s suffering as a guilt offering.
This does not mean God enjoyed torturing Jesus. It does not mean the Father is sadistic. It does not mean the Father is morally equivalent to Satan. It means that the suffering and death of the Servant belong to God’s redemptive purpose. As one commentator notes, “this phrase highlights the divine purpose behind the suffering of the Servant”. Jesus’ sufferings “were not accidental”. “The Father purposed the Son’s crushing so that sin could be atoned for, a redeemed people could be born”.
Therefore, to say “at no point will the Father be responsible for the death of His Son” creates a profound theological collision with the biblical narrative. The New Testament reads Jesus’ death through this Isaianic framework. The cross is not divine improvisation. It is the centre of God’s redemptive purpose.
Romans 8:32 and the Father’s Gift
Paul declares in Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (ESV). Notice Paul’s language. God gave the Son. Paul does not say Satan took the Son. Paul’s theology is sacrificial. God’s giving of the Son is an expression of divine love.
John 3:16 says essentially the same thing: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (ESV). The Father sends. The Son willingly obeys. The Son offers Himself. The Spirit participates in the divine redemptive economy. This is Trinitarian action, not a cosmic kidnapping in which Satan unexpectedly obtains the upper hand over God.
The Problem of Dualism
The preacher’s argument effectively creates something approaching a cosmic dualism: God equals Life, Satan equals Death, with Satan possessing countervailing power. This begins to sound like two competing cosmic principles.
But biblical Christianity does not teach a cosmic dualism in which God and Satan are competing metaphysical powers of comparable jurisdiction. Satan is a creature. God is Creator. Satan’s existence is derivative. Satan’s power is derivative. Satan’s activity is bounded. Satan is not God’s metaphysical opposite.
There is no eternal principle of Death standing opposite the eternal God of Life. That would move Christianity toward something much closer to metaphysical dualism, a position the early Church Fathers, particularly Irenaeus, fought against with vigour. Irenaeus portrayed the cross not as Satan’s victory but as a cosmic battle in which Christ defeated the powers of sin, death, and Satan.
Isaiah 45:7: The Sovereignty of God
The preacher’s treatment of Isaiah 45:7 is where the teaching crosses another very serious boundary. He says: “Don’t mind Isaiah.” “Isaiah is confused.” “Isaiah was speaking from a confused position.” “Isaiah come here, sit down. Correct that note.” And finally: “Tell him shut up.”
This is not merely a stylistic problem. It is a hermeneutical catastrophe. The question is no longer “How should Isaiah 45:7 be interpreted?” It becomes “Can a contemporary preacher declare a canonical prophet wrong because he possesses the Holy Spirit?” The answer is no.
Isaiah did not make a theological mistake in Isaiah 45:7. The passage reads: “I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create calamity; I am the LORD who does all these things” (NKJV). The Hebrew term raʿ has a semantic range that can refer to evil, adversity, distress, misery, calamity, disaster, or trouble. The context determines the meaning, and the immediate context is about God’s sovereignty over nations and history, particularly God’s use of Cyrus.
The contrast is between light and darkness, peace and calamity. The point is God’s comprehensive sovereignty. The text is emphatically declaring that there is no rival deity controlling the dark side of history. That is actually one of the central theological messages of the passage. John Chrysostom, the great Church Father, understood this precisely: “the inspired author is saying the in-between things are not really bad but are thought to be by the general run of people, things like captivity, servitude and exile”. He noted that the passage refers “not to fornication but to calamities”.
The irony is astonishing. The very passage the preacher accuses Isaiah of mishandling is actually emphasizing, “I am the LORD who does all these things.” Why? Because Israel was surrounded by pagan cultures that attributed different dimensions of reality to different gods. Isaiah’s theology says there is one sovereign God. He controls light. He controls darkness. He gives peace. He brings judgment. There isn’t a second god running the dark department. Isaiah’s theology is therefore fundamentally anti-dualistic.
“God Is Light”: A Category Error
The preacher argues that because “God is light” (1 John 1:5), God cannot bring judgment or death. This is another category error. “Darkness” in 1 John refers fundamentally to moral evil and sin, not to God’s inability to bring judgment. God’s holiness means God cannot sin. It does not mean God cannot judge sin.
In fact, the God of Scripture judges Egypt, judges nations, judges Israel, judges kings, judges angels, judges humanity, and ultimately judges the world. If “God is light” meant “God can never bring judgment,” then enormous portions of biblical theology would collapse. The God who is light is also the God who will judge the living and the dead.
The Most Dangerous Statement: “Abel Damina Is a Son; Isaiah Was a Servant”
This is theologically alarming. The preacher says: “Isaiah was a servant. Abel Damina is a son.” Then: “Isaiah never had the indwelling.” Then: “Abel Damina has the Spirit within and the Spirit upon.” And therefore: “The Spirit within … will guide you into all the truth including the one Isaiah didn’t know.”
