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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 17:14

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And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a [certain] man, kneeling down to him, and saying,

14. when they were come to the multitude ] Some will recall Raphael’s great picture of the Transfiguration, in which the contrast is powerfully portrayed between the scene on the mount, calm, bright, and heavenly, and the scene below of suffering, human passions, and failure.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14 21. A Lunatic Child is cured

Mar 9:14-29, where the scene and the symptoms of the disease are described with great particularity. Luk 9:37-42.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

And when they were come to the multitude – This took place on the day following the transfiguration, Luk 9:37. This multitude was probably composed of persons who had attended on his ministry, many of whom were his real disciples. With them, as Mark Mar 9:15 informs us, were scribes questioning with them. That is, they were probably professedly making inquiries about the Saviour, but really attempting to introduce their own sentiments, and to draw them off from him. They probably artfully asked them many questions about his birth, his family, his appearance, his manner of life, and his instructions, all which were contrary to the general expectation respecting the Messiah, and they intended, therefore, to insinuate that such a person could not be the Christ. The people were persuaded that he was the Messiah. and it would not have done to have attacked their opinions openly, but they attempted to gain the same point by sly insinuations. Error is always subtle, and often puts on the appearance of calm and honest inquiry. Well had he compared them to leavens, Mat 16:11-12. The multitude, seeing Jesus coming down, left the scribes, and ran to meet him (Mark). They were amazed, probably because they had not expected to see him there. In their joy at meeting him in this unexpected manner, they saluted him (Mark); that is, probably they prostrated themselves before him after the manner of salutation in Eastern countries. See the notes at Luk 10:4. Jesus, seeing the scribes and their artful design, reproved them by asking them why they questioned thus with his disciples, Mar 9:16. Conscious of their guilt and their base purpose, they returned no answer.

A certain man kneeling down to him – That is, saluting him, or showing high regard for him. See the notes at Luk 10:4. It did not imply religious homage, but merely high respect and earnest entreaty.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Mat 17:14; Mat 17:21

And when they were come to the multitude.

The healing of the lunatic child

I. The divinely appointed alternations of the Christian life. (Mar 9:2; Mar 9:17).

II. Spiritual work can be done only by spiritual men (Mar 9:28-29; Act 19:13-16). Correspondence in the worker to the work to be done is never overlooked in any other department of activity. Who employs a plague-stricken nurse to tend a plague-stricken patient? Christs own argument (Mat 12:25-28); Satan will not cast out Satan.

III. The weakness of the Christian apart from Christ.

IV. The absolute necessity of faith.

1. The disciples could do nothing without faith.

2. The father of the lunatic child could receive nothing without faith. How this is to be explained. Faith is more than belief; it is a consequent putting of ourselves into connection with God. The wire must be brought into connection with the battery before it can be charged with electricity. The pitcher must be placed in connection with the fountain before it can be filled.

V. The omnipotence of faith. By believing we place ourselves in connection with Almighty God. What pool cannot the ocean fill? What earthly space cannot the sun illumine? No man, then, who desires to be saved, need despair. You cannot expel sin from your own heart; but the word of Christ is omnipotent. (Anon.)

The contrast

Life is full of changes and contrast. The best of mans quality and character is what he is in, and how he meets these abrupt and broken changes.

I. Christs life was made up of contrasts. Not one more, marked or extreme than this, and nowhere is Christ so fully and truly supreme and sublimely himself. The contrast was painful to Him, painful to all His soul in its love of the beautiful and true and right. What a descent it was! Every true life has such contrasts, and in them the true man is revealed. Christ found His lifework, not in His glory, but in the valley, and was there truly and fully the Messiah. The value of the vision and glory is but their gift of fitness for work and endurance.

II. The confused scene which greets Christ is a true picture of life, into which with healing and order making, christ is ever entering.

1. A sad picture of the world to-day. We are perplexed and almost despairful.

2. A sad picture of our own inner life the home of so much strife, of so much unbelief. Our wondering question is often, Why could we not cast them out? (S. D. Thomas.)

The gracious welcome

Bring him hither to me.

1. Whose words are these?

2. To whom are they spoken?

3. Concerning whom are they spoken?

4. What do they teach us?

(1) Something as to Christ. He is the great Healer, the sinners one Physician.

(2) Something as to ourselves. Contact with Him is health, and life, and warmth. Into this close contact He invites us to bring others. And was any brought one ever sent away? (H. Bonar, D. D.)

A grain of faith

The boundaries of the province of faith.

I. Faiths limitations.

1. The different ages of the Church have called for different kinds of faith. The faith of a miraculous age would not be the same with the faith of a period when God worked by ordinary operations. But even in the same period, and at the same moment, not only the measure, but the character of the faith of different men must vary. A common man at the time of Christ would not have been reproved as the apostles were for not being able to cast out an evil spirit, because it was an authority only given to the apostles.

3. Faith and its achievements must be as God is pleased to give it to every one. It is a pure creation of God in mans soul.

4. Every mans responsibility is just to use the faith, whatever its measure may be, which God has given him; he cannot go beyond it. Nevertheless within this the state of every mans faith depends upon the condition of his heart, and the life which he is leading.

II. The ranges of faith.

1. It is plain that everything hinges upon faith, that the success of faith does not depend upon the quantity, but upon the quality-A grain. You may not be able to remove material mountains, but you can spiritual mountains of sin, care, and difficulty. God puts it into a mans mind to believe what He intends that man to do. But may we not mistake the leadings of faith? Yes: just as we may mistake the leadings of prayer and providence. The security is, in a scriptural mind, disciplined to know the still small voices of God. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Mysterious failure

I. That the honest efforts of Gods servants may sometimes end in failure. As Christian workers, we often think we succeed when we in reality fail, and the reverse. But in this case there could be no mistake.

1. It was a conscious failure-Could not.

2. It was a failure without a redeeming feature. In the pulpit we sometimes partially atone for failure in the end by the good impression we made at the beginning, and the reverse. The demon was only exasperated to ten-fold fury, till the lad was flung to the ground, and wallowed foaming.

3. It was a public failure. It was witnessed by the multitude, and among them the vindictive, sarcastic scribes.

4. It was a humiliating failure. This devil in the lad was too much for nine men, who were the divinely-credentialed ambassadors of Christ.

II. That the failure of Christian workers may sometimes be a mystery to themselves-Why could not we? They had honestly tried; had no doubt done the like before; certainly they did it afterward; why not now? Everything appeared to justify them in looking for success.

1. They were Christs chosen disciples.

2. They were His recognized ambassadors. He had confirmed their call by giving them the Divine gift of miracles.

3. They had not put their hands to a work which God designed for others. The very terms of their commission specified the work which they had tried to do and failed-raise the dead, cast out devils.

4. No reason to believe they used their own names instead of Christs on this occasion. No wonder they were humiliated and thunder-struck at such a failure. There is comfort here for all disappointed workers. The feeling of disappointment which prompted this question was a hopeful feature in their case. What we should be most concerned about is, not success, but downright honesty in our work.

III. The failure of many men in the pulpit and out of it need be no mystery even to themselves. Many of us fail because we forget to take aim. Have you tried to cast out devils, and failed? Tell Jesus about it. (T. Kelly.)

Hope in hopeless cases

I. The details of the deplorable case before us. Physical miracles of Christ typical of spiritual works.

1. The disease appeared every now and then in overwhelming attacks of mania, in which the man was utterly beyond his own control. So we have seen melancholy persons in whom distrust, despair have raged at times with unconquerable fury.

2. The patient at such times was filled with a terrible anguish.

3. The evil spirit sought his destruction by hailing him in different directions. So with distressed souls; fly to extremes.

4. This child was deaf.

5. He was dumb.

6. He was pining away. Men are a prey to their own unbelief.

7. All this had continued for years.

8. The disciples had failed to cast out the devil.

II. The one resource.

1. Jesus Christ is still alive.

2. Jesus lives in the place of authority.

3. Jesus lives in the place of observation, and He graciously interposes still.

4. Jesus expects us to treat Him as the living, powerful, interposing One, and to confide in Him as such.

III. The sure result. The word of Christ was sure; was opposed by the devil. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Christs life made up of contrasts

None of them more marked and extreme than this; and nowhere is Christ so fully and truly supreme and sublimely Himself. He needs no pause to fittingly enter the clanging discord of anger, despairing sorrow and rude scorn. He is alike supreme, touching manhoods apex in the mount, and mingling with manhoods depravity in ignorance and evil in the valley. And that not because He lived above and indifferent to each, but because, identifying Himself with each, He was true and great enough to subordinate all to His lifes mission. The contrast was painful to Him, painful to all His soul in its love of the beautiful and true and right. From the peace of the Transfiguration glory-the hearts ecstasy touching heaven; touching God in its fellowship; the glad satisfaction of an ideal realized, His lifes meaning and appointment found, all Moses promised and Elijah wrought for consummated-to the discordant throng of- unhallowed passion and faithless failure. What a descent it was! And this even in a moment, as abrupt as from dream to waking. The change and contrast is infinitely sad. Suddenly Christ, from calm vision and peaceful vow, descending with the glory yet about Him, mantling face and form, is greeted with taunt and scorn, and the bitter cry of shame and despair. Hardly the cross was a sorer trial to the patience, earnestness, and love of Christ. Yet, in the midst He stands, all calm and good, all patiently laying aside His own pain to minister to others-His one concern the honour of the kingdom of man and God. Every true life has such contrasts, and in them the true man is revealed; they compel to the surface that which is most of a man-good or bad, weak or strong. In them we have the gauge of a mans piety and true devotion. It is easy to serve and worship and to be strong in our moments of vision and conscious contact with God, when His Spirit thrills us with joy and faith. It is possible even to brace ourselves up with ardour and enthusiasm for some notable and well-defined task; but to find swift following (all discordant) our vision, a bitter trial, and wake from peaceful resolve to stern reality of strife, and still be true, needs all our faith. It is possible only to the Christ-like man, and should be our aim and glory. (S. D. Thomas.)

The power of faith

When man has faith in God his nature so opens itself to be filled with God, that God and he make a new unity, different at once from pure heavenly divinity and from pure earthly humanity, the new unit of man inspired by God; and by that new unit, that new being, it is that the evil is to be conquered and the world is to be saved. Can we understand that? Let us take two simple illustrations which may make it plain. Look at the artists chisel. Most certainly it carves the statue. The artist cannot carve without his chisel. And yet imagine the chisel, conscious that it was made to carve and that that is its function, trying to carve alone. It lays itself against the hard marble, but it has neither strength nor skill; it has no force to drive itself in, and if it had it does not know which way it ought to go. Then we can imagine the chisel full of disappointment. Why cannot I carve? it cries. And then the artist comes and seizes it. The chisel lays itself into his hand, and is obedient to him. That obedience is faith. It opens the channels between the sculptors brain and the hard steel. Thought, feeling, imagination, skill, flow down from the deep chambers of the artists soul to the chisels edge. The sculptor and the chisel are not two, but one. It is the unit which they make that carves the statue. Then again, look at the army and its great commander. The army tries to fight the battle, and is routed. Then its scattered regiments gather themselves together, and put themselves into the hands of the great general, and obey him perfectly, and fight the battle once more and succeed. Why could not I succeed? the army cries; and the general answers, Because of your unbelief. Because you had no faith. You separated yourself from me. You are but half a power, not a whole power. The power which has won the battle now is not you and is not I; it is made up of you and me together, and the power which made us a unit was your obedient faith. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

Faith in action

It may be interesting and useful to consider in what way the apostles actually worked out the lessons which our Lord gave them concerning faith. The lessons which Christ gave them while He was yet with them were, doubtless, intended to guide them when they were left to themselves; He dropped into their minds many maxims, and precepts, and seeds of thought, which He knew that they would not understand at the time, intending that the things said should be brought to remembrance by the power of the Holy Ghost, and should then be comprehended in all their fulness, and be guides to their feet and lanterns to their paths. Well, then, how did they deal with the mountains of difficulty which they had to remove in order to lay the foundations of the Church? How did they put in practice the precept of their Lord, that they should command the mountains in faith to be removed? and in what way and to what degree did they realize the fulfilment of the promise that a command so given and backed by prayer should be forthwith obeyed, and that nothing should be impossible? It is plain that you may easily conceive a very wild and fanatical system of attempts to propagate the gospel being based upon our Lords words literally taken. You may conceive, e.g., of St. Peter on the Day of Pentecost, instead of arguing calmly with the people and declaring the facts connected with the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, attempting some striking miracle which would batter down all opposition; or you can conceive of St. Paul at Ephesus, instead of pleading his cause in the theatre, commanding the great Temple of Diana to be removed and cast into the sea; in fact, you may conceive of a course of conduct as different as possible from that which the apostles with one consent and in their corporate capacity actually adopted. Look at the history contained in the Book of Acts, or at the incidental living history which comes out in the Epistles, and you will see that the whole work of the apostles is a combination of faith and prayer with judgment and calm, quiet, good sense; they were conspicuously what we should call good men of business; like all such men, they attended to small matters as well as great; when difficulties arose, they took counsel together, and discussed the difficulties at a general meeting; they framed rules when rules were necessary; they never forgot that in this world prudence is as necessary with regard to the kingdom of God as it is with regard to mere worldly success; this was the way in which the apostles founded and governed the Church of Christ. And yet the apostles would have been the last men to put trust in their own wisdom, or their business capacity, or their powers of organization. At all times of their ministry, in bright days and in dark, in the council chamber at Jerusalem or in prison for the name of Christ, in legislating for the churches or in dealing with individual hearts and consciences, in striving by all manner of means to cast out the legion of devils by which mankind was possessed, they would have in their minds such words as these. (Bishop Harvey Goodwin.)

Want of faith the source of weakness

How the whole story of humankind is like that scene which took place at the foot of Tabor, while Jesus was being transfigured on the top. You remember how, in Raphaels great painting, the whole story is depicted. Up above Christ is hovering in glory, lifted from earth and clothed in light and accompanied on each side by His saints. Down below, in the same picture, the father holds his frantic child, and the helpless disciples are gazing in despair at the struggles which their charms have wholly failed to touch. It is the peace of Divine strength above; it is the tumult and dismay of human feebleness below. But what keeps the great picture from being a mere painted mockery is that the puzzled disciples in the foreground are pointing the distressed parents of the child up to the mountain where the form of Christ is seen. They have begun to get hold of the idea that what they could not do He could do. So they are on the way to the faith which He described to them when they came to Him with their perplexity. Let the picture help to interpret them to us, and is not the meaning of Christs words to His disciples this? He claims the disciples for Himself. He tells them that the reason of their failure is that they have been trying to do by themselves what they can only do when He is behind them, when their natures are so open that His strength can freely flow out through them. That, I think, is what He means by faith. The man who is so open Christward that Christ is able to pour His strength out through him upon the tasks of life has faith in Christ. The man who is so closed Christward that nothing but his own strength gets utterance upon the tasks of life has not faith, and is weak because of his unbelief. (Phillips Brooks.)

Reason of failure

Whence comes it that, when assailed by temptation, we so seldom conquer and so often fail? It is because of our unbelief-because we are fools, and slow of heart to believe all that God Himself has told us. We do not go to Him first of all; we do not take His instructions, do not consult His revealed will as our first rule of action. Is it not so as regards that evil spirit whose name is Legion, whose accursed power we meet everywhere-not only in our streets, but in some of its manifold influences in our homes and hearts-the spirit of selfishness and sensuality, lust, intemperance, sarcasm, spite, hypocrisy, cheating, lying, meanness? We do not say, we have not faith to say, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out. We dare not say to impotence, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. We have more faith in ourselves; in clever legislation, compulsory education, commercial prosperity, in what we call progress, in the discoveries of science. We will not read, or we forget, history-how all the great empires of the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tiber, and the Tigris rose and fell as they realized that which was true and right hi the religion they professed; how the golden glory of Babylon, the silver sheen of Cyrus the Persian, the brazen splendour which gleamed on the victorious arms of Alexander, the iron strength of Rome, were ground into powder as the stone fell upon them, the stone which the builders rejected, but which became the head of the corner and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land-the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and when in this season of decadence, and in the time of their visitation, they heard the war-cry of their conquerors, and staggered from the wine-cup and the harlots lap to put on the armour which they could hardly bear, and the sword which they could scarcely wield, it was as they asked in their defeat, Why could not we cast them out? that the answer came, Because of your unbelief; because you have ceased to believe in righteousness, and righteousness exalteth a nation. (S. R. Hole, M. A.)

Had these disciples been not faithless but believing; had they prayed more frequently and earnestly; had they shown more of that self-denial which He taught and set before them, distrusted themselves and humbled themselves instead of disputing which should be the greatest, they would Lave east out that evil spirit. But he perceived, and prevailed over, their want of faith. He said, Jesus I know, but who are ye that utter His name, but do not believe in its power? Perhaps the absence of the Master from those nine apostles made them doubtful and fearing among the unbelieving Jews; just as you and I, when we leave the church, or our place of prayer at home, or the company of those whom we most revere and who influence us most for good, are tempted to forget the omnipresent God, to be of the world worldly, and to set our affections upon the things of the earth. So to lose the power, the only true power over ourselves and others, which we have in exact proportion to our faith, our prayers, our self-denial; for they are inseparable, these three-trinity in unity.

I. It is impossible to believe in our heavenly Father and not to go to him always as children to rejoice in his love, to thank Him for His gifts, to be protected in danger, taught in ignorance, relieved in pain, and forgiven when we have done wrong.

II. We cannot really believe in his power and love without going to him and praying to him oft and earnestly; not from a mere impulse of fear, in some sudden terror, in the great storm, carried up to heaven and down again to earth, in the valley of the shadow of death; but always out of a pure heart and faith unfeigned. And this true prayer does not begin when we kneel, nor cease when we rise. God has not only given us a voice to pray with, but a mind with which to think about our prayers, and capacities, and means, and time, and money, with which we may fulfil them. True prayer is prayer in action. Duty is prayer, and work is worship.

III. So it is impossible to believe really in Christ, and not to practise self-denial. To believe is to love, and to love is to obey. (S. R. Hole, M. A.)

Spiritual failure-its cause and cure

nothing can be better than to being our spiritual failures to Christ himself, as did the disciples. Why could not we cast him out? So asked the baffled, eager disciples of old, and got their answer. So let us ask, and hear what Christ will say to us.

I. Cause of spiritual failure.

1. Whatever the peculiar character of the malady, the disciples had bad power given them to heal it (Mat 10:8), which they had already freely and successfully put forth (Luk 10:17). This power was not unconditionally exercised. Some of the conditions of success depended upon the sufferers, some upon themselves. The cause of failure lay, not in forms or methods, etc., the mischief lay deeper down-unbelief.

2. Are there none possessed with evil spirits within our ken? Do we not in this description recognize phenomena of our own life?

3. There are fair excuses enough; undue dwelling upon the evil to be cured; mere reasoning on the causes of evil; reserve and fastidiousness in dealing with religious topics; perfunctory methods of using the gospel means.

II. Christs cure. There is no unnecessary upbraiding in our Lords answer, no dwelling on the merely negative side of truth. From the mention of unbelief He passes at once to the power of faith.

1. Faith needs to be cultivated. In the Revised Version Christs answer reads, Because of your little faith. You may trust doubt to spring up readily and flourish easily, but the power to discern the invisible, and hold fast amidst a thousand discouragements our confidence in an unseen God, an unseen Saviour, and in the power of truth which as yet far from prevailing must receive due cultivation if it is to conquer.

2. Let it be clearly understood that while Gods power in Christ works the miracle, our faith in that power is a condition of its operation and success.

3. This is no question of fervid enunciation, excited gestures, display of emotion. Faith may be small at first.

4. Our Lords addition to this main answer to the disciples query has an importance of its own. Faith in all cases needs to be sustained, but in special cases it needs to be specially sustained by

(1) prayer;

(2) fasting-self-denial. (W. T. Darison, M. A.)

The influence of earnest faith upon men

And so for the most part it is not abstract truth that wins men. I can read abstract truth at home and go to sleep over it; argue it out by myself and never be moved to alter my course one jot. What moves me is the sight of a man who is himself moved by the truth of what he proclaims, and in this high region of religious truth a man adequately moved in proportion to the importance of the truth he announces. A true herald of Christ is one who, not in the mere announcing of doctrine, but who in mien, gesture, tone, life, shows that lie believes the God-in-Christ doctrine of the salvation of the worst of men who are willing to yield and obey. Such a herald of the gospel is everywhere a quickening power, a kindling flame. (W. T. Darison, M. A.)

Faith not emotion or formalism

Those who would cast out devils in Christs name are not like pagan exorcists to work themselves into a fever of excitement and imagine that obstacles will disappear before them because they shout and gesticulate. A mans manner may be as quiet or as impetuous as you please, but it should be the natural expression of the truth which animates all the powers of his being. There is electricity enough in nature, and at certain times the air is burdened with it, but a good conductor is needed if its energy is to be gathered and transmitted. And in this case the force is to be gathered, not that it may be dissipated in the earth, but that it may rend rocks and overturn mountains. A great problem of the day is the storage and use of electricity; but who is fit for a work like this, to be in any degree a vehicle of the Divine power to save men? Not the noisy assertor of self who reminds you of his own personality and agency at every turn. Not the formalist, the mechanical utterer of pious phrases, nor the mere excited rhapsodist; but only the man of single eye and pure heart, whose soul is inter-penetrated with the truth as it is in Jesus, and who believes with all his mind, and soul, and strength in its might and efficacy. (W. T. Darison, M. A.)

The secrets of victory

Christs power, first, last, middle; our faith in that power unhesitating, unshrinking, unwavering; earnest prayer to Him whose ear attends the softest prayer, accompanied by that self-discipline which the holiest saint knows he needs, and the humblest Christian should be the last to disdain, these are the secrets of victory. Constantine, before the great battle of the Milvian bridge, is said to have beheld in the sky a flaming cross, with the words. by this conquer. Only by the power of the Cross can the world be surbdued; but only by the faith of its followers can the power of the Cross reach the worlds heart and free it from the tyranny of the legion of evil spirits that now rule and riot there. Onward Christian soldiers, and by your faith help to win a world for Christ! (W. T. Darison, M. A.)

The spirit of worldliness rebuked

I. The evil. The efforts of Satan have been different at different times. Persecution; heresy; fashions of Men; worldliness. If. The remedy. Faith. By prayer faith is increased, also we shall be given less to luxury. (S. Robins, M. A.)

