In the viral video, Pastor Alph Lukau is seen telling the crowd attending the funeral service that the man in the coffin had been dead since February 22.
The pastor then placed his hand on the body before speaking in tongues and waving his hands above the supposed remains.
“Lift your hands up, lift your hands up,” Lukau told the crowd.
The man then rose from the coffin.
According to the Alleluia International Ministries church, the driver of the funeral car heard the “dead man” in the video, named Elliot, kicking from inside the coffin right before they approached the church’s gate, reported Sowetan Live.
The church added that Lukau then inspected the coffin and placed his hands while performing a prayer on Elliot before the latter rose from the coffin.
Unlike earlier claims that the body was “resurrected”, the church now said that Lukau only “completed a miracle that God had already started.”
“These miracles of healing and deliverance were not an unusual sight at the church. The responsibility of the man of God is to help the testimony to come to life,” Pastor Rochelle Kombou said.
The church cleared their story after three funeral parlors claimed that they were duped by the church for the act.
Three funeral parlors, Kings and Queens, Black Phoenix and Kingdom Blue, said that the church bought coffin from one of the parlors, stickers from another, and hired a hearse from the third.