This creates an extraordinary epistemological problem. It effectively establishes that the preacher’s present spiritual experience gives him authority to correct canonical Scripture. That is unacceptable Christian hermeneutics.
The Holy Spirit inspired Scripture. Therefore the Spirit does not lead believers into truth by making them competent to contradict Scripture. Rather, the Spirit leads believers into truth by helping them understand, obey, and faithfully apply God’s revelation. The distinction is crucial. Illumination is not new canonical revelation. A believer may understand a passage more deeply than someone else. A preacher may discover a beautiful theological insight. A Christian may perceive implications that previous generations overlooked. But none of that gives the preacher authority to say “Isaiah was confused.”
Augustine, that great Doctor of the Church, understood the authority of Scripture profoundly. For Augustine, the authority of Scripture was not merely propositional but relational, “a knowing in fellowship where the eternal Word of God addresses humanity’s deepest need”. Scripture carries authority because it is God’s Word, not because any interpreter, however anointed, declares it to be so.
The “Sons Versus Servants” Argument Is Exegetically Defective
There is a legitimate New Testament distinction involving believers as sons and children of God. But Scripture does not teach that sons of God possess superior revelation and therefore can correct prophets. Jesus Himself says, “I have called you friends” (John 15:15). But friendship with Christ does not mean equality with Christ. Likewise, sonship does not make the believer omniscient. The Spirit indwells believers precisely because believers need guidance. The indwelling Spirit does not transform a preacher into an infallible interpreter.
The Puritan understanding of Scripture’s authority is instructive here. The Puritans believed Scripture to be “God’s Word, infallible and inerrant. It was to be trusted and obeyed”. They did not believe that any interpreter, however Spirit-filled, could sit in judgment over the text. John Goodwin, the Puritan divine, declared without hesitation, “I fully and with all my heart and all my soul believe them to be of divine authority”.
The Hermeneutical Inversion
Traditional Christian hermeneutics operates like this: Scripture → interpretation → doctrine → application. The teaching under examination operates increasingly like this: Personal theological conclusion → select Scripture → reinterpret conflicting passages → dismiss the conflicting biblical author.
That is an extremely dangerous inversion. Once that method is permitted, anyone can say: “Paul misunderstood this.” “Peter didn’t have our revelation.” “John was speaking from an Old Covenant position.” “Isaiah was confused.” And eventually: “Jesus meant something different from what the Church has historically understood.” There is no longer an objective canonical authority. The interpreter becomes the authority.
The Cross Is More Beautiful Than This Teaching Allows
There is something profoundly beautiful in the biblical account that gets lost in this interpretation. The biblical picture is not: Satan kills Jesus → God reacts → resurrection fixes the problem. It is: The Father sends the Son. The Son willingly comes. The Son offers Himself. Human beings reject and crucify Him. Satan works through the powers of evil. God’s sovereign purpose is accomplished. The Spirit sustains the redemptive mission. The Son dies. The Son rises. Death is defeated. Satan is disarmed. Humanity is redeemed.
That is far more profound than Satan simply possessing a “death weapon” that he successfully used against Jesus. The cross is simultaneously divine sovereignty and human evil. This is one of the great mysteries of Christian theology. The people who crucified Jesus acted wickedly. God did not become wicked. Yet God used their wicked actions within His redemptive purpose.
The Teaching Unintentionally Diminishes the Cross
This may be the greatest pastoral danger. If Satan independently killed Jesus, while God had nothing to do with the event, what exactly was the Father’s redemptive relationship to the cross? Was the Father merely waiting for Satan to make a mistake? Did Satan accidentally create the mechanism by which salvation became possible? Was the crucifixion God’s emergency response?
That is not apostolic Christianity. Paul says: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). The cross is not divine improvisation. It is the centre of God’s redemptive purpose. To suggest otherwise is to diminish the cross and to empty it of its meaning as the definitive act of God’s saving love.
Who Killed Jesus? The Balanced Biblical Answer
If someone asks me as a professor of theology, “Who killed Jesus?” my answer would be multifaceted:
Historically: Judas betrayed Him. The Jewish leadership handed Him over. Pilate authorized His crucifixion. Roman soldiers executed Him. Human sin stands behind the entire tragedy.
Spiritually: Satan opposed Christ and participated in the evil surrounding the cross.
Theologically: Christ willingly offered Himself according to the Father’s redemptive purpose.
Providentially: God sovereignly ordained and used the event for salvation.
Christologically: Jesus was not an unwilling victim. He said, “I lay it down of my own accord.”
That is the balanced biblical answer. It holds together all the dimensions of the truth without reducing the cross to a mere contest between God and Satan.