A man wholly consecrated to Christ

It is said that shortly before Mr. Moody began those labours which were so marvellously blessed, he was greatly impressed by the remark made by s Christian friend: It remains for the world to see what the Lord can do with a man wholly consecrated to Christ.

The secret of power

Consider the principles which flow from this text.

I. We have an unvarying power. A gospel which never can grow old. An abiding spirit. An unchanging Lord.

II. The condition of exercising, this power is faith. The Church to-day is asking the same question as the disciples. What is to blame? Not our modes of worship, etc. While leaving full scope for all improvements in subordinate conditions, the main thing which makes us strong for our Christian work is the grasp of living faith, which holds fast the strength of God. Faith has a natural operation on ourselves which tends to fit us for casting out the evil spirits. Faith has power over men who see it.

III. Our faith is ever threatened by subtle unbelief. All our activity tends to become mechanical, and to lose its connection with the motive which originated it. The atmosphere of scornful disbelief which surrounded the disciples made their faith falter. So with us.

IV. Our faith can only be maintained by constant devotion and rigid self-denial. (Dr. A. Maclaren.)

The secret of Christian failure and success

They were justified in undertaking to cast the demon out, and ought to have succeeded. It was the right and privilege of their discipleship, and they were guilty of the harmfulness of their failure. And so with us, our demons and the worlds demons have been subjected to us. Our duty and privilege is to master and exorcise them. And to the measure of our opportunity we are guilty of the worlds evilness and our hearts weakness. It should not be Christs direct act. Thank God it will be that if we fail, they shall at last be east out; but it should be ours through the Christ-life and power with us. He has committed the work and responsibility of evils overthrow to us, and sternly and awfully He will require at our hands the lives marred and wrecked by our failure. Our great need is faith in this power of ours. We want to know and feel we are not helplessly in sins grip, nor weak though despised before evils array and seeming sovereignty in the world. The world is ours as we are Christs-ours to be conquered and won. (S. D. Thomas.)

Eastern epilepsy and mania

In Sidon there are cases of epileptic fits which, in external manifestation, closely resemble that mentioned in this verse. These fits have seized a young man in my house repeatedly; And, lo! the spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out, and foameth at the mouth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and is east down wherever he may be seized, and pineth away until you would think he was actually dead. Matthew calls him a lunatic, but, according to Mark, it was a dumb spirit. And there are eases in which the disease referred to accompanies, and in others it obviously occasions, dumbness. I will not say that such unfortunate creatures are tormented by an evil spirit, but I am sure that no cavilling sceptic can prove that they are not. (Dr. Thomson.)

Explanation of devil possessions

Many think that in the cases recorded we have but the symptoms of well-known diseases which, from their exceptionally painful character, involving loss of reason, involuntary or convulsive motions, and other abnormal phenomena, the imaginative and unscientific Easterns attributed, as the easiest mode of accounting for them, to a foreign power taking possession of the body and mind of the man. They say there is no occasion whatever to resort to an explanation involving an agency of which we know nothing from any experience of our own; that, as our Lord did not come to rectify mens psychological or physiological theories, He adopted the mode of speech common among them, but east out the evil spirits simply by healing the diseases attributed to their influences. There seems to me nothing unchristian in this interpretation. But I have no difficulty in receiving the old Jewish belief concerning possession; and I think it better explains the phenomena recorded than the growing modern opinion. (George Macdonald.)

Prayer for a wicked son

Speners prayer for his son:-Philip James Spener had a son of eminent talents, but perverse and extremely vicious. All means of love and persuasion were without success. The father could only pray, which he continued to do, that the Lord might yet be pleased to save his son at some time, and in some way. The son fell sick, and while lying on his bed in great distress of mind, nearly past the power of speech or motion, he suddenly started up, clasped his hands, and exclaimed, My fathers prayers, like mountains, surround me. Soon after, his anxiety ceased, a sweet peace spread over his face, his malady came to a crisis, and the son was saved in body and soul. He became another man.

A pitiable sight

Whoever has held in his arms his child in delirium, calling to his father for aid as if he were distant far, and beating the air in wild and aimless defence, will be able to enter a little into the trouble of this mans soul. To have the child, and yet see him tormented in some region inaccessible; to hold him to the heart, and yet be unable to reach the thick-coming fancies which distract him; to find himself with a great abyss between him and his child, across which the cry of the child comes, but back across which no answering voice can reach the consciousness of the sufferer-is terror and misery indeed. But imagine in the case before us the intervals as well-the stupidity, the vacant gaze, the hanging lip, the pale flaccid countenance and bloodshot eyes, idiocy alternated with madness-no voice of human speech, only the animal babble of the uneducated dumb-the misery of his falling down anywhere, now in the fire, now in the water, and the Divine shines out as nowhere else-for the father loves his own child even to agony. What was there in such a child to love? Everything. The human was there, else whence the torture of that which was not human? whence the pathos of those eyes, hardly up to the dogs in intelligence, yet omnipotent over the fathers heart? God was there. The misery was that the devil was there too. Hence came the crying and tears. Rescue the Divine; send the devil to the deep, was the unformed prayer in the fathers soul. (George Macdonald.)

This mountain as Hermon

There cannot be a doubt that the high mountain apart was one of the peaks of Hermon, which towers over Caesarea. On coming down again from the mountain the lunatic boy was healed; and in such a position the force of Christs rebuke to His disciples could be fully comprehended. If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain [Hermen], Remove hence to yonder place [pointing down, perhaps, into the deep valley of the Jordan which lay below], and it shall remove. (Dr. J. L. Porter.)

Faith removing mountains

A grain of faith can remove spiritual mountains; mountains of guilt from the conscience, mountains of hardness from the will, mountains of earthliness from the affections. (E. Polhill.)

Faith that works wonders

All the marvels, all the apparent impossibilities, which men have wrought, have been wrought by the energy of faith. It is by his faith in the laws of nature, and in his interpretation of them, that the man of science has achieved the marvels which have altered the whole form and tone of modern life. It is by his faith both in the courage of his soldiers, and in his own power of handling them, that is, his system of tactics, that every great captain has won his victories, often snatching them from the very mouth of defeat. It is by his faith in men, and in his reading of the laws of social and political science, that every great statesman learns how to take occasion by the hand, and to make the bounds of freedom broader yet. It is by his faith in great religious principles and truths that every successful reformer of the Church, e.g., Luther, has purged the Church from its accretions of error and superstition, elevated and liberalized at once her creed, her ritual, and her morality, in the teeth of both priestly and imperial power. By faith the early Church put a new heart into the decrepit Roman empire. By faith the reformers put a new heart into the northern kingdoms of Europe, and suppressed some, at least, of the most flagrant vices and superstitions even of the southern kingdoms who rejected their teaching. (Almoni Peloni.)

Power in a mustard seed

The mustard seed is one of the tiniest of seeds, although in the fierce heat of the Jordan valley it will grow up into a herb as high as a man on horseback, and throw out sprays on which the birds of the air perch and feed, attracted by its pungent fruit. Take such a seed into your hand and consider it, and you will find it hard, round, dry, and apparently dead and inert. Pat it under a microscope and dissect it; and, small as it is, you will find that it contains a germ far smaller than itself in which its whole potency is summed up. Born in the air, nourished by the sunshine and the dew, it yet cannot live and appropriate their virtues while it remains in them, so long as it lies in the pod, or continues above the ground. But bury it in the soil, and soon a process of dissolution and disintegration sets in which is also a process of vitality and growth. Its main bulk rots, but rots only that it may feed the tiny germ of quickened life which resides within it, for even a seed must lose itself to find itself, must die that it may live. Through death it rises into a new life, pushes its way through what, compared to itself in size and weight, are whole mountains of obstruction and resistance, piercing clod after clod, and compelling each to yield its virtues, and to minister to its needs; until, at last, it rises into that fellowship with the air and the sunshine and the dew for which it yearned and was designed. The mountains of the earth are dead in comparison with its life. Hence it commands them to be removed, and they obey. So astonishing is the vital energy of even the smallest seeds that mushroom spores, which singly are almost invisible, have been known to lift large paving stones an inch or two from the earth in the course of a single night. (Almoni Peloni.)

The power of faith

I. The text speaks To those who have no faith. The disciples had failed through lack of faith. If we could but believe we should see difficulties vanish.

1. The sphere of faith. Faith has relation to mans spiritual needs; temporal needs not overlooked. The boundaries of faith are to be looked for in the promises.

2. How faith operates. By laying hold on Gods power. To make His work serviceable to us it must be done in some way through our instrumentality. But the excellency of the power is His.

3. Its necessity. Gods work cannot be done without our faith, He has so appointed.

II. Of comfort to those of little faith.

1. It may be little in two senses: in its object, or in its intensity.

2. Weak faith is faith. It lays hold on God like a thin wire touching a strong battery.

3. It can remove mountains. God will honour faith as such and not because of its strength merely. (G. T. Horton.)

Power through faith

That power is put forth according to our faith. You have, perhaps, seen a steam-hammer, or clipper, which is most mighty to crush or cut thick iron like shavings. The force applied is steam, which seems almost omnipotent. But how is it applied? By a simple tube of connexion and a common valve, by which the steam is let in upon the ponderous apparatus. An infant could turn the tap. So faith simply turns on to any work we have to do the whole power of deity; yet He hath appointed us fellow-workers with Him, by entrusting to us this prerogative of faith. (G. T. Horton.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 14. When they were come to the multitude] It appears that a congregation had been collected during our Lord’s stay on the mount: how great must have been the desire of these people to hear the words of Christ! The assembly is self-collected, and no delay on the preacher’s side discourages them-they continue to wait for him. In the present day how rare is this zeal! How few by the most pathetic invitation can be brought together, even at the most convenient times, to hear the same doctrines, and to get their souls healed by the same wonder-working Christ!

Kneeling down to him] Or falling at his knees, . The ancients consecrated the EAR to memory; the FOREHEAD to genius; the RIGHT HAND to faith; and the KNEES to mercy: hence those who entreated favour fell at and touched the knees of the person whose kindness they supplicated. See Wakefield’s Commentary; and see the note on Ex 9:29; where the subject is largely explained.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

The same history is told us both by Mark and Luke, but with considerable difference; we have it, Mar 9:17,18, thus, And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not. As an introduction to this, Mark saith, Mar 9:14-16, that when our Saviour came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them. And straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him. And he asked the scribes, What question ye with them? Luke gives us this account, Luk 9:37-40, And it came to pass, that on the next day, when they were come down from the hill, much people met him. And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only child. And, lo, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out; and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him. And I besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not. When our Lord went up to the mountain where he was transfigured, he left at the foot of it the multitudes, and nine of his apostles, he took only three with him. How long he stayed there no evangelist tells us. The multitude and his disciples stayed waiting for his coming, probably not far of; some of the scribes were got to them, and they were arguing together. The day after our Lord, and Peter, James, and John, were come down from the mount, they go to the multitude, who received him with great passion, and saluted him. He begins to inquire what they were discoursing about; but was by and by interrupted with a certain man, who comes and falls down upon his knees before him, begging mercy for his son, who (as Matthew reports his condition) was lunatic and sore vexed, often falling into the fire, and often into the water. Mark saith, he had a dumb spirit, that it tore him, he often foamed and gnashed with his teeth. Luke saith, that it was the mans only child, that he had a spirit, that he cried out, it tare him, he foamed, and was bruised by it, &c. By the description of this young mans disease, it appeareth to have been what we call the falling sickness, wherein men fall down, foam, and beat themselves. With this disease the devil joined, so as at certain times of the moon this disease took him, and the devil acting with it, he was dumb, at least for the time, and fell sometimes into the fire, sometimes into the water, foamed, gnashed with his teeth, tore himself: this seems to have been his condition. The father (during Christs absence) had attempted a cure by his disciples, but the text saith they could not (the reason we shall hear afterward); upon this he crieth unto Christ for his help.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And when they were come to the multitude,…. Which was on the next day, as in Lu 9:37 when Christ and his three disciples, Peter, James, and John, came down from the mount to the other nine, with whom the multitude of the people were; during their stay on the mountain,

there came to him a certain man; who was, as Mark says, “one of the multitude”; and as Luke, “a man of the company”: who had applied to the nine disciples on the behalf of his son, but without success, and was waiting till Christ came from the mount; who when he saw him, made up to him, and

kneeling down to him in the manner of a supplicant, doing him homage and worship; hereby showing his great esteem of him, and veneration for him,

and saying the following words:

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Expulsion of a Demon.

14 And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, 15 Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. 16 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. 17 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. 18 And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. 19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. 21 Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

We have here the miraculous cure of a child that was lunatic and vexed with a devil. Observe,

I. A melancholy representation of the case of this child, made to Christ by the afflicted father. This was immediately upon his coming down from the mountain where he was transfigured. Note, Christ’s glories do not make him unmindful of us and of our wants and miseries. Christ, when he came down from the mount, where had conversation with Moses and Elias, did not take state upon him, but was as easy of access, as ready to poor beggars, and as familiar with the multitude, as ever he used to be. This poor man’s address was very importunate; he came kneeling to Christ. Note, Sense of misery will bring people to their knees. Those who see their need of Christ will be earnest, will be in good earnest, in their applications to him; and he delights to be thus wrestled with.

Two things the father of the child complains of.

1. The distress of his child (v. 15); Lord have mercy on my son. The affliction of the children cannot but affect the tender parents, for they are pieces of themselves. And the case of afflicted children should be presented to God by faithful and fervent prayer. This child’s distemper, probably, disabled him to pray for himself. Note, Parents are doubly concerned to pray for their children, not only that are weak and cannot, but much more that are wicked and will not, pray for themselves. Now, (1.). The nature of this child’s disease was very sad; He was lunatic and sore vexed. A lunatic is properly one whose distemper lies in the brain, and returns with the change of the moon. The devil, by the divine permission, either caused this distemper, or at least concurred with it, to heighten and aggravate it. The child had the falling-sickness, and the hand of Satan was in it; by it he tormented then, and made it much more grievous than ordinarily it is. Those whom Satan got possession of, he afflicted by those diseases of the body which do most affect the mind; for it is the soul that he aims to do mischief to. The father, in his complain, saith, He is lunatic, taking notice of the effect; but Christ, in the cure, rebuked the devil, and so struck at the cause. Thus he doth in spiritual cures. (2.) The effects of the disease were very deplorable; He oft falls into the fire, and into the water. If the force of the disease made him to fall, the malice of the devil made him to fall into the fire or water; so mischievous is he where he gains possession and power in any soul. He seeks to devour, 1 Pet. v. 8.

2. The disappointment of his expectation from the disciples (v. 16); I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cured him. Christ gave his disciples power to cast out devils (Mat 10:1; Mat 10:8), and therein they were successful (Luke x. 17); yet at this time they failed in the operation, though there were nine of them together, and before a great multitude. Christ permitted this, (1.) To keep them humble, and to show their dependence upon him, that without him they could do nothing. (2.) To glorify himself and his own power. It is for the honour of Christ to come in with help at a dead-lift, when other helpers cannot help. Elisha’s staff in Gehazi’s hand will not raise the child: he must come himself. Note, There are some special favours which Christ reserves the bestowment of to himself; and sometimes he keeps the cistern empty; that he may bring us to himself, the Fountain. But the failures of instruments shall not hinder the operations of his grace, which will work, if not by them, yet without them.

II. The rebukes that Christ gave to the people first, and then to the devil.

1. He chid those about him (v. 17); O faithless and perverse generation! This is not spoken to the disciples, but to the people, and perhaps especially to the scribes, who are mentioned in Mark ix. 14, and who, as it should seem, insulted over the disciples, because they had now met with a case that was too hard for them. Christ himself could not do many mighty works among a people in whom unbelief reigned. It was here owing to the faithlessness of this generation, that they could not obtain those blessings from God, which otherwise they might have had; as it was owing to the weakness of the disciples’ faith, that they could not do those works for God, which otherwise they might have done. They were faithless and perverse. Note, Those that are faithless will be perverse; and perverseness is sin in its worst colours. Faith is compliance with God, unbelief is opposition and contradiction to God. Israel of old was perverse, because faithless (Ps. xcv. 9), forward, for in them is no faith, Deut. xxxii. 20.

Two things he upbraids them with. (1.) His presence with them so long; “How long shall I be with you? Will you always need my bodily presence, and never come to such maturity as to be fit to be left, the people to the conduct of the disciples, and the disciples to the conduct of the Spirit and of their commission? Must the child be always carried, and will it never learn to go alone?” (2.) His patience with them so long; How long shall I suffer you? Note, [1.] The faithlessness and perverseness of those who enjoy the means of grace are a great grief to the Lord Jesus. Thus did he suffer the manners of Israel of old, Acts xiii. 18. [2.] The longer Christ has borne with a perverse and faithless people, the more he is displeased with their perverseness and unbelief; and he is God, and not man, else he would not suffer so long, nor bear so much, as he doth.

2. He cured the child, and set him to-rights again. He called, Bring him hither to me. Though the people were perverse, and Christ was provoked, yet care was taken of the child. Note, Though Christ may be angry, he is never unkind, nor doth he, in the greatest of his displeasure, shut up the bowels of his compassion from the miserable; Bring him to me. Note, When all other helps and succours fail, we are welcome to Christ, and may be confident in him and in his power and goodness.

See here an emblem of Christ’s undertaking as our Redeemer.

(1.) He breaks the power of Satan (v. 18); Jesus rebuked the devil, as one having authority, who could back with force his word of command. Note, Christ’s victories over Satan are obtained by the power of his word, the sword that comes out of his mouth, Rev. xix. 21. Satan cannot stand before the rebukes of Christ, though his possession has been ever so long. It is comfortable to those who are wrestling with principalities and powers, that Christ hath spoiled them, Colos. ii. 15. The lion of the tribe of Judah will be too hard for the roaring lion that seeks to devour.

(2.) He redresses the grievances of the children of men; The child was cured from that very hour. It was an immediate cure, and a perfect one. This is an encouragement to parents to bring their children to Christ, whose souls are under Satan’s power; he is able to heal them, and as willing as he is able. Not only bring them to Christ by prayer, but bring them to the word of Christ, the ordinary means by which Satan’s strongholds are demolished in the soul. Christ’s rebukes, brought home to the heart, will ruin Satan’s power there.

III. Christ’s discourse with his disciples hereupon.

1. They ask the reason why they could not cast out the devil at this time (v. 19); They came to Jesus apart. Note, Ministers, who are to deal for Christ in public, have need to keep up a private communion with him, that they may in secret, where no eye sees, bewail their weakness and straitness, their follies and infirmities, in their public performances, and enquire into the cause of them. We should make use of the liberty of access we have to Jesus apart, where we may be free and particular with him. Such questions as the disciples put to Christ, we should put to ourselves, in communing with our own hearts upon our beds; Why were we so dull and careless at such a time? Why came we so much short in such a duty? That which is amiss may, when found out, be amended.

2. Christ gives them two reasons why they failed.

(1.) It was because of their unbelief, v. 20. When he spake to the father of the child and to the people, he charged it upon their unbelief; when he spake to his disciples, he charged it upon theirs; for the truth was, there were faults on both sides; but we are more concerned to hear of our own faults than of other people’s, and to impute what is amiss to ourselves than to others. When the preaching of the word seems not to be so successful as sometimes it has been, the people are apt to lay all the fault upon the ministers, and the ministers upon the people; whereas, it is more becoming for each to own his own faultiness, and to say, “It is owing to me.” Ministers, in reproving, must learn thus to give to each his portion of the word; and to take people off from judging others, by teaching all to judge themselves; It is because of your unbelief. Though they had faith, yet that faith was weak and ineffectual. Note, [1.] As far as faith falls short of its due strength, vigour, and activity, it may truly be said, “There is unbelief.” Many are chargeable with unbelief, who yet are not to be called unbelievers. [2.] It is because of our unbelief, that we bring so little to pass in religion, and so often miscarry, and come short, in that which is good.

Our Lord Jesus takes this occasion to show them the power of faith, that they might not be defective in that, another time, as they were now; If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall do wonders, v. 20. Some make the comparison to refer to the quality of the mustard-seed, which is, when bruised, sharp and penetrating; “If you have an active growing faith, not dead, flat, or insipid, you will not be baffled thus.” But it rather refers to the quantity; “If you had but a grain of true faith, though so little that it were like that which is the least of all seeds, you would do wonders.” Faith in general is a firm assent to, a compliance with, and a confidence in, all divine revelation. The faith here required, is that which had for its object that particular revelation by which Christ gave his disciples power to work miracles in his name, for the confirmation of the doctrine they preached. It was a faith in this revelation that they were defective in; either doubting the validity of their commission, or fearing that it expired with their first mission, and was not to continue when they were returning to their Master; or that it was some way or other forfeited or withdrawn. Perhaps their Master’s absence with the three chief of his disciples, with a charge to the rest not to follow them, might occasion some doubts concerning their power, or rather the power of the Lord with them, to do this; however, there were not, at present, such a strong actual dependence upon, and confidence in, the promise of Christ’s presence with them, as there should have been. It is good for us to be diffident of ourselves and of our own strength; but it is displeasing to Christ, when we distrust any power derived from him or granted by him.

If ye have ever so little of this faith in sincerity, if ye truly rely upon the powers committed to you, ye shall say to this mountain, Remove. This is a proverbial expression, denoting that which follows, and no more, Nothing shall be impossible to you. They had a full commission, among other things, to cast out devils without exception; but, this devil being more than ordinarily malicious and inveterate, they distrusted the power they had received, and so failed. To convince them of this, Christ shows them what they might have done. Note, An active faith can remove mountains, not of itself, but in the virtue of a divine power engaged by a divine promise, both which faith fastens upon.

(2.) Because there was something in the kind of the malady, which rendered the cure more than ordinarily difficult (v. 21); “This kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting. This possession, which works by a falling-sickness, or this kind of devils that are thus furious, is not cast out ordinarily but by great acts of devotion, and wherein ye were defective.” Note, [1.] Though the adversaries we wrestle, be all principalities and powers, yet some are stronger than others, and their power more hardly broken. [2.] The extraordinary power of Satan must not discourage our faith, but quicken us to a greater intenseness in the acting of it, and more earnestness in praying to God for the increase of it; so some understand it here; “This kind of faith (which removeth mountains) doth not proceed, is not obtained, from God, nor is it carried up to its full growth, nor drawn out into act and exercise, but by earnest prayer.” [3.] Fasting and prayer are proper means for the bringing down of Satan’s power against us, and the fetching in of divine power to our assistance. Fasting is of use to put an edge upon prayer; it is an evidence and instance of humiliation which is necessary in prayer, and is a means of mortifying some corrupt habits, and of disposing the body to serve the soul in prayer. When the devil’s interest in the soul is confirmed by the temper and constitution of the body, fasting must be joined with prayer, to keep under the body.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Mat. 17:15. Lunatick.Epileptic (R.V.). The child was a possessed epileptic lunatic.

Mat. 17:20. Grain of mustard seed.See note on Mat. 13:31. The proverbial type of the infinitely little (Plumptre). Ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence.Such expressions are characteristic of the vivid imagery of Eastern speech generally. To remove mountains is to make difficulties vanish. The Jews used to say of an eminent teacher, he is a rooter up of mountains (see Lightfoot ad loc.) (Carr).

Mat. 17:21. This kind, etc.In his eighth edition of the New Testament text, Tischendorf has omitted the twenty-first verse altogether, imagining that it has crept in from Mar. 9:29. And indeed it is not found in the original Sinaitic text; or in the Vatican MS.; or in No. 33, the queen of the cursives. It is wanting, too, in some of the oldest MSS. of the old Latin translation, as also in Curetons Syriac version, and the Jerusalem Syriac, etc. We could suppose that Tischendorf is right in this case. The twentieth verse is complete and needs no appendix of reply (Morison). The verse is omitted in the R.V.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mat. 17:14-21

A lesson in faith.The disciples of Jesus were called upon in an especial manner at this time to walk by faith and not by sight. Things were to happen which would be wholly contrary to what they naturally expected (Mat. 16:21-22). Therefore it was, perhaps, that our Lord spake to them as in Luk. 9:44. And, therefore, perhaps, that He gave to them such a lesson in faith as we find in this passage. How this lesson was conveyed may be seen by considering, first, the striking contrast here described, and, secondly, the two-fold explanation of it which is afterwards given.

I. The striking contrast.On one side of this we have, first, the utter failure of the disciples of Jesus. When those who have been on the Mount of Transfiguration come down again to the rest of their company, they find them in the midst of a large and agitated assemblage (Mar. 9:14). Out of these there comes one to the very feet of the Saviour (Mat. 17:14). He has a sad story to tell Him. He has a sonan only child (Luk. 9:38)who is described as an epileptic (Mat. 17:15 R.V.)one grievously vexed. At times, indeed, to such an extent as to be ready to fall, in his helplessness, into the fire or the waterand so be in uttermost danger of wholly losing such life as he has. This helpless case the father had brought to the notice of the Saviours disciples during His absence, only to find, however, that, in their way, they were as helpless as it. Whatever they had been able to do in other cases (Mat. 10:8), they could do nothing whatever in this (Mat. 17:16). On the other side, we have, in regard to the same instance, the complete success of the Saviour. What the disciples had thus attempted in vain He accomplishes fully. He does this also, as in other cases, by the simple authority of His word (Mar. 1:27). A rebuke from Him (Mat. 17:18) is enough. However strong and unwilling (cf. Mar. 9:25-26), the demon hears and goes out. He goes out also in such a manner that there is no recurrence of the evil (Mar. 9:25). The child was curedand cured permanentlyfrom that hour (Mat. 17:18). In every respect, in short, on the Saviours side, there was every evidence of success. Instead of nothing, everything was accomplished. Utter helplessness had been followed up by irresistible power.

II. A twofold explanation.Twofold because supplied to us from two opposite sides. From the side of the applicant first. With all the fathers depth of distress, and all the urgency of his love and entreaty, we cannot doubt the fact of there being, at first, some deficiency in his faith. This seems implied from what the Saviour said when first He heard of his case, and was told by the man how he had spoken to His disciples, but altogether in vain (see Mat. 17:17, also Mar. 9:19; Luk. 9:41). It certainly comes out in the case of his second application to the Saviour as related by St. Mark. If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us (Mar. 9:22). Also, this same smallness of faith is just as certainly at once rebuked and encouraged by the Saviours replya reply which says, in effect (see Mar. 9:23), If I can; that is not the question. If thou canst believe; that is the point. For all things can be to him that believeth. A reply also which the poor father evidently took in exactly that sense, as shown by the tenor and urgency of his immediate responseLord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief. Nothing is plainer, in short, so far, than that all turned upon faith. Lack of faith in coming was one great reason of that signal lack of success which had marked the first part of this case. The same is true, also, when we look at it, next, from the side of the disciples. Nothing, indeed, can be more express than our Saviours own words on this point. Why could not we cast it out? Because of the littleness of your faith (Mat. 17:20). And nothing stronger than the cogency of the reasoning by which He demonstrates the truth of this saying. For what is this faiththis true faithof which He is speaking? It is a principle of activity, like that grain of mustard seed of which He once told them before (Mat. 13:31-32), which grows of itself. If you have any at all of it, therefore, you have that which is quite certain to grow into more; and, therefore again, that which will be competent, ultimately, to remove the greatest obstacles that can be. Nothing, in short, can be beyond the power of such true faith to accomplish (Mat. 17:20). Nothing, therefore, is to be sought by us more! (So we may gather from Mar. 9:29, as it stands in R.V.) Even, if need be, at the cost of much self-denial in other respects. (So we may understand the addition which many ancient authorities make to that verse.)

1. Here is a general lesson to all.Let all those who come to God come to Him in faith (Heb. 11:6). Let them have faith enough in any case to be desirous of more. The poor man in this story does not appear to have had more than this to begin. But this little faiththis mere mustard seed of itdid all he wished in the end.

2. Here is a special lesson to some.Even to all such as seek, in any way, to help in ministering the word. Let them believe in it themselves! Let them seek to realise both what it is and how much it can do. Oh, the amount of sterility in the field of the kingdom because of deficiency here! Why is it that we have done so little although having the truth itself in our hands? Because of the littleness of our faith. Because we have not realised, on the one hand, that it was really the truth! And have not realised, on the other hand, that truth vanquishes all!

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat. 17:14-18. Household trouble.We have here

1. A household in misery because of one of its members. Trouble may be intensive as well as extensive. One prodigal may destroy the peace of a whole family.

2. A household troubled by an uncontrollable circumstance. The sufferer in this case was not blamable. Some troubles we bring upon ourselves; others are put into our lot by a power beyond us.

3. A household united in deep concern for one of its members. The father spoke not for himself only, but also for others, Have compassion on us, etc. (Mar. 9:22). An unfeeling heart is a greater calamity in a family than the most painful affliction.J. Parker, D.D.

The church and humanity.The incident may be viewed not only from the point of the household, but from the point occupied by the church. 1. The church expected to have restoring energy.

2. The church overborne by the evil which confronts it.

3. The church publicly rebuked for its incapacity.

4. The church shown to be powerless in the absence of Christ.Ibid.

The position of Christ.

1. Christ calm in the midst of social tumult.

2. Christ exposing Himself to severe reprisals in the event of failure. He spoke rebukingly before He performed the miracle.

3. Christ asserting His independence. Bring him to Me. Jesus needed no help. Without Me ye can do nothing, but without us He can do everything.

4. Christ overruling and destroying evil. He never put evil into any man; always He sought to cast it out.Ibid.

The restoration of men.

1. The worst of cases are not hopeless.
2. Devils do not come easily out of men.

3. Jesus Christ not only expels the devil, He gives His own personal help to the recovered man (Mar. 9:27). We need Jesus even until we are set in heaven. The devil throws down, Jesus lifts up.Ibid.

Mat. 17:19-21. Christian work at home and abroad.

I. The lesson of the failure.The failure must have been a trial of no mean severity to the disciples. It was failure to fulfil the commission with which they had been entrusted. It was failure under the unsympathetic and scornful eye of the multitude. It was failure after they had been braced by success and lifted up with strange, not to say wild, hopes. It was a sore humiliation, yet was it full-charged with blessing to them. It was of the nature of that baptism of fire by which true men are made more true, and strong men more strong, and which in some form all men undergo who are appointed to signal service in the kingdom of heaven. Our main concern must be to discover the cause of the failure.

1. The failure of the disciples was to our Lord a question of their spiritual life. It was a question of their attainments and habits in the matter of faith, prayer, and fasting. The faith which our Lord desiderated concerned the deepest springs of life and force in the soul. Prayer and fasting! It was no mere matter of abstinence from meats and drinks, or of the observance of seasons and forms in prayer and sacrifice. We know how little store, comparatively, our Lord set by these things. Here was a question rather of faiths maturity and practical prevalence throughout the whole sphere of the spiritual life, of faiths triumph over everything which tended to bring the man under the dominion of the present and visible; of a faith which would lift the soul into habitual communion with God, and enrich the will with the energies of self-restraint. The cause of failure thus concerned the very element of life which distinguished them as religious and spiritual men, from men who were carnal and irreligious. Here was no question of the want of tact, or aptitude, or courage, or readiness, or energy, or of any of the secondary and accidental qualifications of good workmen, but a question of vital spiritual force.

2. To our Lord the failure of the disciples in this particular instance was a question of degree in the fulness of the spiritual life. His explanation was that there was a disproportion between the inherent difficulties of the case and the power which the disciples had brought to it. This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. Faith grows by cultureit may be weakened by neglect, it may be corrupted by sin. Had the disciples yielded to weakening and corrupting influences? They had been giving forth spiritual energy in the service of Christ; had they been careful to have the springs of that energy replenished from time to time by communion with God?

3. To our Lord the failure of the disciples was a question exclusively of their spiritual life and attainments, and the spiritual power which these engender. The case was admitted to be exceptionally difficult, but it is implied that a robust faith, a spiritual power duly nurtured by prayer and chastened by fasting, would not have been put to shame in dealing with it. Our Lords exposure of the cause of the disciples failure thus reveals to us a law of the Christian servicethat the power in which the labours and conflicts of the kingdom of heaven on earth are to be sustained is spiritual in kindthe power of a genuine religious life; and that the power is in the proportion in which the life is full.

II. The application of the lesson.We have failures to deplore as well as successes to celebrate. To our Why? the Master might say, Because of your unbelief, etc. The demons we seek to cast out of the nations are of a kind which will not go out except on the imperative of a spiritual power of the highest order. The subject has a bearing:

1. On our national life.Alas for the apostles of a faith which is discredited by the life of the nation which sends them forth!

2. On the spiritual condition of the churches.Our missionaries, with few exceptions, will be men who represent the average spiritual power and moral enthusiasm of the churches. We have to look to the churches for the men who are to conduct its affairs at home, and also for material and moral support. Causes of anxiety:

(1) Conformity to the world.
(2) Some popular tendencies of theological opinion.
3. On the spiritual attainments of those more immediately engaged in the service.Ultimately the question is a personal one.A. Hannay, D.D.

Mat. 17:21. Prayer and fasting. (A Lenten Sermon.)Here is an undoubted approval of two things very much called in questionprayer and fasting.

I. The true thought touching prayer is that it makes us more fitted to receive, not that it makes God more ready to give.

II. Jesus couples prayer with fasting to secure Heavens choicest gifts.This kind, etc. The church of England, in its staid sobriety of doctrine, recognises the value of the discipline of the soul upon the body, and orders all Fridays throughout the year to be observed as days of abstinence, together with the whole of Lent, the forty days from Ash Wednesday, until Easter; also the Ember-days of the four seasons, with other days named. Jesus Himself, moreover, stamps with authority the practice of the church in this matter, and gives special directions relative to fasting. Hence says He, When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, etc. (Mat. 6:16-18). The common-sense view with reference to fasting is this: We ought to be as little indebted to earth as possible; tethered here and pinned to this world by as few material things as will serve; bound by as few cords to animal existence and fleshly life as alone are needed to keep body and soul together. Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth. This injunction of the Lord Jesus should be the text held in remembrance throughout Lent: Chasten with stripes the inner man. There are various ways of doing this. There are many ways in which we may specially nowas at all times we ought todeny ourselves for our neighbours good. Some luxury, doubtless, there is which we, without any great hardship, may give upsome luxury which may minister to the necessity of our poorer neighbour, and make, to a brother that lacketh and hath need, his woeful want less bitter. Yea, let those who have much of this worlds good laid up in store for many years just fast a little during Lent, that those who from chronic want and penury have to keep Lent right through the year may now feast a little, and even in my suggested breach to them of a church rubric, their indulgence shall not be cursed, while our austerities shall be blessed.Archdeacon Colley.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Section 43
JESUS HEALS AND FREES A DEMONIZED BOY

(Parallels: Mar. 9:14-29; Luk. 9:37-43 a)

TEXT: 17:1421

14 And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a man, kneeling to him, and saying, 15 Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is epileptic, and suffereth grievously; for oft-times he falleth into the fire, and oft-times into the water. 16 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. 17 And Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I bear with you? bring him hither to me. 18 And Jesus rebuked him; and the demon went out of him; and the boy was cured from that hour.

19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast it out? 20 And he saith unto them, Because of your little faith: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. (Many authorities, some ancient, insert ver. 21: But this kind goeth not out save by prayer and fasting. See Mar. 9:29)

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Where did the crowd of people come from? Why were they present here?

How did the nine Apostles get embroiled in this embarrassing situation?

Why were the scribes arguing with the Apostles? What do you suppose the argument was about? (Cf. Mar. 9:14; Mar. 9:16)

What was there about Jesus appearance that caused the crowd to be greatly amazed when they saw Him? (Cf. Mar. 9:15)

Why did they all press forward hurriedly to greet Him? (Mar. 9:15)

To whom do you think Jesus addressed His question: What are you discussing with them? The scribes? The disciples? The multitudes? (Mar. 9:16)

What is Jesus intent behind this question? (Mar. 9:16)

In what way is the appeal of the father on behalf of his son the answer to Jesus question? (cf. Mar. 9:17)

Why do you think the father went into such great detail in his description of his sons case? Would it not have been sufficient to be brief, since anyone who knows Jesus understands that His compassion is aroused by a simple presentation of the problem. What did the father hope to gain by such a thorough recitation of all the symptoms found in the three Gospels?

Does the boy have epilepsy, or is he demon-possessed? How can you distinguish between the two? Is it not evident here that the distraught father is confused by the severer attacks of the disease, to the extent that he sincerely, however mistakenly, ascribes the symptoms to an evil spirit in his boys body? How do you decide this?

With regard to whom does Jesus sigh: O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you?? How do you know? Do you think this question indicates Jesus was exasperated? Why?

Why does Jesus take so long to cast out the demon and end the poor sufferers torments? (See Mar. 9:19-25.) Why waste additional precious seconds merely to ask further details of an already clear case? What possible good could be accomplished by this?

Explain what the father meant by, I believe; help my unbelief! (Mar. 9:24)

Do you think Jesus is impatient in throwing the fathers statement back at him (. . . if you can do anything)? Or is He patiently pointing out the weakness of faith in the father? Why do you decide as you do? (Cf. Mar. 9:23-24)

Why should Jesus be so concerned about a crowd running together (Mar. 9:25), that He would hurry up the casting out of the demon? Or was He deliberately waiting on their arrival in order to achieve maximum publicity?

In what sense were the witnesses to this miracle astonished at the majesty of God? (Luk. 9:43)

If the disciples had at least some faith, however little (Mat. 17:20), why was this insufficient to expel the demon? What kind of faith is little faith and why did it fail?

Are there varying kinds of demons? When the disciples asked the Lord why they could not cast it out, His answer was that this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. (Mar. 9:29) Are there other kinds that can be driven out without prayer? What did Jesus mean?

Why should the Apostles unbelief prevent their working a miracle? After all, was not the power to do it actually Gods? Could He not do anything He desired, notwithstanding their weakness and lack of faith? What did their faith have to do with it anyway?

Should we expect the same miraculous demonstration today of mountain moving? In what sense? Does this mean that we can pick our mountain and, in faith, order it to move, expecting God to do it? If faith is taking the Lord at His word, and He has given us no specific instructions regarding a particular mountain in our life, do we have any basis for believing that He will move it, merely because we have determined within ourselves that it has to be moved and simply because we want to believe that He will?

Would you say that modern man is liberated from the fear of demons and the devil, or superstitious and bound by his bold assumption that of course, they dont exist!?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

The next day after the Transfiguration, Jesus, Peter, James and John descended from the mountain. They were approaching the other nine Apostles when they noticed a large crowd surrounding them and some theologians debating with them. Suddenly, when all the crowd saw Him, they were awestruck. Running forward to Him, they greeted Him. But He broke in, What is this argument about? Why are you arguing with them?
At this point a man pushed out of the crowd and fell to his knees before Jesus, imploring, Teacher, I brought my son to you. I beg you to be merciful to him and take a look at him, because he is my only boy. He has a demon that makes him speechless. He is an epileptic and is very ill. When this evil spirit attacks him, he screams unexpectedly. It convulses him, dashing him to the ground. He is always falling into the fire or into water. He foams at the mouth, grits his teeth and becomes rigid. The evil spirit is severely bruising him and is slow to leave him. I brought him to your disciples, begging them to drive out the demon, but they failed! They were not able to heal him.
O you unbelieving, corrupted children of the times! Jesus sighed impatiently, How long must I be among you? How long must I put up with you? Bring your son here to me!
Then they led the boy to Him. But before the lad could reach Jesus, the demon saw Him. He suddenly threw the child to the ground in a convulsion, and he lay there writhing and foaming at the mouth. Jesus interrogated his father, How long has he been like this? Ever since he was very small, the father responded. It is always trying to end his life by casting him into fire or water! But if there is anything you can do, take pity on us and help us!
But Jesus retorted, What do you mean: IF you CAN . . .!? Everything is possible to the man who believes!
Instantly the childs father exclaimed, I do believe! Help me overcome my unbelief!
Now when Jesus noticed that a crowd was rapidly forming, He spoke sternly to the foul spirit: You deaf and dumb spirit, it is I who command you to come out of him and never go back again!
The demon screamed and convulsed him terribly, but came out, leaving the lad like a corpse. This caused most of the people to gasp, He is dead!
But Jesus grasped the boy by the hand and lifted him up. He stood up, instantly cured. Then He handed him back to his father. Everybody stood awestruck at this demonstration of the majesty of God.
When He got home, Jesus disciples came to Him privately, puzzled, Why is it that we were unable to drive out that demon?
Because you believed so little, He replied. I can assure you that even the tiniest amount of authentic faith is invincible against the most impossible obstacles! Nothing will prove impossible to you. Nothing is effective against this kind of evil spirit, unless you go to God asking Him to drive it out. Cases like this require prayer, not argument.

SUMMARY

Following the Transfiguration, Jesus and His inner circle of Apostles returned to the waiting nine whom they found engaged in argument with some rabbis, at the center of attention of a large crowd, Surprised to see Him back, everyone hurried to welcome Jesus. He, however, went straight to the point, asking what was going on. The father of a demonized epileptic presented his sons case to Jesus, describing the Apostles failure to expel the demon. The Lord summoned the lad, but the demon made one last effort to break the boy, causing a violent convulsion. When He saw the despairing doubt of the father, He demanded of him unhesitating confidence. To end the further suffering of the boy, Jesus ordered the immediate and permanent expulsion of the demon, and it obeyed, but not without a final struggle which left the child apparently dead. Jesus instantly raised him up perfectly healed, and gave him back to the father, to the reverent amazement of the entire crowd.
Later, the humiliated Apostles asked for a private explanation. The Lord underlined their lack of faith and prayer.

NOTES
II. REPROOF OF FAITHLESSNESS AND FAILURE

A. POWER PARALYZED BY PREOCCUPATION, PESSIMISM AND PRAYERLESSNESS

As will be seen by a summary comparison with the accounts of Mark and Luke, it is clear that Matthew boils this incident down to a few essential lines. He omits:

The greatness of the crowd gathered around the disciples. (Mar. 9:14)

The debate raging between the embarrassed disciples and the scribes. (Mar. 9:14; Mar. 9:16)

The amazement of the crowd when Jesus suddenly appeared. (Mar. 9:15)

Jesus scolding challenge: What were you discussing with them? (Mar. 9:16)

The fact that the epileptic demoniac was only a child (Mar. 9:24) and that he was an only child (Luk. 9:38).

The epileptic symptoms: its seizures, foaming at the mouth and rigidity (Mar. 9:18) and its convulsions (Luk. 9:38).

Whereas Mark and Luke immediately attribute the cause of the disease to a dumb spirit (Mar. 9:17) or a spirit, a demon (Luk. 9:39; Luk. 9:42), Matthew almost neglects to mention the demon until the actual cure takes place. (Mat. 17:18)

The long conversation between Jesus and the father. (Mar. 9:20-24)

The fact that Jesus was moved to rebuke the unclean spirit when he saw that a crowd was gathering. (Mar. 9:25)

10.

The final convulsions as the demon came out, and Jesus raising him up (Mar. 9:26 f)

11.

Jesus returning the boy to his father, healed (Luk. 9:42 b)

12.

The astonishment of the witnesses at the majesty of God (Luk. 9:43)

Matthew brushes aside these instructive details in order to get down more quickly to the chief features of this incident: the faithlessness and failure of the followers.

Mat. 17:14 And when they were come to the foot of the mountain the next day (Luk. 9:37), they immediately encounter the multitude (tn chlon). The definiteness of this expression makes the reader ask, What multitude? Since there was none mentioned as they went up the mountain, McGarvey (Matthew-Mark, 152) disposes of the problem by deduction: From the expression . . . we infer that Jesus and the three had left a multitude when they went into the mountain, and that they now return to the same. The point is, of course, that the presence of the article made such a deduction necessary. The last time a definite crowd was mentioned previously, was the multitude present with the disciples during Jesus sermon on The Cost of Our Salvation (Mat. 16:24-28), but it was Mark who mentioned the crowd in that instance, not Matthew. (Mar. 8:34) Perhaps this crowd had remained with Jesus party until now, lingering around the Lord for further teaching.

The solution may be that suggested by Thayer (Lexicon, 433, see his examples): The article is used with names of things not yet spoken of, in order to show that definite things are referred to, to be distinguished from others of the same kind and easily to be known from the context . . . Arndt-Gingrich (552) agrees that the individualizing article also stands before a common noun which, in a given situation, is given special attention as the only or obvious one of its kind . . .