Is It Heresy
At this junction, I must be academically precise. The word “heresy” should not become a theological insult that we apply whenever another Christian interprets a difficult passage differently. There are legitimate disagreements over atonement models, divine sovereignty, free will, the meaning of Hebrews 2:14, and the precise semantics of Isaiah 45:7. Those disagreements do not automatically constitute heresy.
But the situation changes when a teaching asserts propositions that fundamentally contradict the canonical witness. I would therefore distinguish three levels.
Level 1 is legitimate theological debate. For example, what exactly does “the devil had the power of death” mean? That is a legitimate theological question.
Level 2 is serious exegetical error. For example, “therefore Satan killed Jesus and God had nothing to do with it.” That is a serious doctrinal and exegetical error because the inference contradicts multiple texts.
Level 3 is a potentially heretical theological trajectory. If someone consistently teaches that God did not will Christ’s death, that Christ’s crucifixion occurred independently of God’s purpose, that Satan possesses autonomous power over death, and that contemporary believers possess revelation superior to canonical Scripture, then the resulting system moves substantially outside historic Christian orthodoxy.
That is where I would be prepared to use the term “heretical teaching,” while being cautious about declaring the individual preacher personally a heretic. That distinction matters. The Nigerian Supreme Council for Ecclesiastical Affairs has already stated that heresy is “a belief or opinion contrary to orthodox Christian doctrine and any belief, teaching or practice that explicitly undermines the gospel”. By that definition, some of the propositions under examination qualify.
The Real Danger: Canonical Authority
Interestingly, I consider the statement about Satan less dangerous than the statement about Isaiah. Why? Because Christians have historically debated the meaning of Hebrews 2:14. But “Isaiah was confused, but I have the Spirit, therefore I can correct Isaiah” attacks the very principle of canonical authority. Once the interpreter becomes superior to the text, there is no longer any stable hermeneutical boundary. That is the real danger.
The theological principle I would teach my students is this: The Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture does not contradict the Scripture He inspired. Therefore, the Spirit does not authorize us to correct Scripture. Rather, the Spirit corrects us through Scripture. That is the difference between illumination and revelation.
The Principle of Hermeneutical Humility
The preacher’s logic is: Isaiah equals servant, Damina equals son, therefore Damina is greater than Isaiah. That is an argument from spiritual status, not exegesis. And that is dangerous. If spiritual status determines truth, then every preacher who claims greater spiritual experience can override Scripture.
The question must never be “Who has more anointing?” The question must be “What does the text mean in its linguistic, historical, literary, canonical, and theological context?” That is hermeneutics. That is the discipline I have taught for fifty years. That is the discipline the Church desperately needs today.
A Final Pastoral Word
I understand why the leadership of the Church is troubled. I understand why hearts bleed. But I would encourage one additional theological posture alongside the grief. We should not answer theological error with contempt for the person. The stronger response is: We love the preacher enough to examine the teaching. We love the hearers enough to protect them from error. We love Scripture enough not to allow personality to outrank it. And above everything, we love Christ enough to defend the meaning of His cross.
Because ultimately this debate is not about one preacher versus another. It is not even about Abel Damina versus Isaiah. It is about who gets the final interpretive authority over the death of Jesus Christ: the preacher’s theological system or the canonical testimony of Scripture. And on that question, my answer as a theological and hermeneutical scholar is unequivocal.
Scripture Must Judge the Preacher
As I conclude this long piece, let me say this: Scripture must judge the preacher; the preacher must never sit in judgment over Scripture. Isaiah does not need to be corrected by us. We need to understand Isaiah correctly. That is the essence of Christian hermeneutics.
The Church has faced challenges to its doctrine and to its Scripture throughout its history. In the second century, the Gnostics claimed secret knowledge superior to apostolic teaching. The Church Fathers, including Irenaeus and Augustine, responded by insisting on the authority of the canonical Scriptures and the rule of faith. In the sixteenth century, the Reformers responded to the claims of ecclesiastical tradition by insisting on sola Scriptura—Scripture alone as the final authority. Today, we face a similar challenge: not from without but from within, from those who claim the Spirit gives them authority to correct the very Scriptures the Spirit inspired.
The response must be the same. We must return to the Scriptures. We must read them carefully, in context, with humility. We must submit our interpretations to the witness of the whole canon. And we must remember that the Spirit who inspired the Word does not contradict the Word He inspired.
The cross of Christ stands at the centre of Christian faith. It is not the story of Satan’s victory. It is the story of God’s redemptive purpose, accomplished through the willing obedience of the Son, in the power of the Spirit, for the salvation of the world. To diminish that cross by reducing it to a contest between God and Satan is to diminish the gospel itself. To claim authority to correct the prophets who foretold that cross is to undermine the very foundation of our faith.
May the Church recover its commitment to the authority of Scripture. May preachers handle the Word of God with fear and trembling. May leaders protect the flock from error. And may Christ, who died and rose again, be glorified in all our teaching and in all our lives.
Soli Deo Gloria