The linguistic result would be much like the common American idiom with which people often begin a story: There was this man . . . . although we learn who the man was from what follows, not from what precedes, since this is the beginning of the story with a definite demonstrative pronoun!

So, Matthew may mean nothing more than the (usual) crowd.

As with all crowds, these folks were eager to find Jesus for almost as many different reasons as there were people. They had become, however, unwilling eye-witnesses both of the disciples humiliation and of the scholars insinuating questions. The fact that Jesus sudden return immediately brought them running to greet Him is evidence of where their sympathies lay during the heated discussion between the rabbis and His disciples. But the great amazement of the crowd caused by His sudden appearance so near them must not be attributed to any traces of the radiance of His transfiguration lingering about His face or body. Such a hypothesis is at variance with Jesus forbidding all publicity connected with His Transfiguration. The better explanation of their amazement is that Jesus sudden return at just the right moment took everyone by surprise. Those who sided with the rabbis would feel suddenly exposed as if they had been caught in the act. These loyal to Jesus would be happily surprised and relieved that He had arrived at just the right moment.

Upon His descent from the mount of Transfiguration He found disorder among His disciples, however not as crude as Moses found in the camp of Israel when he descended from Sinai. (Exodus 32) But the perversity and faithlessness were no less damning. Hurrying into the midst, Jesus challenged the scribes and His disciples alike with one blistering question: What were you discussing with them? (Mar. 9:16)

To the gloating scribes, this would mean: Do you dare say to me what you just said to my disciples?

To the disciples, this would mean: What was so important that you had to discuss it with THEM, instead of getting on with the business of God?

The scribes stand voiceless and impotent before His onslaught. Their silence evidences a felt rebuke for the unjustified reveling over the failure of His disciples. The silence of the nine Apostles betrays their guilty conscience and they have not the courage publicly to admit their failure to their Lord and Master. Despite His fiery challenge, there came to him a man, kneeling to him. The desperation of a distraught father pushes him to leave the anonymity of the crowd and rush to his knees to state the pitiful plea in Jesus presence. Although this is not the answer to Jesus question, his case is the object around which the entire discussion had hinged.

B. THE POIGNANT PLEA OF A PATHETIC PREDICAMENT

Mat. 17:15 Lord. The other two Evangelists quote him as saying, Teacher. (Mar. 9:17; Luk. 9:38) Without denying these other testimonies. Matthew seems to underline the proper lordship of Jesus by showing the mans respect for Him. However, since lord (kyrie) may also mean nothing more than Sir, an address used in place of the proper name of the person addressed, we cannot assess the depth of the mans faith on the basis of the form of address alone. Have mercy on my son. Although the father will later show the inadequacy of his confidence in Jesus power (Mar. 9:22 b), his initial request appeals to Jesus compassion, as if the Lords ability to heal the boy were for him a foregone conclusion.

The child is an epileptic, but not just an epileptic, because this physical malady is merely the background upon which his demon possession is superimposed. Rather, the cause of the epilepsy and its accompanying symptoms was a demon. (v. 18) On demon possession, see notes on Mat. 8:28 ff and Seth Wilsons Notes on Demon Possession (Learning From Jesus, 302ff). Although the NT does not teach that all, or even most, cases of epilepsy were produced by demonic power, this one was. Note that doctor Luke (Col. 4:14), who would have most scientific reason to doubt the demonic cause, is as descriptive as Mark in attributing the seizures to an unclean spirit, a demon. (Mar. 9:17 f, Mar. 9:20; Mar. 9:25; Luk. 9:39; Luk. 9:42 f) Matthew himself knew how to distinguish cases that were strictly demonic from those which were normal, non-demonic epileptics, paralytics and other various diseases and pains. (Mat. 4:24) Beware of that undiscriminating pseudo-scholarly talk that affirms that during this time it seems to have been common to attribute various types of physical difficulties to demon possession. It should be obvious because of this that the term demon in the various Gospel narratives may mean a number of different things, mainly bound up with what were otherwise inexplicable human problems. (McMillan, Mark, 113)

For he often falls into the fire and often into the water. Are these phenomena to be attributed to the epileptic seizures or to the attacks of the demon who maliciously tried to destroy him? (Mar. 9:22) Certainly the father means that the unexpected effects of the (demonically induced) convulsions required that the boy be constantly watched lest such terrible accidents endanger his life. Into the fire. Even non-epileptic children, if not controlled, can be horribly burned by their accidentally falling into the open brazier of live coals used for heating their homes. Into the water. The danger of drowning is just as real for a non-swimmer whose body is out of control.

Mat. 17:16 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. What damning evidence of their failure! The man had originally come, bringing his son to Jesus. (Mar. 9:17) Finding Him temporarily absent, he cheerfully turned to the very men who were reputedly disciples of His, men who had shared His miraculous power, men who should have shared His mind and heart and turned instantly to God in prayer for power. Instead they stood POWERLESS, sputtering over their embarrassing incompetence.

Had this distraught father neglected to try every remedy known in his time? would such a father have left any stone unturned, any solution untried to save his boy? If not, do we not learn that there was nothing in that time equal to the task of liberating him? Was there nothing in all Hebrew culture or religion that could touch that boy? Was there nothing in the refinement and learning of Hellenism to free him? In the presence of the most, refined philosophies of his age, that father personally experienced their absolute bankruptcy and helplessness to set his little lad free from the foul demon that enslaved him! Only spiritual power can deal with spiritual problems, and even Jesus disciples did not possess this.

Thy disciples means the nine Apostles left at the base of the mountain while Jesus ascended with Peter, James and John for prayer. Barnes (Matthew-Mark, 179) suggests that the disciples here are not the Apostles, but other followers who attempted to work miracles, for others of His disciples also worked them who were not personal attendants on His ministry. (Mar. 9:38) However, this explanation presupposes that the father had never asked the Apostles to heal his son. But this is highly improbable, since the Nine were physically present in this scene., The father probably would not have asked others of Jesus disciples present in the crowd, instead of the Apostles who would presumably have had more faith and more experience and power than those unsuccessful disciples. On the contrary, the word disciples calls us back to remember that the mighty Apostles of the Church of Christ were one day but learners, struggling with doubts and mistakes.

They could not cure him. This is the first time any failure on their part is mentioned in the sacred narrative. Their embarrassed question at the conclusion is further proof that this is the only failure in their ability to work miracles. (Mat. 17:19; see also Luk. 10:17-20) And, since Jesus showed them the cause of this unsuccessfulness. it is evidence that they learned the lesson of faith. (Mat. 17:20)

Mat. 17:17 The pained outcry of our Lord is provoked primarily by the powerlessness of His nine Apostles to heal the boy. Mar. 9:18 b, Mar. 9:19 underlies this by saying: I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able. And he answered THEM . . . Matthew in Mat. 17:16 furnished the fullest statement of the disciples discomfiture. So, his at 17:17 most naturally expresses Jesus chagrin at THEIR ineptness.

Some consider this exclamation as addressed to the unbelief of the relentless scribes who were present, the doubting father, the vacillating multitudes, the human miseries caused by sin and unbelief, as well as the weak faith of the baffled Apostles. Others would inexplicably exempt the Apostles from censure, and blame rather the perversity on the malicious influence of the rabbis at work in the crowd, and only indirectly on the Apostles, if at all. It is not wrong to ascribe perversity and faithlessness on the crowds and the scribes, who undoubtedly were all of this.
In fact, can the Lord be complacent in the face of the pernicious influence that threatens to undermine the faith of His disciples and destroy the precious nucleus He had labored so patiently to create? And should He not denounce it, even in general terms, so that ANYONE who shared these doubts would feel compelled to reaffirm his personal decision about Jesus to follow Him in single-minded faith?

Because they had begun to entertain some of the uncertainty about Jesus and His Messianic methodology and the same doubts that were characteristic of their cultural ambient, the Apostles had been brought back temporarily to the same level of unfaithfulness with their own unbelieving countrymen. This is why they must share in the common condemnation.

O faithless and perverse generation. Often when Jesus used the word generation, He considered the whole contemporary generation of Jews as a uniform mass confronting Him, (Cf. Mat. 11:16; Mat. 12:41 f; Mat. 23:36; Mat. 24:34; Mar. 13:30; Luk. 7:31; Luk. 11:29-32; Luk. 11:50 f; Luk. 17:25; Luk. 21:32) He described that generation as evil (Mat. 12:45; Luk. 11:29), evil and adulterous (Mat. 12:39; Mat. 16:4), adulterous and sinful (Mar. 8:38). Contemporaries of the Apostles appeared to them as a crooked generation (Act. 2:40) and crooked and perverse (Php. 2:15), like the kind that provoked God in the wilderness (Heb. 3:10). See Arndt-Gingrich on gene, p. 153.

Here, however, He leveled the charge of perverseness and unbelief primarily at His own disciples. How can such an attitude of bitter disappointment be justified? This is an unmitigated outburst of divine judgment upon people to whom had been granted the most extraordinary opportunities to know and obey the truth. Therefore His words are to be taken in their harshest sense. (Cf. Deu. 32:5; Deu. 32:20, esp. in LXX!)

There is no necessity to soften the apparent severity of His words, because the disciples had done more than merely empty their reputation as miracle workers. In their self-seeking, they had nearly wrecked the fathers faith. They would not have gone away grieved about the poor boy whom they had failed to heal; they would have slunk away, red-faced over their soiled reputation. Consequently, they had embittered the father, armed the scribes with handy arguments, and tarnished the name of the Lord whose discipleship they owned.

The Apostles had worked miracles in the name of Jesus before, especially the casting out of demons. (Mat. 10:1; Mat. 10:8; Mar. 6:13) Had they only now succumbed to the temptation to use this power for their own glory just to show those scribes that they really could? As a matter of fact, they were arguing with the theologians instead of striving in prayer to God. Apparently they merely began to try to cast out the demon, But the Lord had not told them to TRY to do anything: He told them to CAST THEM OUT through confidence in His authority. (Mat. 10:1; Mat. 10:8) He had provided the power, but they were to furnish the faith. They are now perversely faithless, and He furnished them no power.

The perversity of their faithlessness was further evident in, and actually caused by, their running mental debate with Jesus views of the Messianic Kingdom, They refused to envision any hope of success for a suffering, dying Messiah who worked so patiently with the most unpromising people and whose notorious lack of economic schemes, power structures and military policy was becoming intolerable. In other words, what they could not rationally accept, they tended to believe impossible. Believing that God in Jesus Christ could work out all the seemingly contradictory details was fundamentally foreign to large segments of their entire way of thinking. THIS IS UNBELIEF, PERVERSE AND WICKED UNFAITHFULNESS! They, too, needed to have Jesus repeat to them: All things are possible to him who believes! To the extent that the Apostles shared the feeling that Jesus views and practice were uneconomical, impractical, unsound, unscholarly and bound to fail, they must suffer His condemnation upon their skeptic age.

Perverse (diestrammne, from diastrfo) means twisted, contorted, distorted, disordered, inverted, changed, seduced, depraved. (Rocci, 466) If this sounds too strong for Jesus Apostles, or even His disciples, Morgan (Matthew, 224) shows the connection:

Moreover, the age was not only faithless; it was perverse; which does not mean merely that it was rebellious, but that it was a generation twisted, and contorted; a generation in which things were out of the regular; a generation distorted in its thinking, in its feeling, in its action; a generation unable to think straightly, to feel thoroughly, to act with rectitude; a generation in which everything was wrong.
The use of the two words faithless and perverse, indicates a sequence. A generation that loses its faith, becomes distorted, out of shape. A people who live exclusively upon the basis of the things seen, form untrue estimates; their thinking is distorted, their feeling is out of the straight, their activity is iniquity, which simply means crookedness.

There is no more tragic unbelief in all the world of any generation than the unbelief of BELIEVERS. There is no perversity more wicked than that which claims discipleship to Jesus and claims to be asking honest questions, while attempting to force its own opinions upon Him. It is perverse for disciples to refuse, however unconsciously, to let Him be the Teacher and Lord, debating His every word as if He were no more than a common rabbi from the country!

How long shall I be with you to rescue from the abortive attempts of your faithfulness and to teach you until you understand? How long must I visit you until you take my medicine instead of yours? R. C. Foster (Standard Lesson Commentary 1959, 10) thinks that

This sweeping statement of Jesus seems to contrast earth and heaven. It was as if He looked up momentarily to all the glory and implicit obedience which had surrounded Him in heaven. It seems that a bit of nostalgic longing for all He had surrendered to come into this world suddenly swept over His soul. But it was not a word of self-pity, not to mention despair. It was a biting, challenging criticism and protest.

He had put up with this nonsense for almost three years now, and He longs for it all to be over. Not intolerable conditions, but intolerable UNBELIEF, wore Jesus out! In contrast to their wavering and wrongness, He trusted God and lived a life in harmony with His will, and the contrast caused Him pain. He had provided them enough reasons to trust Him implicitly, so He had a right to expect more intelligent faith. This anguished impatience is not evidence of His humanity, but of His deity! In fact, had He been but a mere man, He would have already given up! His impatience, disgust and weariness is just like Gods! (Study Exo. 16:28; Num. 14:11; Num. 14:27; Isa. 1:14; Isa. 7:13; Isa. 43:24 b; Jer. 4:14; Jer. 4:21; Jer. 15:6; Mal. 2:17) This longing for the finish of His earthly mission, even if that meant the cross and suffering in virtual preference to these continual disappointments, shows just how wearying to Jesus must have been the disciples obtuseness and lack of confidence in Him. Yet, He loved them and continued patiently to minister to their needs until He could truly say, It is finished!

Bring him here to me. What imperative majesty there is in this summons! What confidence in the power of God at work in Himself! This prompt, decisive action is an indirect challenge to the scribes, because it focuses everyones attention on Himself with whom all things are possible, because HE believes that God will work through Him. It shames the Apostles for their time-wasting, faith-dissipating discussions.

The immediacy of Matthews narrative omits the delay that occurred between Jesus order (at 17:17) and the expulsion of the demon (at 17:18). In fact, Mark and Luke inform us that, while the boy was being brought, the demon, when he came in sight of Jesus, threw him to the ground in a convulsion. (See on Mat. 17:21.) At this point the following conversation took place:

C. THE PAINED BUT PERCEPTIVE PLEA OF THE PRESSURED PARENT (Mar. 9:21-24)

Mar. 9:21 And Jesus asked his father, How long has he had this? The Lords apparently clinical manner is not intended to furnish Himself information for a proper diagnosis, and certainly not to prolong the suffering of the victim and, consequently, of his father. He achieved two purposes by this question: (1) He showed the father His personal concern and steady nerve even though the demon was raging his wildest, and (2) at the same time, He impressed everyone present with the obstinacy and apparent hopelessness of the case, so that they might form some estimate of the supernatural power required to resolve it completely. When combined with the disciples bafflement and the fathers desperation and the scribes overconfidence and the multitudes indecision, these two factors are well calculated to throw Jesus calm mastery of the situation into greater relief. From childhood (paidithen) may not mean too long a time, since the victim was still a child (paidou, Mar. 9:24)

Mar. 9:22-24 Confident of the Lords power, the leper had said, If you will, you can . . . (Mat. 8:2) The believing Martha showed some uncertainty about whether it would be Jesus will to raise Lazarus, but she too had no doubt about His power. (Joh. 11:21-27) But this poor doubter, basing his plea only on Jesus compassion, now cried: If you can do anything, have pity on us and help us. Imagine the audacity of saying to Jesus Christ, If you CAN . . .! No wonder Jesus exploded, What do you mean by saying to me, If you can . . .? All the might of the living God is at the disposal of the person who trusts Him! Him who believes. Where personal faith was impossible on the part of the victim, Jesus welcomed the faith expressed by those who brought them. (Cf. Mat. 9:2; Mat. 15:22; Mat. 15:28) The epileptic boy, victim of a malicious demon, could not be expected to believe, so Jesus requires faith of him who made the request and could believe. When HE breaks down under doubt, the Lord mercifully pricks his conscience to show him where his weakness lay. Note that the Lord expected him to believe in the face of the disciples humiliating failure and the seemingly unanswerable attacks of the scribes and the deadening confusion of the crowds.

All things are possible to him who believes. Is this a general truth equally applicable to every believer, or to be understood only in this local frame of reference? The most natural explanation is to view Jesus as speaking directly to the need of a man who was clearly doubting Jesus ability, There is no suggestion here of Jesus inability to heal an unbeliever, (See notes on Mat. 13:58.) Rather, He hints at the mans possible refusal, or failure, to believe that He could do anything needed. His word intends to stir the father to rid himself of the skepticism implied in his petition. It was the fathers own wavering that was rendering the difficult healing even more so. Further, in the presence of the scornful scribes who had exulted over the failure of the nine disciples, Jesus would prove that all things are possible to Him! He Himself believed God and He would prove the truth of this doctrine by His miracle.

This passage is no justification for the assumption on the part of some who would take this as an unqualified promise for indiscriminate application, implying that God will automatically bend the universe to suit the fancies of the sincere. In His infinite wisdom, God may actually choose to bless the believer who prays that His will be done, in precisely the form in which the believer requests it. Yet, faith, to be faith, must be based upon objective evidence of Gods will. (Rom. 10:17) But faith that is based on ones subjective wishes or dreams is not faith, but presumption. The backing of God is not promised for some screwy idea we cook up and attempt on faith, because Jesus has not obligated God to deliver anything according to our whims.

The father instantly corrected his error, wringing out of his soul the most beautiful, most profound confession of trusting dependence upon Gods mercy: I believe; help my unbelief! What a model for our every prayer in our struggle for righteousness! What profound understanding of the temptations to doubt despite our profession of faith! What humility to bare before the Lord our own unworthiness and lurking mistrust! What genuine confidence in Jesus to help us to greater faith and more real dependence upon His grace and power! What insight to call his little faith unbelief! This faith stood out in sharp contrast to the rabbis who had resisted the impact of the evidence and stubbornly insisted on not believing. Recognizing the inadequacy both of the content and of the sufficiency of ones faith, taken together with that intense, overwhelming longing to be all that it is possible for us to be, is the kind of faith that Jesus was longing to find.

What did the father believe? Jesus had been making tremendous, transparent claims to deity, leading men to accept Him as the only one who knew God (Mat. 11:25-30) and as the Forgiver of sins (Mat. 9:6) Despite its admitted weakness, this confession of faith made in the presence of hostile witnesses admits that Jesus is possessor of divine power and divine truth. No small test this, it involved more than believing that the Nazarene could cure, since the very basis of this miracle was what Jesus claimed to be. Did the father believe this? His reaching out to grasp all the truth may have been caused by the ghastly realization that he only imperfectly saw Jesus as Gods Revealer.

Meanwhile, the foaming, convulsing boy was half-carried, half-walked past the embittered critics and incompetent teachers of the age, past the fumbling, faltering followers, past the irresolute and inactive throng, into the presence of the Son of God.

D. THE PITEOUS PRISONER PROMPTLY PURGED OF HIS PERVERSE POSSESSOR

Mat. 17:18 And Jesus rebuked him and the demon went out of him, thus ending years of suffering. (Mar. 9:21) That the Lord desired the clearest, most decisive conclusion to this event, is evidenced by the following considerations:

Before rebuking the unclean spirit Jesus waited until He saw a crowd come running together. (Mar. 9:25)

A great crowd of people had been present from the outset. (Mar. 9:14) There is no evidence that these ever left. It is psychologically improbable that anyone would move a step until this great question was settled.

He had reason to await the arrival of newcomers. His purpose in waiting may have been to secure the largest possible number of eyewitnesses to His successful healing of the demoniac boy, since His own disciples had already muddied His reputation by their bungling.

When Jesus rebuked the demon, His wording is deliberate, precise and explicit (Mar. 9:25):

The specific demon causing the malady is singled out by description: You dumb and deaf spirit . . . i.e. the demon that caused the boy to be deaf and dumb. Note, Jesus did not address the disease, but the demon. Luke says it precisely: Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy. (Luk. 9:42)

Jesus expressed His own personal authority: I command you (eg epitsso soi). He needed not, as the Apostles, to appeal to any higher authority. (Cf. Act. 16:18)

A specific order was given: Come out of him!

A warning admonished: And never enter him again! Men may have thought that the return of the convulsions had been associated with the return of the demon, Nevertheless, demons can return to former victims. (Cf. Mat. 12:43-45) However, we have no evidence that any Jesus expelled ever returned, McGarvey (Fourfold Gospel, 425) contrasts the particular malicious effrontery and obstinacy of this demon with the cowed supplicating spirit shown by the Gadarene legion, (Mat. 8:28 ff), suggesting that this demon might just try it, a possibility that would necessitate this precautionary warning.

Had He desired to avoid a valid use of theatrics, He could have shortened His conversation with the boys father (Mar. 9:20-24) and gotten down to the business of casting out the demon much sooner, and done it instantly without any resistance by the demon. But the way Jesus led the father to deeper faith all the more clearly shows His deliberate intention to glorify God in the most spectacular way possible under the circumstances.

Finally, when He actually began the healing itself, He did not forestall the demons violent, final convulsion which left the boy like a corpse and most of the witnesses convinced of his death. This tense moment furnished Jesus the privilege of lifting the boy up, perfectly and instantly cured. The first step (rebuking the demon) left the audience disappointed, so they were psychologically unready for His last move. The last step left the observers completely breathless and staring in wonder, So, His technique was made far more spectacular by a two-stage process than if He had simply hurried to banish the demon and heal the boy, all in one rapid gesture.

So, it is incorrect to affirm that Jesus noting the gathering of a crowd caused Him to accelerate the healing, because this is not an example of His Messianic reserve, since there is no hint of an attempt to avoid the spectacular. If we have correctly located in semi-pagan country the mountain at the base of which this event occurred (see on Mat. 17:1), there would have been little or no need for silence to forestall unwanted publicity. It was only when He went on from there and passed through Galilee that He would not have any one know it. (Mar. 9:30) Now, however, since His unbelieving, bungling disciples have forced Him to clear His name publicly, He has ample reason to avoid secrecy on this occasion.

And the demon came out of him, not, however, without violent convulsions that left the lad so much like a corpse that bystanders pronounced the victim dead. Jesus ignored their judgment, took the boy by the hand, lifted him up and he arose, cured instantly. (Cf. Mar. 9:26 f) The sensitive Luke notices that He gave him back to his father. (Luk. 9:42) The instantaneous cure shows the decisiveness and completeness of Jesus power, in contrast to others time-wasting discussions and neglect of the suffering victim. It also leaves His hecklers suddenly facing the pressure of facts which they must accept (in which case they must repent) or reject (in which case they must invent plausible explanations in the presence of rejoicing crowds, astonished at the majesty of God and marvelling at everyting Jesus did! Luk. 9:43). Whereas the disciples had drawn attention to themselves by their faithlessness and failure, the scribes had leveled unjustified criticism at the Lords power, the demon had succeeded (apparently) in procuring the death of the afflicted lad, the crowds stood around with hands tied by human helplessness, the Lord, on the other hand, acted with compassion and total mastery. This vivid contrast left the crowd standing in awe of GOD! Lest our short-sighted love for Jesus cause us to be a bit jealous that all were astonished at the majesty not of Jesus, but of God, let us rejoice at this compliment to Jesus whose every move draws mens eyes toward God. It is for this that we love and worship Him!

E. THE APOSTLES PUZZLEMENT OVER THEIR PITIFUL PRODUCTION

Mat. 17:19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could we not cast it out? The Nine had enough personal prideor was it the timidity of bad conscience?to reserve for private discussion the postmortem appraisal of their fiasco. In fact, Mark (Mar. 9:28) notes that when he had gone home (ka eiselthntos auto eis okon), they approached the Lord.

NOTE: Who went home? Does this genitive absolute refer to the demoniac boys departure for home, or the return home of Jesus? The last mentioned possible antecedent for pronoun auto, subject to the participle, is the subject of the preceding verb, he arose, (anste), referring to the boy. If so, then Marks expression would mean simply that when the boy left, the crowds apparently dispersed, leaving Jesus alone with His followers who can now ask Him the cause of their vain attempt.

On the other hand, if the pronoun refers to Jesus, Mark may mean that the disciples reserved their question until Jesus had sought lodging in the area. Then, when He had gone indoors, they approached Him, But since eis okon is idiomatic for home, especially with eisrchesthai (See Arndt-Gingrich, 563), Mark may mean that they did not dare bring up the question until they were clear back to Jesus home in Capernaum! (Cf. Mar. 2:1; Mar. 9:33) If so, this section is recorded here because of its direct connection with the story of the demonized boy, of which it is the proper theological and psychological conclusion. But, from this standpoint, it serves as more fuel for the fiery debate on who is greater in the Kingdom of heaven? (See on Mat. 18:1 ff)

It is to their credit, however, that, sooner or later, they came to Jesus for the solution to their turmoil.

This question is not proof that the pained lament of Jesus (Mat. 17:17) could not have been leveled at them, since the formula used by Jesus had been broad enough to include ANY disciples contaminated with the spirit of the age. In fact, the Apostles ask a question which applies only to themselves, for had the answer they expected involved the failure of other disciples, the question would not have been asked in the first person plural, but Why could THEY not cast it out?, and, in the absence of the other disciples who presumably would have needed it, the answer becomes only academic information and a general warning to the Twelve, This question is, rather, proof only that they missed the connection Jesus intended to make between their perverse faithlessness and their failure.

Ironically, their failure was absolutely essential to their usefulness to Jesus. It was failure after exhilarating successes had left them elated with an invincible self-confidence. This was a humiliating defeat, but one they needed to see the fallacy of self-confidence and to make these disciples more really trusting, these strong men stronger.

The question may also have been part of the motivation behind the struggle for status in the Kingdom. (See on Mat. 18:1.) The Nine admit they could not cast out the demon, while the Three remembered that they themselves had been with Jesus, basking in the light of transfiguration glory. Naturally, these Nine cannot know about the glory, but if the Three nourished any hopes of promotion (cf. Mat. 20:20-28), this contrast in fortune could not have escaped their notice.

We could not cast it out. This sentence guarantees the authenticity of this account, because the Gospel writers do not hide the weaknesses and failure of characters even this important in their narration. This shame, both in the presence of the multitude that day, as well as in the eyes of the present readers, is evidence of that stern truthfulness that must tell the facts as they occurred without embellishment even to save the influential. Lastly, this question and Jesus answer is proof positive that they had not failed to work miracles before this time. It was a totally new experience, since, presumably, He could have answered, You could not cast it out for the same reason you failed before.

1. THE POLLUTING POTENCY OF PRACTICAL PAGANISM

Mat. 17:20 Because of your little faith. The Apostles, not the crowd or the scribes, had possessed but little faith. Their failure was not a question of lack of courtesy or skill, courage or readiness, or enthusiasm, or any other excellent quality, but of spiritual power! It was not the obstinacy of this loathsome disease with its foaming convulsions and shrieks, that left them despairing of being able to cure him, because they had faced bad ones before. It was not even this kind of malicious demon that stumped them, because this kind comes out by prayer. It was not because Jesus was away, because He had commissioned them to cast out demons before in His absence, and they reported no failures then. It was not the heckling opposition of the scribes. Their insinuating questions perhaps contributed to the failure, but could have been silenced by confidence in God, prayer and miraculous success. Rather, it was their lack of confidence in the supernatural power of their Lord, which left them paralyzed in the presence of agonizing human need.

Their confidence in Him had been deeply shaken by His insistence upon the path of shame and suffering and the cross as the only road to glory. Perhaps they had hoped their Rabbi would change the world by an educational process, but now He had demanded their personal participation in the blood and ignominy of His own inevitable martyrdom. Consequently, to the extent that they did not fully trust Him to know, they began to be afraid of Him, even unconsciously, afraid lest He be mistaken, afraid to hold tenaciously to Him and let Him lead, come what may. However unconsciously and insidiously this distrust grew, it nevertheless left them morally quite some distance from Christ, the Source of their power. At that moment, when face to face with real, demonic power and armed with only a paralyzed dependence upon a Christ only half-trusted, they failed!

Some have supposed that the demonized boys fathers lack of faith might have been a factor in the Apostles failure. But the mans demonstration of doubt came after Jesus arrival on the scene and after the Apostles failure. The man himself had brought his son to Jesus originally. (Mar. 9:17) This is faith. Finding Him away, he asked His disciples to cast it out. (Mar. 9:18) This is cheerful perseverance that welcomes a suitable alternative. The mans desperation and struggles with doubts were caused, not by some original, deeply rooted distrust of Jesus, but by the blundering of the disciples who were supposed to know what they were doing, but clumsily handled the case and consequently collapsed, taking the father down with them! Even if the man himself possessed some faith, his weakness could have been healed by the Apostles positive dependence upon God, had they but cast themselves on their knees instead of launching a debate with the scribes.

Note that faith is demanded of both: the Apostles and the one who requests the miracle. The mere possession of miracle-working power in the past was no guarantee of their present possession of faith or righteousness or worthiness to be Gods representatives. (Cf. Mat. 7:21-23)

Even Judas Iscariot had worked these miracles previously. At least, he is not singled out as a non-participant. (Mar. 6:13) But miracles per se did not guarantee his personal honesty. (Joh. 12:6)

Remember Samson who would go out as at other times . . . but did not know that the Lord had left him. (Jdg. 16:20)

The Spirit of the Lord departed from King Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. (1Sa. 16:14) Nevertheless, stubborn in his unbelief, he went out to battle the Philistines, hoping against hope to be able to beat his luck, the certain death predicted for him by God through Samuel. (1Sa. 28:3-25; 1Sa. 31:1-13)

The sin of Achan compromised the sanctity of Israel, so that, their miraculous victory over Jericho notwithstanding, Israels first attack on the city of Ai crumpled. God was not with them as before! (Joshua 6, 7)

Even the mighty Moses buckled under the pressure of constantly having to prove himself the God-sent leader of Israel, and just once took credit for a miracle. Although God could have humiliated Moses and Aaron by letting them fail to bring forth water from the rock, He chose to punish them differently. But He did punish them, Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the people of Israel . . . (Num. 20:12)

Remember Peters imperfect walk on the water. (Mat. 14:28 ff and notes.)

So, Jesus disciples previously effective ministry became ineffective, because they had grown self-reliant, supposing that busyness and activity could substitute for humility, prayer and worship of God. They had begun to identify their results as their own accomplishments, and this self-trust undermined their confidence in God as the only true Source of their power.

Because of your little faith to depend on and receive Gods power. Their faith was not expected to CREATE miracle-working power independent of Gods might; it was only expected to COLLABORATE with God in whom their confidence should have rested. It was expected to trust God to do His part perfectly. (See notes on Mat. 14:31; also Mat. 6:30; Mat. 8:26; Mat. 16:8 for notes on little faith) Faith, as such, does not confer Gods power: God does that. Rather, faith makes it appropriate that He exert His power in favor of the believer.

If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Move hence to yonder place, and it will move. This mountain, even massive Hermon, then in plain sight, is a symbol of impossible tasks, just as a grain of mustard seed symbolizes beautifully the smallest quantity of real spiritual power to fulfill them. That this is figurative, not literal, language, is proven by the Apostles understanding and practice of what Jesus meant here. They did not go around rearranging earths geography, but, by the exercise of genuine faith, they certainly turned the world upside down! (Cf. Act. 17:6; Php. 4:13) They did the impossible.

Some, while admitting that the point of the comparison is the smallness of the mustard seed in contrast to the huge mountain, insist that more is meant. Hendriksen (Matthew, 675) says: A mustard seed (see Mat. 13:31) though at first very small, yet, because of its uninterrupted and vital contact with its nourishing environment, grows and grows until it becomes a tree so tall that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches, Accordingly, faith as a grain of mustard seed is the kind of trust in God which does not immediately give up in despair when its efforts do not meet with immediate success. It maintains its uninterrupted and vital contact with God and therefore continues to pray fervently, knowing that God in His own time and in His own way will bestow the blessing, That is, does Jesus mean to indicate a faith that, however small initially, will rise to meet the task it faces, in the same way a mustard grain flourishes against its obstacles and becomes a tree at the right time? While this is true of living faith, it seems to be pushing the figure farther than Jesus actually intended it. Others, in a similar vein, suggest: If you have any of this real faith at all, you possess what is certain to grow into more, and thus you have what will ultimately be competent to remove the most impossible obstacles.

But the Lords point is not based upon the seeds growing to be what it should become, but upon mustard seed AS IT IS as opposed to the mountain AS IT IS. On another occasion when Jesus taught something the disciples thought impossible to accomplish, they exclaimed: Increase our faith! His reaction is significantly similar to our present context. (Luk. 17:1-6) What was needed, was not larger faith to meet this impossible task, but confidence that even the smallest amount of authentic trust in God can accomplish wonders.

But having little faith is not equal to having a little faith even so small as a grain of mustard seed, because, while the latter is indeed small by contrast to the mountain it must move, it is real. Little faith is not really faith, but doubt asserting itself as self-trust. Genuine faith is solid confidence in God, does not dictate to God any time schedules, does not waver, does not give up. (Jas. 1:6-8; Luk. 18:1-8) Faith means believing what Jesus says. Ironically, some later reader of Marks text of this incident (Mar. 9:29) just could not believe that prayer was sufficient, so to the words of the Son of God he added: and fasting! Cannot He even be trusted to tell us what is necessary without our doubts reasserting themselves? Faith in Jesus means that He must fill all our vision, His will must be our only standard of judgment. When we permit Him to be measured by human considerations and place Him among other human beings and gauge Him as but one among many other great teachers. His power is not available to us. It is only when we let His Word be the standard by which all else is judged, when He is Lord of all for us and our only hope, that we can be competent to accomplish the impossible in His service.

Jesus Himself BELIEVED that the Kingdom COULD be established not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord, and all the mountains of traditional theology, all the mountains of ignorant zeal and deliberate opposition, were no match for Him! (Cf. Zec. 4:6-7) As later events proved Him right point by point, His words, which now must have seemed so visionary, would have been the pragmatically successful power behind the unflinching courage of these same disciples. Belief did not come easy for them. They were even then totally incapable of grasping the most fundamental concept of Gods Kingdom. (See on Mat. 17:22 f.)

Nothing shall be impossible to you. Although addressed to His ancient disciples, is this promise applicable to modern ones?

Hurte (Restoration NT Commentary, 37) answers,

No, it can only apply to those who had the gift of power. Christians can appropriate any promise made to them as Gods children, but the working of miracles was a special gift bestowed only upon a few. It was true to the apostles in relation to their work, but not to others.

However, it is GOD who decides what specific powers He will confer on any one disciple in any given age. Faith lets God decide this. Faith does not desire nor attempt anything but what He desires, a fact that automatically eliminates capricious rearrangements of terrestrial topography and any other supernatural fireworks not within His will. But the question of the hour is not: Does anyone today have the miraculous power to do the impossible?, but: Does anyone have faith enough to do all that IS POSSIBLE for him? The fault of our failure to attain to all that is good, true and noble lies in our shallow, inconstant faith. (Jas. 1:5-8; Jas. 4:2-3; Jas. 5:8-11; Jas. 5:13-18)

2. THE PURIFYING POWER OF PERSONAL PENITENCE AND PERSISTENT PRAYER

(Mat. 17:21 is omitted in the better manuscripts: But this kind cometh not out except by prayer and fasting. See Mar. 9:29) Comment is made on this verse, not because Matthew wrote it, since he probably did not, but because Mark says that Jesus said it, and because of its appropriateness as a comment on Matthew. (This is probably why someone originally copied it from Mark into their copy of Matthew, and a later scribe mistook the marginal note for a textual correction.)

This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. (Mar. 9:29) This kind of demon suggests the natural antithesis: other kinds. Trench (Notes on Miracles, 232) believes that

. . . this kind marks that there are orders of evil spirits, that as there is a hierarchy of heaven, so is there an inverted hierarchy of hell. The same is intimated in the mention of the unclean spirit. going and taking seven other spirits more wicked than himself. (Mat. 12:45)

On these hierarchies, remember also Eph. 2:2; Eph. 6:12; Eph. 1:21.

Are we to infer that other kinds of demons were more cowardly, hence more easily cast out? Jewish exorcists apparently attained considerably professional notoriety and success through the use of incantations and magic by which they were able to bring temporary remission for demoniacs. (See on Mat. 12:27; cf. Act. 19:11-17; see also Josephus, Antiquities, VIII, 2, 5) In this case, it would be thought that some demons might be cast out without prayer and dependence upon God. And, if they obtained control over demons by obtaining, through magic, power of Satan or by compromises with him, they could temporarily appear to succeed. But their results were tainted with evil, unlike those of Jesus who caused all to be astonished at the majesty of God. (ISBE, 1068)

This kind, then, speaks of the audacious wickedness and peculiarly determined viciousness of the demon Jesus had just cast out. The demons maliciousness not only drove him to keep a strangle-hold on the lad despite the disciples attempts, but appeared obstinately determined to defy the power of Jesus too! (Cf. Mar. 9:20; Luk. 9:42) Further, he took hellish delight in inflicting pain. (Mat. 17:15; Mar. 9:22) Confidence in God gives moral power that commands respect for the man of God determined to expel a demon. But without this fundamental confidence in Gods backing, or faith, even the most experienced miracle-worker must back down and admit defeat in the presence of tenacious, malignant spirits of this kind.

Besides the disciples prayerlessness, their floundering is attributable also to their alternative: they were arguing with the rabbis. (Mar. 9:14; Mar. 9:16) It is quite likely that they had been busy defending themselves against the heckling of these skeptics, when they should have been praying and getting on with the business of glorifying God by healing the demonized epileptic. (Mar. 9:29) Prayer is the only suitable preparation of ones faith to address oneself to the task of doing the impossible. Prayer itself would not have given them the power needed, but it would have intensified their sense of dependence upon God, and so enabled them to be His instruments in utilizing the power He had granted them.

APPLICATION

What a striking parable of the modern Church! How important the lesson for the modern disciple during the Lords absence, when he too is facing the daily cry of needy humanity in the valley of humiliation, the positive opposition of the agnostics, the frustration of confrontations and the need to succeed! The desperate world, finding Jesus temporarily away from the earth, turns to those who should know Him best and share the secrets of His power, crying for assistance to cure the ills of human existence. Far too often the faithlessness of the prayerless Church, busy with her ecclesiastical machinery and worldly concerns, is not only the main ingredient of her own failure, but, more tragically, the principle cause of the worlds unbelief and doubting even the mighty power of Christ Himself. Embarrassed by lack of real spiritual power, the Church is too ready to try to save man by social programs of self-improvement, by theological debate, by religious programs, by psychological gimmicks or by the power of positive thinking. She depends upon these as a source of power, rather than fulfill a mission blessed by the power of God. Then, the now nearly hopeless world, bypassing the fumbling Church, with one last rattling gasp, whispers to our Lord, If you can do anything, have pity on us and help us!
Under such circumstances, brethren, we deserve the sternest denunciation our Lord can pronounce! To the extent that we personally share the doubts and consequent helplessness of our age, our perversity and unbelief cannot escape His holy judgment!

Brethren, when we are pressured by circumstances to doubt our direction, our abilities and our Lords care and concern for us, let us pray. Let us admit our lack of great faith, confess our dependence upon God, consecrate ourselves more completely to Him, and rise to do the work of God as the men of God in our time until our Lord returns! Since men are not going to be saved and made fit for God except by our faith and prayer, let us by prayer nourish a faith so mighty that it will not be put to shame as we deal with the impossible difficulties of our time! (1Jn. 5:4)

DEMON POSSESSIONDO WE BELIEVE IT?

With his usual keen insight, Foster (Standard Lesson Commentary, 1959, 13) asks this incisive question and applies its significance to our section, in a note that well deserves repetition:

It is remarkable that in a lesson which concentrates upon our lack of faith, our need of faith, and the fact that Jesus calls forth faith, we find ourselves considering the type of record which today causes many people to doubt the truth and accuracy of the Gospel accounts.
Many people are caused to stumble at the fact that demon possession existed in the time of Jesus, that Jesus talked with the demons, that they responded intelligently and with evidence of superhuman knowledge, that He cast them out. As Jesus called for faith in the heart of this father, so He demands faith of us as we study these records.
Who are we to attempt to dispute the record of demon possession? What do we know about the spirit world? We cannot comprehend, except in a superficial manner, even the physical world approached by the five senses. If a person is moved to doubt that there are actually in existence the devil and his angels who serve him and seek to bring man to destruction, then will he also doubt the existence of angels in heaven? Thus the Sadducees went forward in their logical deductions that denied the existence of angels and of any life after death. That this compelled them to deny the truth of the Old Testament and robbed them of all hope did not bring them to a halt in their folly. But if there be no angels and no life after death, how can there be any God?
Jesus calls forth faith in the heart of every humble Christian today to accept without question the New Testament record as a true and faithful account of what actually happened.
The fact that vast mysteries lie imbedded in the records should not overwhelm us with doubt. What else can we expect? Are we not mere finite beings with puny outreach of both intellect and physical power? We cannot encompass God. We must believe. We must depend upon God when our understanding and our strength fail.

FACT QUESTIONS

Where had Jesus and some of His disciples been when they encounter the remaining Apostles and a crowd of people? When and where did this take place? At what chronological point in Jesus ministry did it occur?

In what activity were people engaged just before Jesus appeared on the scene? Where would they have likely come from? What was their interest in this situation?

What special goal would the scribes have hoped to reach in their debate with the disciples of Jesus? Who are the scribes: what section of national life in Judaism of Jesus day did they represent?

What was the central point of focus of the entire situation that caused the excitement before Jesus arrival?

What reasons did the disciples have for believing that they could have cast out the demon? Had they ever done so before?

List the physical symptoms described by the epileptics father.

Did the father distinguish between epilepsy and demon possession? Are all epileptics demon-possessed?

What information in the text indicates that Jesus clearly distinguished between the disease and demon possession?

There are only four possible views with reference to the Gospel accounts of demon-possession and the casting them out, but only one of them is tenable. List them, showing why each of the three is illogical or historically improbable while the other is practically unassailable.

10.

From the Biblical information available to us, is it possible to say whether demons always caused maladies or defects? Are there other symptoms of demon possession not seen in the case reported in this section (Mat. 17:14-21)? If so, what are they?

11.

To whom did Jesus address the words: O faithless and perverse generation? Prove your answer. What is the meaning of Jesus question: How long shall I be with you?? What does He mean when He says: How long shall I bear with you??

12.

What caused the father to say to Jesus, If you can do anything . . .? (Mar. 9:22)

13.

What is the point of Jesus reply? (Mar. 9:23)

14.

Explain the seemingly contradictory answer of the father: I believe; help my unbelief! (Mar. 9:24)

15.

How did Jesus cast the demon out?

16.

What was the effect of the miracle on the eyewitnesses? (Luk. 9:43)

17.

Why did the disciples fail to cast out the demon? State both of Jesus answers. (Mat. 17:20; Mar. 9:29) Explain what He meant by each one.

18.

List any Biblical passages which would tend to qualify our understanding of the phrase: All things are possible to him that believes,

19.

List other Biblical examples of demon expulsion that would aid our understanding of demons and demonic possession. Are demons merely bad habits? Must those who are demon-possessed be exceptionally wicked? What other young children have been mentioned as demon-possessed during Jesus ministry?

20.

What is learned about demons from the command Jesus gave to the demon: Enter no more into him? Can demons return?

21.

What does the phrase unclean spirit indicate about the nature or the effect of demon-possession on the one possessed?

22.

What is the significance of the reaction of the multitude to Jesus signal victory over the demon? (Luk. 9:43)

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(14) And when they were come to the multitude.St. Luke states that it was on the next day, the night having apparently been spent on the Mount of Transfiguration. The magic power of the art of Raffaelle has brought into vivid juxtaposition the contrast between the scene of glory above and that of trouble and unrest below, but we must not allow the impression made by the picture to distort our thoughts of the history. The two scenes did not synchronise. The vision was at night, and the descent from the mountain would have carried those who made the journey some way at least into the day that followed.

There came to him a certain man.St. Mark (Mar. 9:14-16) narrates more fully that as our Lord and the three were coming to the disciples, they saw a crowd, and scribes disputing with them; that when the multitude saw this they were astonished, and running to Him, saluted Him; that He then asked, Why dispute ye with them? and that this drew forth the answer and the prayer which in St. Matthews record stands without any prelude.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

76. CASTING OUT OF A DUMB AND DEAF SPIRIT, Mat 17:14-23 .

As Moses, when he came down from the mount of God, found that his people had in his absence turned to idolatry and vice, so our Saviour, on coming from the mount of transfiguration, found that his disciples in his absence had neglected prayer and fasting, and become spiritually weak, and had rendered themselves liable to the taunts of adversaries and the rebukes of the Lord. Great is the contrast between the exaltation of the mount and this humiliation on the low level of the earth.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

14. Come to the multitude The preceding conversation, from Mat 17:9, transpired as they descended the hill. Mark (chap. ix) tells us that this was on the second day after the transfiguration. The Lord found his disciples under question by the scribes for a failure to dispossess a demoniac. As the multitude saw our Lord himself approaching, they ran to him with great earnestness, as if believing that he would be able to accomplish the work. They salute our Lord with joyful reverence. The Lord demands of the scribes why they are thus questioning his disciples; when the father of the demoniac child comes forth and states his case.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And when they were come to the crowd, there came to him a man, kneeling to him, saying,’

Coming down from a mountain regularly results in a crowd, for they would be waiting for Him (compare Mat 8:1). We do not know which mountain this was but by now they were probably back in Galilee. This is confirmed in Mark by the presence of Scribes. The man knelt before Him in order to back up his plea. The word suggests humility and entreaty.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Failure Of The Disciples To Cast Out A Demon (17:14-18).

On arrival at the bottom of the mountain they came across a crowd of people who were with the disciples and there discovered that while Jesus was in the mountain they had been unable to heal a boy who gave the appearance of being epileptic as a result of the presence of a powerful demon active within him. Observing this Jesus expresses His concern at the faithlessness of that generation and heals the boy. This incident is always connected with the Transfiguration and it may well be that there is an indication in this that without the presence of Jesus with them the disciples’ faith had been affected. They were not sure where He had gone or what He was doing. It may also indicate that with Jesus involved in heavenly activity and out of the way the demon world felt more assured.

But we should note that Matthew, unlike Mark, lays little stress on the demonic power at work here, although noting it at the end. He speaks rather of the boy being ‘cured’. There was seemingly a mixture of disease and demon possession. Perhaps indeed the demon possession had taken place as a result of using occult methods to try to cure the boy of epilepsy. Matthew’s main aim here is to bring out the failure and lack of faith of the disciples. And as usual he abbreviates considerably.

A vivid picture is found here of how little the disciples could achieve without the power of Jesus with them. That is why Jesus’ last words in Matthew are, ‘lo I am with you always’ (Mat 28:20). Without Him they could do nothing.

Analysis.

a And when they were come to the crowd, there came to him a man, kneeling to him (Mat 17:14).

b Saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is epileptic, and suffers grievously, for regularly he falls into the fire, and regularly into the water” (Mat 17:15).

c “And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not cure him” (Mat 17:16).

d ‘And Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” (Mat 17:17 a).

c “Bring him here to me” (Mat 17:17 b).

b And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon went out of him (Mat 17:18 a).

a And the boy was cured from that hour (Mat 17:18 b).

Note that in ‘a’ the man came to Jesus and knelt before Him, and in the parallel the boy was subsequently cured. In ‘b He learned about the demon’s activity in the boy, and in the parallel He cast it out. In ‘c’ the boy was brought to the disciples but they could not cure him, and in the parallel Jesus said ‘Bring him to Me’. Centrally in ‘d’ Jesus bemoaned the faithlessness and perversity of that generation.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Problem of Unbelief, The Reason For Unbelief, And The One Who Will Triumph Through Faith (17:14-23).

At the commencement of this section we learned of the problem of unbelief (Mat 13:58) which was connected with the power of Jesus and the idea of resurrection (Mat 14:1-2). Now in this parallel passage we discover an example of unbelief in the disciples (Mat 17:14-18), which is followed by describing the kind of faith that is required (Mat 17:19-21) and the example of the One Who has that faith and Who as a result will come through suffering and death, to resurrection (Mat 17:22-23).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Healing of a Lunatic. Mat 17:14-21

The return to the people:

v. 14. And when they were come to the multitude, there came to Him a certain man, kneeling down to Him and saying,

v. 15. Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and sore vexed; for ofttimes he falleth into the fire and oft into the water.

v. 16. And I brought him to Thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

While Jesus had been on the mountain with the three disciples overnight, a multitude had gathered at the foot of the mountain, where the other disciples were awaiting His return. The Lord found the people pressing about the center, where some of the scribes were disputing excitedly with His followers. Mar 9:14. The crowds received Him with all signs of respect, and His attention was immediately directed to a certain man who rushed forward with urgent desire, kneeling at His feet, falling on his knees, and almost carrying Jesus over with the impetuousness of his anxiety for his son. He confesses Jesus as the Lord; he earnestly begs mercy at His hands, realizing that he is not worthy to receive the gift. For his son he pleads, who was a demoniac of a peculiar kind, suffering with a form of lunacy or epilepsy which caused the boy to cast himself, often into the fire, and often into the water. And here was a complication: The disciples had been unable to help him. He had actually gone to the trouble of consulting them, but it had been in vain: they were not able to heal him.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mat 17:14 . Notwithstanding divergence in other respects, the healing of the lunatic ( ., see note on Mat 4:24 ) comes next in order in all the three Synoptists (Mar 9:14 ff.; Luk 9:37 ff.), a circumstance which also militates against the mythical view of the transfiguration.

] Comp. Mar 1:40 ; Mar 10:17 . The accusative is to be understood as conveying the idea that He was directly touched by the man, as much as to say: he clasped Him by the knees . Comp. , , (Pflugk, ad Eur. Hec . 339; Khner, II. 1, p. 251).

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

E. The Church as working Wonders by the Power of Spiritual Prayer and Fasting. Mat 17:14-21

(Mar 9:14-29; Luk 9:37-43.)

14And when they21 were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain22 man, kneeling down to him, and saying, 15Lord, have mercy on my son; for he is lunatic [], and sore vexed [sorely afflicted]:23 for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. 16And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not curehim. 17Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you [bear with you, ]?Bring him hither to me. 18And Jesus rebuked the devil [him, ], and he [the demon, ]24 departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very25 hour. 19Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 20And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief [little faith]:26 for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed [mustard], ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be 21impossible unto [to] you. Howbeit [But, ]this kind goeth not out but [except] by prayer and fasting.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

In all the three synoptists, the cure of the lunatic follows on the transfigurationa circumstance which may be regarded as one of the evidences of the genuineness and authenticity of the narrative, and against the mythical hypothesis. Meyer.

Mat 17:14. Kneeling down to Him.He saluted Him, doing homage with bended knees: .

Mat 17:15. Lunatic.Meyer seems to suppose that lunacy and epilepsy, and demoniacal possession excluded each other. Our conviction, on the other hand, is, that a certain amount of nervous derangement uniformly accompanied all demoniacal possessions. Comp. our previous remarks [on Mat 4:24, p. 96, and on Mat 8:28, etc., pp. 164166]. The suggestion of Olshausen, that they were partly caused by sensual indulgences, appears to us based on a confusion of two different statessurrender to the power of demons, and to that of sin.

Mat 17:17. Perverse Generation, ..The expression is not merely intended as a general designation, but has a peculiar and distinctive meaning. It implies perversion, in the sense of being seduced or led astray (). In their grief at the announcement of the Lords impending sufferings, the disciples who had been left behind, had, at least partially, given way to the spirit of the world. A slight analogy may here be traced to the return of Moses from the mount, when he found the people assembled around the golden calf. According to the ancient expositors, these words of Jesus were addressed to the person who sought relief; according to Calvin, to the scribes; according to Paulus, Olshausen, and others, to all the people present; according to Bengel, de Wette, and Meyer, to the disciples. No doubt the Lord referred primarily to the disciples, though evidently as in connection with the persons by whom they were surrounded. The rebuke itself may be regarded as a gentle moral exorcism, addressed to them before the Lord proceeded to cure the demoniac. Meyer speaks of the strong feeling expressed by Jesus. This should, however, be viewed in its higher bearing as an indignant emotion, by which the Saviour first of all expelled the spirit of dejection from the circle of His disciples.

How long shall I bear with you?De Wette remarks: Jesus here blames their want of self-dependence, their continual dependence upon Him, since He would so soon have to part from them (), and that they so often put His patience and forbearance to the test. In that case, the first would mean: not long shall I be with you; and the second: too long, etc. But this view is evidently untenable. Besides, in the parallel passage in Luke, the expression occurs only once. But, on the other hand, we must not understand it as implying, I have been and borne too long with you. In our opinion, the consciousness of His approaching departure from the disciples seems to have led the Saviour to a twofold application of it to present circumstances: How soon will you require, in dependence on My Spirit, to stand and act alone! and again: How soon shall your present state of weakness, which calls for infinite forbearance on My part, require to give place to spiritual decision!

Bring him hither.Although this is addressed to the disciples, it must also have applied to the father of the lad. According to the narrative in the Gospel by Mark (which furnishes a number of details), the crowd gave way at the appearance of Christ. The people ran to meet the Lord,foremost among them, no doubt, the father of the child, and the disciples. The scribes probably followed more slowly, the lad being in their company. While they were bringing him to the Lord, he was seized with a fearful paroxysm whenever he came within sight of Jesus. See also the narratives in Mark and Luke.

Mat 17:18. And Jesus rebuked him.In accordance with His ordinary method of healing demoniacs. See above. The details of the cure are furnished by Mark and Luke.

Mat 17:20. Because of your unbelief [better: want of faith, ].The reproof does not refer to unbelief in regard to the divine power of effecting this miracle. In point of fact, they had attempted to cure the child. But Christ here alludes to their dejection on account of His impending sufferings, which arose from unbelief of the heart. They had not yet sufficiently exercised prayer and fasting, which would lead them to full renunciation of the world.

As a grain of mustard.See Mat 13:33.To remove mountains.Comp. Mat 21:21, where the expression is even more strongly worded than here. In both cases, it is a figure implying the removal of the most formidable obstacles, 1Co 13:2. For legends about the removal of mountains, see Calovius and Starke. Similar miracles were ascribed, amongst others, to Gregory Thaumaturgus and Hilarion.Among the Jews, an eloquent teacher was described as one who removed mountains. Stier, 2. p. 242.

Mat 17:21. This kind, .Various explanations of this expression: 1. It has been applied to the demons generally, as constituting a kind. Thus Chrysostom, Fritzsche, and others. 2. This particular kind of demons. Grotius, de Wette, Meyer. 3. Sieffert refers it to the of the disciples. 4. Theile applies it very strangely to the Apostles, in the sense, this kind of men proceed no further than prayer and fasting (!)The second view (of Grotius, etc.) is so far supported by the circumstance, that the case of this demoniac was peculiarly aggravated. He was dumb and deaf; he threw himself into the fire and into the water, foamed and gnashed, and could only be healed during a fearful paroxysm. After the evil spirit had left him, he fell down as if dead; and the Lord was obliged to restore him by a second miracle, taking hold of him by the hand. Still it were a mistake to regard this demoniacal possession as different from others in kind, and not merely in degree, and hence as constituting a peculiar kind, for which specific prayer and fasting were required. The Lord rather conveyed to His disciples that they had not preserved or cultivated the state of mind and heart necessary for the occasion, that they were not sufficiently prepared and collected to cast out so malignant a demon. The dumbness and deafness indicated a melancholy and obstinacy, from which, in their dejection about the impending sufferings of Christ, the disciples themselves were not at that moment quite free. Besides, we must not forget on all such occasions that Judas was still among them.

Prayer and fasting.Some commentators erroneously apply this statement to the diseased person. Thus Chrysostom: the prayer and fasting of the sufferer. Paulus: proper diet and abstinence (!) Ammon: invigoration of the soul by devotional exercises, and depression of the body by suitable abstinence. De Wette, Meyer, and others correctly refer it to the conditions necessary for such a faith as to work miracles. Meyer regards Mat 17:20-21 as a gradation. But even in Mat 17:20 the term mountain is intended to convey the idea of a very great difficulty, such as that before them. Hence Mat 17:21 is intended to furnish directions in what particular manner they were to prepare for meeting this kind of demons. The demons of such deep melancholy could only be overcome by the sacrifice of most earnest prayer, and complete renunciation of the world.

From the circumstance (recorded by Mark) that during the absence of Jesus the scribes had mingled with the disciples, Neander infers that the transfiguration must have taken place in Galilee. But there is no reason for assuming that scribes had not also resided in the territory of the Jewish prince Philip.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The great contrast: Christs transfiguration on the mount, and the scene of misery and unbelief in the valley below, here brought together in immediate contact. In the art of painting, Raphael has solved the difficult problem [in his famous Transfiguration, the last creation of his genius, representing Christ with Moses and Elijah in heavenly glory above, gazed at by the three favorite disciples at their feet, and the frightful scene of the lunatic below.P. S.].

2. The disciples at the foot of the mountain were to be strengthened for the impending conflict in a manner quite different from that by which the three more intimate disciples of Jesus were prepared for it. They were to be taught and trained to stand alone. Still, despite their number, they were thrown into peculiar difficulties. At that particular season they were asked to cure a peculiarly severe case of demoniacal possession; they were surrounded by hostile scribes, ready to draw the worst inferences from their inability to afford relief, and to dispute with them; while the crowd of spectators were in danger of giving way to frivolity and derision. Hence, also, the multitude were greatly agitated when Christ appeared. The heavenly leader had to repair a severe defeat of His adherents. He accomplished it instantaneously and victoriously; thus at the same time both humbling their unbelief, and evoking and strengthening their faith. The three more intimate disciples of Jesus had been strengthened by the experience of communion with the blessed spirits of heaven. The rest were now strengthened along with them by witnessing the power of their Lord, which proved victorious over the worst demons of hell.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

How closely the Church of Christ borders on the precincts both of heaven and of hell!Christ the King and Lord of all blessed spirits, and the conqueror of the lost.In the Church of Christ it appears how both heaven and hell exert their influence upon earth.The descent of the Lord and of His disciples into the valley: 1. Illustrated by the descent of travellers from bright mountain heights to dark gorges of valleys; 2. a lively image of the conflicting experiences realized by those who now descended from the mountain; 3. a foretoken of the descent of Christ into the kingdom of the dead.The cure of the lunatic child itself a great victory, and accompanied by two other miracles. 1. This miracle was rendered more difficult(a) by the character of the sufferer; (b) by the failure of the attempt made by the disciples; (c) by the malicious questions of the scribes; (d) by the presene of a perplexed multitude; (e) by the circumstance that the faith of the father of the child was shaken, although immediately restored. 2. The introductory miracle: the removal of the wrong state of feeling in the persons assembled, and of the inward dejection of the disciples. 3. The supplementary miracle: the rescuing of the child from the deadly stupor which proved all but fatal.Although the Church of Christ may appear weak in many of its members, it always retains possession of miraculous power in its Lord.How the disciples of Jesus ought to recover themselves from their unbelief, when they observe the loss of their power.The error of the disciples on the mount, and the error of those in the valley. The former wished to surrender themselves to the vision of heavenly objects, or to a merely contemplative life; the others ventured without sufficient faith upon the most trying conflict with the world and hell (attempting the cure, disputing with the scribes, and risking their reputation before the people).If ye have faith as a grain of mustard, etc.In what order must our faith remove mountains? 1. First of all, the unbelief out of our own heart; 2. then unbelief in those who are disposed to believe; 3. after that, the unbelief of the world. The disciples miscarried in their work, because they reversed the right order.We are to remove, first of all, the mountain which stands nearest in our path.In this instance, the Jewish authorities had placed themselves in the way of the disciples as a mountain which they could not remove.Faith can only achieve what it has recognized and felt as the will and call of God. But this it will certainly accomplish in the strength of the Lord.Faith makes no experiments; what it undertakes is already decided and done in the counsel and power of God.This kind goeth not out etc.Prayer and fasting are the fundamental conditions of the victory of faith over the kingdom of darkness: 1. Prayer as faith, taking hold on the Lord and deriving strength from Him. 2. Fasting as faith in its practical renunciation of the world.We can only overcome the spirit of melancholy in the world by a cheerful renunciation of the world.

Starke:J. Hall: Felt need makes a man at once humble and eloquent.Great is the misery of one bodily possessed; but infinitely greater that of one spiritually possessed.Canstein: Satan makes use of natural causes (such as lunacy) for his designs.There are, no doubt, even at the present day, many incurable diseases which are ascribed to natural causes (alone), and which yet may be (jointly) the effects of the invisible evil spirit.Quesnel: God often allows His servants not to succeed in the cure of souls, partly as a Judgment on these souls, and partly to humble and arouse His servants.The indignation of Christ.Cramer: His reproofs and chastisements, Psa 141:5.Osiander: If Jesus bears with our great weaknesses, should we not bear with those of our brethren? 1Pe 3:8.Cramer: Teachable scholars should be willing to acknowledge their dulness, and should often ask questions.Zeisius: Unbelief stands in the way of the power and manifestations of the Lord, while faith at all times works miracles and removes mountains, if not materially, yet spiritually.Hedinger: Behold how we must grapple with the powers of darkness.

Heubner:The father of the lunatic, a consolatory example for poor parents who have children similarly afflicted.They should seek help from Christ Himself.The patience of Christ toward His disciples.Let ministers ask themselves why they have so little success in their work.We cannot expect to drive out the evil spirit, if our state of mind be in harmony with that which he produces.

Footnotes:

[21] Mat 17:14.Codd. B., Z. [and Cod. Sinait.] omit , and so does Lachmann. Tischendorf reads after Cod D., Vulgate, al. [This must refer to a former edition, for in the editio septima of his large Greek Testament, 1859, Tischendorf reads: . So does Alford.P. S.]

[22] Mat 17:14.[Certain is an unnecessary interpolation, which dates from Tyndale and was retained in all the later Protestant E. V. But Wiclif and the N. T. of Rheims omit it.P. S.]

[23] Mat 17:15. . Lachmann reads B., L., Z., [also Cod. Sinait.], which is probably an emendation, since seemed to be superfluous after . So Meyer. [Mark has instead of it and hence Lange translates here: hat ein bses Leiden, has a malignant enil.P. S.]

[24] Mat 17:18.[The tranposition of devil and the pronoun in some of the English versions, is an attempt to improve the style of the original, which is no part of the translators work, least of all in the Bible.P. S.]

[25] Mat 17:18.[From that hour, . Very is an unwarranted addition, which presents the case more strongly than the sacred writer, in his natural simplicity and modesty, intended.P. S.]

[26] Mat 17:20.[Lachmann reads with his authorities little faith. This may be an emendation to soften the expression, as Meyer and Alford assume; but it has the authority of the Vatican, and of the Sinaitic MS. If we retain , with Tischendorf and Alford, it should be rendered want (absence) of faith, instead of unbelief, which is too strong.P. S.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

“And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, (15) Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is a lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. (16) And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. (17) Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. (18) And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. (19) Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? (20) And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. (21) Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”

We have this miracle more particularly related by Mark, Mar 9:14 , etc. to which, therefore, I refer, as well as for the observations offered upon it, which will there be more fully considered. In the mean time, I only beg to detain the Reader with a short remark on the slenderness of the disciples’ faith; in their inability to accomplish the cure of this child. This Epilepsy, or falling sickness, of the child’s body, it should seem, had afforded handle to the devil to exercise his cruel devices on the child’s soul; and no doubt the permission, as it laid the foundation for the greater manifestation of Christ’s glory, was graciously ordered. But the slenderness of the disciples’ faith, was simply this it should seem, not in their faith in Christ, but their exertion of that faith in this act of working miracles, as they had been commissioned to do. The Lord Jesus, when he said, O faithless, and perverse generation, did not speak to his disciples, for though they were indeed men of little faith, yet certainly not faithless. It was the men of that generation whom Jesus called faithless and perverse, for in Mark’s account of this miracle, it appears, that from the inability of the servants of Christ, to heal the child, they began to triumph as though the same defect was in the Master, therefore Jesus called that generation faithless and perverse, But the weakness of the disciples’ faith, opens a subject of encouragement, to the timid disciples of Jesus, in every age of the Church, which, under grace, we ought to make improvement from Let it be remembered therefore, that with respect to our own personal salvation, the smallest portions of faith, as they are, from Christ, do prove an union with Christ, as truly as the largest gifts the Lord may be pleased to bestow upon his members. The drop of water in the dew, is as truly water as all the rivers of the world. It is the same in nature and in quality, though not in quantity. The same may be said in respect to faith. And this ought to comfort and encourage a poor child of God under weak faith, whose cries for an increase of faith are great and continual. Luk 17:5 . Moreover those portions of faith, which are of the operation of the Spirit of God; however small and inconsiderable, yet carry with them the true marks of a child of God. Unto you (saith Paul to the Church) it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. Phi 1:29 . Faith is the gift of God. And wheresoever this grace is given, it proves the possessor of it to be a child of God. For when Paul preached among the Gentiles, we are told, that as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Act 13:48 . And as to the act of being justified by faith, it is plain from the whole tenor of Scripture that while it is blessed to have strong and lively acting of faith on the person, work, and righteousness of God our Savior, yet the babe in Christ, as well as the strong man in the Lord, is as truly justified, because it is Christ which justifieth, and not the strength of our faith in Christ which contributes thereto. By him, (saith Paul) that is, by Christ, all that believe, whether slender faith or strong faith, all that believe, are justified from all things. Act 13:39 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 71

Prayer

Almighty God, we do this day join the Church of all times and all lands, and praise thy name because of thy grace and thy truth. We are part of a great Church, the whole of which thou alone canst see. We have come to the spirits of the just made perfect, to the general assembly and Church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven, and to this great host we add our voice that the hymn of praise which goes up to thee may thereby be strengthened because of our personal thankfulness. Thou hast done great things for us, whereof we are glad. If sometimes we sit down to reckon up the darkness, that do thou charge to our faithlessness and our meanness of soul. We ought the rather to count the stars thou hast set in the darkness and to number the mercies wherewith thou hast surrounded our life; then should there be no end to the long reckoning, for thy tender mercies are more in number than the sands upon the sea-shore. Give us the loving heart that seeks the blessings that they may be added up and set out in order, and take away from us the disloyal and despairing spirit that counts the afflictions and reckons thee hard in visitation and in judgment.

Thy tender mercies are over all thy works: thou dost give music to the wind and thou dost give fragrance to the flower, and thou givest light unto every star. Thou art always adding to that which is good, so that there is no measure to its beauty and its delightfulness. Our cup runneth over; for our right hand thou hast a rod, for our left hand a staff, and in the valley of the shadow of death thou dost find for us light and song.

All this thou hast done for us and in us by Jesus Christ, the firstborn of every creature, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He is highly exalted today, his name absorbs all other names, and he alone reigns in infinite and indestructible glory. In all things he hath the pre-eminence: having submitted to the lowest humiliation, he sits now upon the highest throne, and if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. May we be in the Saviour, cleansed by his blood, sanctified by his spirit, transfigured into his image, and animated evermore by his noble purpose. Thus may we reveal Christ day by day, showing men what he is, and showing the world that we have bread to eat which was never provided by time or sense.

Thou hast promised us great things. Beyond all our prayer thine answer rises like a firmament filled with lights: ours the poor prayer, thine the infinite reply. Thou hast promised to search the earth through and through to find that which was lost of thine image and likeness, and all that sleep in Christ shall be brought with him at the last, and thou wilt leave no grave unopened; thou wilt find for us our lost ones, and set them up again, a multitude that no man can number, and thy heaven shall be filled and thy guests shall go out no more for ever. By such visions dost thou draw us forward through the wilderness, by the music of such promises dost thou stir us, and yet soothe us, in all the way of our life.

Deliver us from the fascination cast upon us by unworthy objects, save us from the torment of slavery to things that are mean and worthless, and enable us to set our whole love upon things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. May our heart be in Heaven, may our fellowship be with the Father and with the Son, through the eternal Spirit. May a light above the brightness of the sun make our way glad, and voices spoken to the heart charm away their fear and gloom.

Mercifully help every good man to bear his burden steadily. In thy great love do thou nourish the hearts that are given over to sore trial, heal with balm from heaven the wounded spirit, with thine own gentle hand dry the tears of sorrow, and by frequent shining from behind the cloud do thou grant unto us release from the fear which its darkness inspires. We are all known to thee in every thought and motive, in every purpose and act, and thou wilt deal mercifully with us, for though we be rebels and aliens, yet are we still thine own children: thou didst make us and not we ourselves, and though we are self-torn and self-destroyed, yet amid all the ruin, the shame, thou dost see the traces of thine own image.

Our hope is in Christ, our trust is in the cross, our cry is towards our Father, and it will not be returned to us in mockery, but in great answers of pardon, assurance, and peace. Amen.

Mat 17:14-27

14. And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,

15. Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed; for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.

16. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

17. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse (seduced or led astray) generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.

18. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.

19. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?

20. And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

21. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

22. And while they abode in (went to and fro) Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men:

23. And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.

24. And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and saith, Doth not your master pay tribute?

25. He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom (duties on goods) or tribute (poll-tax, Act 5:37 )? of their own children, or of strangers? (To the Jews direct taxation was hateful, as a sign of subjugation.)

26. Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free.

27. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money (a stater): that take, and give unto them for me and thee.

Transfiguration Completed By Beneficence

We have read the story of the lunatic son in the three Gospels. The differences of narration are notable. It would seem impossible for any three men to tell the same story in the same way, even where the facts are so striking and tragical as in the instance now before us. Mark is the most observant of the writers: always in Mark’s statements there is most of indication, colour, and record of movement; Mark takes notice of attitudes, looks, tones of the voice, and in this instance he has recorded for us some of the most pathetic and touching incidents in the whole case. It was Mark who saw the tears in the man’s eyes: it was Mark who overheard the great prayer, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief;” and it was Mark who observed all the contortions and paroxysms of the young man immediately before the devil was ordered to quit him. It was Mark who saw two miracles in one the man from whom the spirit had been cast out was as one dead, insomuch that many said, “He is dead,” but Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him, and he arose, and thus performed two miracles upon the sufferer. Let us look at the incident as related by Matthew.

“And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him.” They had come from the Mount of Transfiguration: one would have thought that after that metamorphosis and that marvellous interview with Moses and Elias, that nothing of an ordinary or commonplace kind would ever have taken place in the lives of Jesus Christ or the three disciples who accompanied him to the great and solemn height. Yet you cannot escape commonplace: Monday will thrust itself sharply upon the heels of Sunday already on the Sabbath eventide you may hear the throb of the machine getting ready for the week’s work; and, strange as it may appear, this cure of afflicted persons, this long succession of miracles, had become almost a commonplace in the Saviour’s life. We have been so accustomed to his healing, releasing or expelling devils, straightening those who were burdened, and lifting up those who were cast down, that we seem as if out of our element if not reading an account of a miracle or beholding some marvellous token of power. When Jesus came down from the mountain, one would have thought that the whole subject would have been what had been seen on the great height; yet, as he came down the hill, he specially covenanted with his disciples that they should say nothing about it. The vision was not to be told to any man; all four of them were to come back again to their work as if nothing had happened. The heart has a secret history; man lives a double life. There are dreams we cannot tell, visions and flamings in the night-darkness about which we can say nothing that is coherent which we cannot put into public language, for it would not be understood, when called upon to relate such strange experience. So they come back to the multitude to take up the thread where they dropped it.

You cannot approach a multitude without finding afflictions. A solemn and instructive circumstance is that. When did any multitude gather that was not afflicted in some of its members or afflicted as a whole? Wherever we go we carry affliction with us; sometimes it is borne silently; most of us have some secret or unspeakable pain every heart knows the bite of its own hunger. The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy. But for such circumstances Jesus Christ need not have come to the multitude. He never went to the multitude to join its mere feasting or hilarity, to unite his voice in its rude song of momentary delight. Whenever Jesus Christ approached a multitude it was to do the very thing which he did in this instance to heal its lunacy, to soothe its pain, to comfort its unutterable distress. He had no other mission on earth. Take away the sin and the consequent sorrow of mankind and Jesus Christ would have no place in human history. He was born to save, he came to heal. When our sins and our sorrows are removed from our history, then Jesus Christ as an incarnate Son of God will sustain no further relation to it. The end will come, when he will deliver up the kingdom to God and his Father, and God shall be all in all.

The man had a peculiar speech to make to Jesus: his earnestness made him frank. He did not seek to flatter the disciples or to excuse them, but plainly he says, “I brought him to thy disciples and they could not cure him.” A charge which is brought against the church today. May I add that it is a charge which is often but too just? The world is a lunatic at the door of the church today, and the church seems to care next to nothing for the sufferer and to have no power over the deadly affliction. The church has its incantations, its old outworn forms of expression, its decayed machinery, and its effete institutionalism, but the miracle-working power, the divine inspiration, the sovereignty over all hindrances and stumbling-blocks, alas! where have these fled? What is the church worth if it cannot cure the lunacy of the world? The church, like its Master, has nothing to do in the world unless it be to heal and to bless and to save mankind. The church was not instituted to amuse the world, but to save it, not to mock the world by speaking to it a pointless and useless speech, but to redeem the world through Jesus Christ the Lord.

Discipleship is not enough, for it may be merely nominal. Outward ceremonies and institutional relationships are not enough these may be but external and momentary and factitious. Discipleship of the heart alone can do any good. The inflamed and inspired heart cannot speak words of weakness; let that heart utter itself, and in its tone there will be the music of a subtle sympathy, and the world will be the better for its illumining and comforting speech. How is it with our hearts? Our heads are clever enough and clear enough, and may be sufficiently stored with a certain kind of information, but what about the heart, its sympathy, its insight, its moral intuition, its redeeming desires, its unity, almost identity, with the Son of God?

Jesus rebuked the generation around him, and specially accentuated his rebuke when he looked at his disciples, but he himself was not disturbed about the case. It might have excited his anxieties; it would certainly have troubled an impostor. With a singular confirmation of his own truthfulness, he begins by pouring almost contempt, certainly stern rebuke, upon those who had failed in the great encounter. “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?” That was not the introduction which a man would have adopted who had any doubt about the sovereignty and completeness of his own resources. Woe unto us, when our rebukes of others are greater than the redemptive power that is in our own hearts. He is not the saviour of his age who can but curse it. It may be in eloquent denunciation the prophet may pour his maledictions upon his time, but unless he can follow his malediction by beneficent action on his own part, he is but a Balaam, self-inspired, and his curse may possibly return to his own head.

What did Jesus Christ say, after rebuking the faithlessness and perverseness of the generation? He said, “Bring him hither to me.” Mark the noble majesty, the simple ease, the absolute consciousness of adequate power. “Bring him hither to me.” He had been upon the Mount of Transfiguration, but that gave him no access of power; he was the same before he ascended the hill. He had seen Moses and Elias, and conversed with them about the decease that was to be accomplished at Jerusalem, but long before that there was Resurrection in the hem of his garment, and heaven in the utterance of his benediction.

“Bring him hither to me.” The case is a difficult one; “bring him hither to me,” Others have tried and failed; “bring him hither to me.” The church has done its little utmost, and the church stands with hands helplessly hung by its side “bring him hither to me.” So would we have all church difficulties settled. When men complain of the inefficiency of the church, the uselessness of the ministry, the want of power in Christian institutions, we will not close the argument upon grounds so narrow; we add, “You have still to see the Master; you must wait until he comes down from the mountain height. After you have seen him you shall form a complete verdict upon the case, but not until you have had an interview with Christ himself must you consider yourself in a position to adjudge the merits of Christianity, as he alone can represent it.”

Judge everything by Christ’s speech. Condemn the church if you please, and your condemnation may be generally just, but do not let the condemnation of the church include one word of criticism concerning its Head and Lord. You cannot be so disappointed with the church as Christ himself was. It is not in your power to form an indictment against the church so complete, so incisive, so withering as that which Jesus Christ himself framed and launched in language of fire. He is more grieved than we can be over the failures of the church; still he stands there with undiminished light, with undiminished grace, still willing to make up the church’s deficiencies and to set up his personal claim to the sovereignty of all hearts.

There was one spirit which Jesus Christ himself could not cast out. As for this devil, he ordered it out of the young sufferer “Come out of him,” said he, “and enter no more into him,” and the devil, after a last paroxysm, came out. There was, however, a spirit which Jesus Christ himself could not so expel. What was it that defied Omnipotence itself? It was Unbelief, the spirit of unfaith, the spirit that says, “Do not go in that direction or trust that word or risk that adventure; keep within your own strength, make provision for yourself, and do not trust the Divine word. Always keep hold of the world with one hand whilst you try to lay hold of heaven with the other. That is the spirit of unbelief, and Jesus Christ himself could not expel the spirit from the human heart. Hence he said to the suffering parent, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” Even we have to provide something upon which the Son of God can operate. Miracles have to be done by consent when they touch the moral region.

How is it that ye have no faith? What is faith? It is the sixth sense; it is the unnameable and immeasurable power of the human heart; it is that peculiar faculty which sees God and lays hold of him, and magnifies the part into the whole, and rests with absoluteness of trust upon the almightiness and the equity and love of God. You cannot define faith in adequate words. All that is in our power is but thus to hint at it dimly. The soul which has felt its sovereignty, and has been borne on under its benign and elevating influence, can understand in speechlessness the Divine faculty, and can perform the marvellous function.

So, then, Jesus Christ is baffled sometimes. He can walk upon the sea, or raise the dead, or cast out devils, but when he comes against the unbelieving heart, when he encounters the spirit of unfaith, which is the spirit of self-trust, he cannot do any mighty works there. We must, then, begin by repairing, so to say, our faith, if we would have deeper fellowship with heaven, larger and richer manifestations of Divine grace and bestowals of Divine power. The wound is not in our intelligence, it is in our faith; the fatal stab has not been inflicted upon our Genius, but upon our Belief.

Surely this man prayed for us all when he said, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. I bring a little faith all I have; I gather up my heart into one strain of faith, but so much is lacking help thou mine unbelief; make up what is lacking, complete what is deficient, and thus let the miracle begin in me and pass on to my child.” Why should the church be raising false issues and following false scents altogether, by supposing that the wound is in its intelligence, its literature, its genius, its intellectual department? whereas the church probably never was stronger in intellect or richer in literary resources than she is today. It is her faith that requires renewal, replenishment, enlargement. I know not of any nobler, sweeter prayer, punctuated with sobs and tears, than this cry, “Help thou mine unbelief!”

Yet the disciples had this redeeming fact on their side. They were troubled about their own failure; they asked a frank question about their inability to cast out the devil. “Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?” They will do better things some day; men who can thus freely talk about their own failures will not fail in the long run. Given a number of men who fail and never inquire about the failure, that is to say, never search into its reason, and such men will never do anything great or lasting in the world; but, given people in any department or relation of life who diligently and searchingly ask themselves, “Why did we fail how is it that we have not succeeded in this instance?” and, whatever the occasion be which elicits that inquiry, success must of necessity follow such inquests into inability and failure. Men in business should ask themselves once a week or once a month, “How is it that we have not succeeded?” Students and learners of all kinds should ask themselves, “How is it that we have not mastered this difficulty?” Churches looking out from their windows upon the world’s distress and madness should ask themselves, penetratingly and with a sense of humiliation, which is itself the beginning of strength, “How is it that today the world’s lunacy is as grievous as it ever was? Why those multitudes outside? why this blasphemy in the sacred air of the Sabbath? why this contempt of religious institutions? why the laugh of mockery as the multitudes pass the church?”

When we set ourselves to such earnest inquiries, Christ will tell us how it is that we have not succeeded. It will be the beginning of better days for us when from the first line to the last we go in searching critical inquest through our whole ministry and mission in the world, asking how it is that we have not succeeded. Do not cover up the case. Seek not to wrap it up or throw it behind and become indifferent about it, but stand over your failures, acknowledge them, blame yourself for them, and ask the heart and ask the Master this searching question, “Why have we failed?”

Mark now points out that Jesus Christ went through Galilee, and he would not that any man should know it. He was, as it were, skulking through to the end. In his own land he was passing as one who was afraid of being identified; it was as if he had walked out in the night-time, and studied a map of the place, and found out the mountain paths and the untrodden ways that he might get to the end.

Now that the miracle is performed, he returns to the great subject of converse on the mount. “While they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again; and they were exceeding sorry.” Instead of saying, “Ye shall deliver him,” he said, “He shall be delivered into the hands of men,” for it was God that delivered him, not man: Jesus was not murdered, he was offered as a lamb. Murder may be charged upon those who laid bloody hands upon him, but in the larger view this was the Divine doing, and the fulfilment with in the limits of time of the sovereign purpose of eternity. The disciples heard only the first part of the speech ” The Son of man shall be betrayed, and they shall kill him.” We seldom hear any sentence quite through: men are bad listeners, they catch what they imagine to be the leading words, and on those they rest and from those they draw all their inferences, and so absorbed do they become in parts of the introductory speech that they do not hear its final close. Otherwise when Jesus Christ said, “On the third day he shall be raised again,” they would have been as men who beheld a harvest field clothed with golden wheat, waving its head gently and as it were gratefully under the breezes and under the great light of noonday. Instead of seeing the end, they saw only the beginning: they heard the bad news, or what to them was bad news, and they listened no longer. It is possible to listen to the gospel and not to hear it: it is possible to listen to the reading of the Divine word and to miss the one verse that casts light upon the whole story. He that hath ears to hear let him hear.

I include in my exposition today the passage concerning the payment of tribute money, just to show the violent transitions through which this wondrous life passed. Here we have a man performing a miracle which the disciples left unperformed: here we have him forecasting his death and preaching the great fact and doctrine of his resurrection, and then we have him vexed and humiliated by some question of personal taxation. How completely did he fulfil every function of life! with what attention he attended to the details of every day’s engagements: nothing hurried, nothing overdriven, nothing neglected, no fragments lost. Why, when he comes to leave the tomb, we may not have to wonder if we find the linen clothes wrapped and laid away by a patient hand. If we so find the grave-clothes, it will be of a piece with all the attention to details which has been disclosed in this marvellous life.

The Man has received the death-shock: he is straitened until the baptism of blood be accomplished: his soul is in great suffering, and yet he is challenged about the tribute money, and attends to it as if it were his whole business. Nor does he chide Peter too sternly. Peter had committed the Master: being asked aside whether the Master paid tribute money, he rashly answered “Yes.” He often gave foolish replies, and in this instance he committed the Master; but the Master would not commit the servant. He did not contradict him; he took the case up as Peter himself had placed it: though he compelled him to acknowledge that he was historically and argumentatively wrong, yet he would not place him in a dilemma. Things were now getting serious he gave Peter a lesson about the payment of the tribute money when his soul was getting exceeding sorrowful even unto death. So he told Peter what to do, where to find the money, and he laid down as the principle of his conduct, “lest we offend them.” Give no needless offence; do not go out of your way to vex and harass people. If some great moral principle be not involved, then take you the course of conciliation, and be anxious always to do that which is courteous and graceful. If a great moral principle be involved, then go to the cross rather than surrender it; but if there be no such principle involved, then put yourselves to a good deal of trouble not to give unnecessary offence and inflict needless vexation.

The picture suffers nothing from being looked at in its extreme lights. The great miracle, the greater sacrifice, and the little question of tribute money that is human life to day in the Church: praying, crying to heaven, lifting up great psalms to heaven, and tomorrow opening the door, lighting the lamp, cleaning the window, writing the letter, and doing earth’s little business with diligence and faithfulness. The Master did all this, and to all this we are called. If we settle the question of the tribute money, and all other little questions of detail in the spirit of the great Sacrifice, then our little actions will be great, and about our meanest doings there will be something of the sacredness and the dignity of Christ’s sacrifice.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

SEASON OF RETIREMENT PART IV THE CLOSING INCIDENTS

Harmony, pages 94-103 and Mat 17:14-18:35 ; Mat 8:19-22 ; Mar 9:9-50 ; Luk 9:37-62 ; Joh 7:2-10 .

When Christ and the three disciples who were with him at the transfiguration returned from the Mount they saw a great multitude gathered about the nine and the scribes questioning with them. Then follows the story of the failure of the nine to cast out the evil spirit of a demoniac boy and Jesus’ rebuke of their little faith, upon which our Lord healed the boy and restored him to his father. This story is interesting from several points of view. First, the case was an exceptional One and so difficult that the nine were unable to cast the Evil spirit out. Second, this is the only case of demonical epilepsy in the New Testament, the description of which by Mark is very vivid and much more in detail than that of either of the other evangelists. Third, Christ’s momentary impatience at dwelling amid such an environment is nowhere else so expressed, perhaps the more distressing from the contrast with the scene of the transfiguration, a few hours before. Fourth, the rebuke of the boy’s father is a fine lesson. He said, “If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.” Jesus answered, “If thou canst!” We see here the point of the rebuke. Herefore we have found the form of faith that said, “If thou wilt, thou canst,” but this man reversed it: “If thou canst do anything, help us.” But the rebuke of Jesus set him right in his faith and then healed the boy. What a lesson for us! So often the Lord has to set us right in our faith before he can consistently give us the blessing. Fifth, the explanation which Jesus gave of their failure and the possibilities of God through the children of faith are a most helpful encouragement to the Christian of today. All difficulties may be removed by the power of faith. Sixth, the prescription of prayer as a means to the strengthen- ing of faith is a valuable suggestion as to the mans of our overcoming. Prayer is the hour of victory for the child of God. This is the winning point for every worker in the kingdom. All victories for God are won in the closet before the day of battle. Let us heed the lesson.

While on the way from Caesarea Philippi Jesus revealed again to his disciples that he must suffer and die and rise again, but they did not understand and were afraid to ask him. They were very slow to comprehend the idea of a suffering Messiah. This they did not understand fully until after his resurrection. This thought is more fully developed in connection with his submitted test of his messiahship which is discussed elsewhere in this INTERPRETATION OF THE GOSPELS.

When they came to Capernaum an event occurred which made a lasting impression on Peter. This was the incident of the half-shekel for the Temple. When asked if his Lord was accustomed to pay the Temple tax, Peter said, “Yes.” But Peter did not have the money to pay it with, and our Lord, after showing Peter that he (Jesus) was exempt, told him to go to the sea and take the piece of money from the mouth of a fish and pay the Temple tax for Peter and himself, in order that there might be left to the Jews no occasion of stumbling with reference to him as the Messiah.

In section 70 (Mat 18:1-14 ; Mar 9:33-50 ; Luk 9:46-50 ) we have the lesson on how to be great, which arose from their dispute as to who among them should be the greatest. To this Jesus replied that the greatest one of all was to be servant of all, and illustrated it by the example of a little child. The characteristic of the little child to be found in the subjects of his kingdom is humility.. Then he goes on to show that to receive one of such little children was to receive him. Here John, one of the “sons of thunder,” interrupted him with a question about one whom he saw casting out demons, yet he was not following with them. Then Jesus, after setting John right, went on with his illustration of the little child, showing the awful sin of causing a little one who believes on him to stumble, and pronounces a woe unto the world because of the occasion of stumbling, saying that these occasions must come, but the woe is to the man through whom they come. The occasions of stumbling arise from the sin of man and the domination of the devil, but that does not excuse the man through whom they come.

Now follows a pointed address in the second person singular, showing the cases in which we become stumbling blocks, in which he also shows the remedy, indeed a desperate remedy for a desperate case. This passage needs to be treated more particularly. Then, briefly, what the meaning of the word “offend”? If thy hand offend thee, if thine eye offend thee, if thy foot offend thee; what is the meaning of this word? We find it in the English in the word “scandal,” that is, “scandal” is the Anglicized form of the Greek word here used. But the word “scandalize,” as used in the English, does not express the thought contained in this text, since that is a modern derived meaning of the word. Originally it meant the trigger of a trap, that trigger which being touched caused the trap to fall and catch one, and from that of its original signification it came to have four well-known Bible meanings. An instance of each one of the four meanings, fairly applicable to this passage here, will be cited. First, it means a stumbling block, that which causes any one to fall, and in its spiritual signification, that which causes any one to fall into a sin. If thy hand causeth thee to fall into a sin, if thine eye causeth thee to fall into a sin, if thy foot causeth thee to fall into a sin, cut it off, pluck it out. It is more profitable to enter heaven maimed than to have the whole body cast into hell. The thought is as we see it in connection with a stumbling block, that we fall unexpectedly into the sin, as if we were going along not looking down and should suddenly stumble over something in our regular path, where we usually walk. Now, “if thine eye causeth thee, in the regular walk of life, to put something in that pathway that, when you were not particularly watching, will cause you to stumble and fall into a sin” that is the first thought of it.

Its second meaning is an obstacle or obstruction that causes one to stop. He does not fall over this obstacle, but it blocks his way and he stops. He does not fall, but he does not go on. To illustrate this use of the word, John the Baptist, in prison, finding the progress of his faith stopped by a doubt, sent word to Christ to know, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” Evidently showing that some unbelief had crept into his heart that had caused him to stop. He was not going on in the direction that he had been going, and hence, when Jesus sent word to John of the demonstrations of his divinity, He added this expression, using this very word, “Blessed is the man who is not offended in me.” “Blessed is the man who in me does not find an obstacle that stops him.” Anything that is an occasion of unbelief fulfils this meaning of the word. If thine eye causes something to be put in thy path that suggests a doubt as to the Christian religion, and by that doubt causeth thee that had been going steadily forward, to stop, pluck it out. Let me give another illustration: In the parable of the sower, our Saviour, in expounding why it was that the grain that had fallen upon the rock and came up and seemed to promise well for awhile, afterward, under the hot sun, withered away and perished, says, “There are some people that hear the word of God and, for awhile, seem to accept it, but when tribulation or persecution cometh they are offended they are stopped.” That is the meaning of the word strictly. Persecution and tribulation cometh and an obstacle is put in their path that causes them to stop. Now, if thine eye causes an obstacle to be put in thy Christian path, that causeth thee to stop and not go forward, pluck it out. Yet another illustration: Our Saviour, who had announced a great many doctrines that people could easily understand and accept, suddenly, on one occasion, announced a hard doctrine, very hard, and from that time it is said that many of his disciples followed him no more. They stopped. Now, there was something in them, in the eye or the hand or the foot, that found an occasion of unbelief in the doctrine he announced, and they stopped. I remember a very notable instance, where a man, deeply impressed in a meeting, and giving fair promise of having passed from death to life, happened to be present when the scriptural law of the use of money was expounded, and he stopped. Some obstacle stretched clear across his path. It was the love of money in his heart. He couldn’t recognize God’s sovereignty over money. As if he had said, “If you want me to cry; if you want me to say I am sorry, I will say it; if you want me to join the church, I will join it; if you want me to be baptized, I will be baptized; but if you want me to honor God with my money, I stop.”

Now, the third use of the word. It is sometimes used to indicate, not something over which one stumbles and falls into a sin, and not an obstacle that blocks up his pathway, but in the sense of something that he runs up against and hurts himself and so becomes foolishly angry. As when one, at night, trying to pass out of a dark room, strikes his head against the door, and in a moment flies into a passion. “Now, if thine eye causeth thee to run up against an object that when you strike it offends you, makes you mad, pluck it out and cast it from thee.”

These three senses of this word have abundant verifications in the classical Greek and a vast number of instances in the Bible, in the Old and New Testaments. But there is a fourth use of the word. That is where the eye has caused a man to turn aside from the right path and to reject the wise counsel of God, and to indulge in sin until God has given him up; then God sets a trap for him right in the path of his besetting sin. In Rom 11:9 we find that use of the word: “Let their table be made a trap for them.” That is to say, God, after trying to lead a man to do right, if he persists in doing wrong, the particular sin, whatever hat may be, whether it be of pride, or lust, or pleasure, whatever it may be, that particular, besetting sin which has caused him to reject God, will make the occasion of his ruin, and in the track of it God will set the trap, and the man is certain to fall into it and be lost. Now, these are the four Bible uses of this term “offend.” Greek: Scandalon , the noun, and skandalizo, the verb. “If thine eye causeth thee to offend,” that is, “If your eye causeth you to put something in your path over which you will unexpectedly fall into a sin; if thine eye causeth thee to put an obstacle clear across your path, so that you stop; if thine eye causeth thee to put some object against which you will unthoughtedly run and hurt yourself and become incensed; if thine eye causeth thee to go into a sin that shall completely alienate you from God, and in the far distant track of which God sets a trap that will be sure to catch your soul pluck it out.”

The next thing needing explanation: People who look only at the shell of a thing may understand this passage to mean mutilation of the body. They forget that the mutilation of the body is simply an illustration of spiritual things. Take a case: One of the most beautiful and sweet-spirited girls I ever knew, before whom there seemed to stretch a long and bright and happy future, was taken sick, and the illness, whatever the doctors may call it, was in the foot, and the blood would not circulate. The doctors could not bring about the circulation and that foot finally threatened the whole body. Then the doctors said, “This foot must be amputated.” And they did amputate it. They amputated it to save her life. They cut off that member because it offered the only possible means of saving the other foot and both hands and the whole body and her life. It was sternness of love, resoluteness of affection, courage of wisdom that sacrificed a limb to save the body. Now using that necessity of amputation, as an illustration, our Saviour says, “If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; if thy foot offend thee, cut it off. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” But that he does not mean bodily mutilation is self-evident from this: that if we were to cut off our hand we could not stop the spiritual offense; if we were to pluck out the eye we could not stop the spiritual offense on the inside, in the soul; no lopping off to external branches would reach that. But what our Saviour means to teach is this: That as a wise physician, who discovers, seated in one member of the body, a disease that if allowed to spread will destroy the whole body, in the interest of mercy cuts off that diseased limb, so, applying this to spiritual things, whatever causes us to fall into sin, we should cut loose from it at every cost.

One other word needs to be explained, the word “Gehenna.” It is a little valley next to Jerusalem that once belonged to the sons of Hinnom. It came to pass that in that valley was instituted an idol worship, and there the kings caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch, and because of this iniquity a good king of Israel defiled that valley, made it the dumping ground of all refuse matter from the city. The excrement, the dead things, the foul and corrupt matter was all carried out and put in that valley. And because of the corruption heaped there, worms were always there, and because of the burning that had been appointed as a sanitary measure, the fire was always there. Now that was used as an illustration to indicate the spiritual condition of a lost soul; of a soul that had become as refuse matter; of a soul that had become entirely cut loose from God and given up to its own devices; that had become bad through and through; that had become such a slave to passion, or lust or crime, that it was incorrigible, and the very nature of the sin which possessed it was like a worm that never dies. There was a gnawing, a ceaseless gnawing going on, referring to conscience, and there was a burning and a thirst going on. Now those images our Saviour selected were to represent the thought of hell.

Having explained its words, look now at the passage itself: “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” What is the principle involved in that exhortation? First, that it is a man’s chief concern to see that he does not miss the mark; that he does not make shipwreck; that he does not ruin himself. That is the chief concern of every boy, of every girl, of every man and woman, to see to it that he does not miss the mark of his being; that he does not make shipwreck; that he does not go to utter ruin.

The next thought involved in it is that in case we do miss the mark; in case we do make shipwreck; in case our soul is lost, then there is no profit and no compensation to us in any thing we ever had. “For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” If he misses the main thing, if he makes shipwreck of his own soul, then wherein does the compensation come to him that in his life he had this or that treasure, this pleasure or that; that he was able to attain to this ambition or that; that he for such a while, no matter how long, was on top in society or fashion in the world? What has it profited him if the main thing worthy of supreme concern, is lost?

The next thought is this: Whatever sacrifice is necessary to the securing of the main thing, that we must make. That is what this passage means, and no matter how dear a treasure may be to us; no matter how much we esteem it, if it be necessary that we should give it up or that our soul should be lost, this passage calls on us to give it up. A man may have in a ship a vast amount of money which he idolizes, but in the night he is alarmed by the cry of fire; he rushes upon the deck and he finds that the ship is hopelessly in flames and that the only way of escape is to swim to the shore. Now he stands there for a moment and meditates: “I have here a vast amount of money, in gold. If I try to take this gold with me in this issue in which the main thing, my life, is involved, it will sink me. My life is more than this money. O glittering gold, I leave you. I strike out, stripped of every weight and swim for my life.” It means that he ought to leave behind everything that would jeopardize his gaining the shore. A ship has a valuable cargo. It has been acquired by toil and anxiety and industry. It may be that the cargo in itself is perfectly innocent, but in a stress of weather, with a storm raging and with a leak in the vessel and the water rising, it becomes necessary to lighten that ship. Now whatever is necessary to make it float, to keep it above water, that must be done. If there be anything which, if permitted to remain in that ship, will sink it, throw it out. They that do business in great waters know the wisdom of this. Why? It is a question of sacrificing the inferior to the greater and better.

The next thought involved is this: Whenever it says, “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,” I venture to say that it is a demonstration, by the exhortation addressed to us personally, that if ruin comes to us it comes by our own consent. I mean to say that no matter what is the stress of outside seduction, nor how cunningly the devil may attempt to seduce and beguile us, all the devils in hell and all the extraneous temptations that may environ a man can never work his shipwreck if he does not consent.

The next point involved is, that whenever one does consent to temptation, whenever the ruin comes to him, it comes on account of some internal moral delinquency. Out of the heart are the issues of life. Out of the heart proceed murder, lust, blasphemy, and every crime which men commit. I mean to say that as the Bible declares that no murderer shall inherit eternal life, that external incentives to murder amount to nothing unless in him, in the man, in the soul, there be a susceptibility or a liability or moral weakness that shall open the door to the tempter and let in the destroyer.

Now if that be true we come naturally to the next thought in this text, that is, God saves a man, and if God can save a man, he must save him in accordance with the laws of his own nature. That is to say, that God must, in order to the salvation of that man, require truth in the inward part; that nothing external will touch the case; that God’s requirements must take hold, not of the long delayed overt act, but of the lust in the heart which preceded the act and made the act. And therefore, while a human court can take jurisdiction only of murder actually committed, God goes inside of the man and says, “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” From hate comes murder. If God saves you he must save you from the internal hate. Human law takes hold of a case of adultery. God’s law goes to the eye: “Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” God requireth truth in the inward part. And if one is saved he must be saved internally; he must be saved, not only from the guilt and penalty of sin, but he must be saved from the love of it and from the dominion of it.

The next point: With that law looking inside, looking at our thoughts, looking at the springs of action, the question comes up, “How shall one save his soul? How shall one so attain to the end of his being as that in the main thing he shall not miss the mark?” He has to look at it as an exceedingly sober question. There is no child’s play about it. He must not rely upon the quack remedies of philosophers and impostors, or rely upon any external rite, upon joining the church or being baptized, or partaking of the Lord’s Supper. The awful blasphemy of calling that the way to heaven! God requireth truth in the inward part, and if we are saved, we must be saved inside. As a wise man, having my chief business to save my soul, I must scrupulously look at everything with which I come in contact. Some men’s weaknesses are in one direction and some in another, but the chief thing for me is to find out my weakness, what is my besetting sin, where is the weak point in my line of defense, where am I most susceptible to danger, where do I yield most readily? And if I find that the ties of blood are making me lose my soul, I must move out of my own family, and therefore in the Mosaic law it is expressly said, “If thine own son, if the wife of thy bosom, shall cause thee to worship idols and turn away from the true God, thou shalt put thine own hand on the head as the first witness, that they may be stoned. Thou shalt not spare.” It is a question of our life, and if our family ties are such that they are dragging us down to death, we must strike out for our life. And that is why marriage is the most solemn and far-reaching question that ever came up for human decision. More souls are lost right there, more women go into hopeless bondage, more men are shipwrecked by that awful tie, than by anything else.

Then he goes on to show that these little believers must not be despised, because their angels are always before their heavenly Father, just as the angels of more highly honored Christians. This thought he illustrates with the parable of the ninety and nine, the interpretation of which might be considered as follows: (1) If there are many worlds and but one is lost, (2) if there are many creatures and only man is lost, (3) if there were many just persons, and only one is lost, then we find the lost world, the lost race, the one lost man is near the heart of the Saviour, the principle being that the weakest, the most needy, the most miserable are nearest the Shepherd’s heart. “Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish,” is the conclusion of the Saviour.

In section 71 (Mat 18:15-35 ) we have our Lord’s great discussion on forgiveness, i.e., man’s forgiveness of man. This subject is amply treated in volume 1, chapter xvi of this INTERPRETATION and also in my sermon on “Man’s Forgiveness of Man.” (I refer the reader to these discussions for a full exposition of this great passage.)

In section 72 (Mat 8:19-22 ; Luk 9:57-62 ) we have a very plain word on the sacrifices of discipleship. Here three different ones approached Christ asking permission to be his disciples. The first one that came proposed to go with him anywhere. Jesus told him that he had no abiding place; that he was a wanderer without any home, which meant there were many hardships in connection with discipleship. The second one that came to him wanted to wait till he could bury his father, which according to Oriental customs, might have been several years, or at least, thirty days, if his father was dead when he made the request, including the time of mourning. Luke tells of one who wanted first to bid farewell to them of his own house. But Jesus said, “No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” The import of all this is that Christ will not permit his disciples to allow anything to come between them and him. He must have the first place in their affections. The expression, “No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God,” means that the man who is pretending to follow Christ and is looking back to the things he left behind is not fit for his kingdom. This is a strict test, but it is our Lord’s own test.

Then, following the Harmony, we have, in the next section, the counsel of the unbelieving brothers that Jesus go into Judea and exhibit himself there. But he declined to follow their counsel and remained in Galilee. This incident shows that the brothers of Jesus had not at this time accepted him, which was about six months before his death and thus disproves the theory that the brothers of Jesus were apostles.

We now come to the close of this division of the Harmony in section 74 (Luk 9:51-56 ; Joh 7:10 ), which tells of Jesus setting his face toward Jerusalem in view of the approach of the end of his earthly career. This going up to Jerusalem, John says, was after his brothers had gone, and it was not public, but as it were in secret. He sent James and John, the “sons of thunder,” ahead to Samaria to make ready for him, but the Samaritans rejected him because he was going toward Jerusalem, which exemplifies the old, deep-seated hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. This section closes with a rebuke to James and John for wanting to call down fire upon these Samaritans. The next chapter of this INTERPRETATION connects with this section and gives the results of this trip to Jerusalem and his ministry in all parts of the Holy Land.

QUESTIONS

1. What was the incident immediately following the transfiguration?

2. What are the points of interest in the story of the epileptic boy?

3. What revelation did Jesus again make to his disciples while on the way from Caesarea Philippi, how did the disciples receive it and why?

4. Tell the story of Peter and the Temple tax and give its lesson.

5. What was the lesson on “greatness” here and what its occasion?

6. What was the point in the illustration of the little child?

7. What is the lesson from John’s interruption of our Lord here?

8. How does Jesus show the awfulness of the sin of causing a little child who believes on him to stumble?

9. From what do the occasions of stumbling arise and upon whom rests the responsibility for them?

10. What would you give as the theme of Mat 18:8-9 ; and Mar 9:43 ; Mar 9:45 ; Mar 9:47-50 ?

11. What are the several meanings of the word “offend” in these passages? Illustrate each.

12. What is the application of all these meanings? Illustrate.

13. Explain the word “Gehenna” as used here.

14. Looking at the passage as a whole, what is principle involved the exhortation? Give details.

15. What reason does Christ assign for the command not to despise one of these little ones and what does it mean?

16. How does he illustrate this

17. In a word what is the author’s position on the subject of man’s forgiveness of man?

18. What is Christ’s teaching here on discipleship and what is the meaning of his language addressed to each of the three, respectively, who approached him here on the subject?

19. What advice here given Jesus by his brothers, how did Jesus regard it, and what the lesson of this incident?

20. What are the closing incidents of this division of our Lord’s ministry and what are their lessons?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

14 And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,

Ver. 14. And when they were come to the multitude ] That was the next day after the transfiguration,Luk 9:37Luk 9:37 , and in that nick of time, when the disciples could neither cure the lunatic nor answer their adversaries, Mar 9:14 , who had now sport enough to see them brought into the briers, and therefore jeered them before the people to some purpose. Most opportunely therefore, if ever, comes Christ to their aid, as it were out of an engine, and both cures the child and confounds the Pharisees. His recent honour hindered him not from doing his office: his incomparable felicity made him not forget poor Joseph’s misery. He knew he was much wished and waited for, and therefore makes haste from the mount to the multitude.

Kneeling down to him ] Some understand the word of such a humble gesture of catching the party petitioned by the knees or feet, as the Shunammite used to the prophet, the Shulamite to her spouse, and Thetis to Jupiter, when she sued to him in her sons’ behalf. a

a , Iliad. a.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

14 21. ] HEALING OF A POSSESSED LUNATIC. Mar 9:14-29 . Luk 9:37-42 . By much the fullest account of this miracle is contained in Mark, where see notes. It was the next day: see Luk 9:37 , and note on our ver.1. Our Lord found the Scribes and the disciples disputing (Mark).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 17:14-21 . The epileptic boy (Mar 9:14-29 ; Luk 9:37-43 ).

Very brief report compared with Mk.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mat 17:14 . : the of T. R. might easily be omitted as understood from the connection. , literally, falling upon the knees, in which sense it would naturally take the dative (T. R., ); here used actively with accusative = to beknee him (Schanz, Weiss).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 17:14-18

14When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him and saying, 15″Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. 16I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him.” 17And Jesus answered and said, “You unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.” 18And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.

Mat 17:15 “Lord, have mercy on my son” The title “Lord” (kurios) can simply mean “sir” or “mister” (lit. kurie), yet in some contexts it taken on theological connotations. This is probably one of them.

The man’s request is an implied question. Will Jesus have mercy (aorist active imperative) as the man requested? This is the question which the OT had predicted, the Messiah would have mercy (cf. Isa 35:2-6; Isa 61:1-2). Jesus’ power and compassion (cf. Mat 9:27; Mat 15:22; Mar 10:47-48; Luk 17:13) were the ” signs” that the Jewish leadership sought!

NASB, NJB”he is a lunatic”

NKJV, NRSV,

TEV”he is an epileptic”

NJB”he is demented”

A much more detailed account of this ailment is found in Mar 9:18-20. The term “epilepsy” was literally the term “moon struck” or “lunatic.” This particular illness was caused by a demon (cf. Mat 17:18). There is a major attempt in the New Testament to differentiate between demon possession, which often causes physical ailments, and physical disease itself (cf. Mat 4:24). This was an account of an exorcism, not a healing.

Mat 17:16 “I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him” This was highly unusual, for Mat 10:1; Mat 10:8 tells us they had this delegated power. The exact reason for their failure in this instance was specified as their lack of faith and prayer. A much more detailed account of the dialogue between the father and Jesus is recorded in Mar 9:21-24.

Mat 17:17 “and Jesus answered and said, ‘You unbelieving and perverse generation'” This was an allusion to Deu 32:5; Deu 32:20. In Jesus’ temptation experience (i.e., Matthew; Luke 4), He quoted Deuteronomy three times. He must have known and loved this book.

The textual question is to whom Jesus is speaking.

1. the disciples (cf. Mat 17:19-20)

2. the man/the crowd/that generation

3. the Jewish leaders

4. fallen humanity in general

It is interesting that “generation” often has a negative connotation (cf. Exo 1:6; Deu 1:35; Deu 32:5; Psa 12:7). Notice how these unbelievers are characterized.

1. evil and adulterous, Mat 12:39

2. faithless and perverse, Mat 17:17

3. adulterous and sinful, Mar 8:38

4. unbelieving or faithless, Mar 9:19

5. wicked, Luk 11:29

6. crooked, Act 2:40

7. crooked and perverse, Php 2:15

Mat 17:18 “the boy was cured at once” For a much more graphic account, see Mar 9:26. It must be remembered that each of the Gospel writers recorded these accounts in his own way for his own unique purposes and audiences. Therefore, it is important to try to understand each of them individually before consulting the others and combining the information (cf. Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart in How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth, pp. 113-134).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

came = came down, &c. Compare Mar 9:14. Luk 9:37.

a certain man = a man. Greek. anthropos. App-123.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

14-21.] HEALING OF A POSSESSED LUNATIC. Mar 9:14-29. Luk 9:37-42. By much the fullest account of this miracle is contained in Mark, where see notes. It was the next day: see Luk 9:37, and note on our ver.1. Our Lord found the Scribes and the disciples disputing (Mark).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 17:14. , …, and when they were come, etc.) A very different scene is here opened to view from that which Peter had wished for in Mat 17:4.-Whilst Moses was on the mountain, the people transgressed; see Exo 32:1; whilst Jesus was on the mountain, matters did not proceed very well with the people.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Mat 17:14-27

22. THE EPILEPTIC CURED, POWER

OF FAITH, AND TEMPLE TAX

Mat 17:14-27

14-18 And when they were come to the multitude.-A parallel record of this is found in Mar 9:14-29 and Luk 9:37-43. Jesus and his three disciples had remained part of a day and night on the top of the mountain, and came down the next day to the place where they had left the other disciples. They found that a multitude had gathered around them with signs of great excitement. The scribes, taking advantage of the absence of Jesus and the three chief disciples, were present and were questioning the nine disciples. They had tried to cast out a demon, but were unable to do so. The exulting scribes, the embarrassed and confused disciples, the amazed people, and the despairing father and afflicted son presented a very pathetic scene. When Jesus came into their midst, all eyes turned to him. The miracle that he is about to work becomes a test of his power. “There came to him a man, kneeling to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son.” While the disciples of Jesus were under a fire of questions and taunting by the scribes, this man came to Jesus and saluted him with joyful reverence. Jesus demanded of the scribes why they were thus questioning his disciples, and at that moment the father of the afflicted son came beseeching earnestly that Jesus heal his son. Luke says that this man “cried” in his earnest entreaty for his son as he was an “only child.” The scribes rejoiced at the failure of the disciples in healing this son. The son was an “epileptic”; that is, he was possessed with a demon which caused him to suffer “grievously” and caused him to fall “into the fire, and ofttimes into the water.” The original denotes a “lunatic” or “moonstruck,” or ruled by the moon. They thought that such diseases were caused by the influence of the moon. The unfortunate son at times was seized by nervous contractions and spasms which agitated the whole body, deranged the mind, and made him a horror to himself and friends. It seems that the possession of the evil spirit seized him when he was near water or fire, and caused the sudden fits which endangered his life. It is sad to contemplate the weary hours, days, years of that poor father and his only son. We can better understand from this description the depth of his despair and touching appeal when he cried to Jesus, “Have mercy on my son.” The man reported that he had brought his son to Jesus’ disciples, but they were unable to cure him. Mark tells us that the evil spirit gave a demonstration of its rage as the boy was brought to Jesus and tore him grievously, “and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.” (Mar 9:20.) Jesus permitted this to continue for a few moments while he asked the father how long the son had been afflicted in this way; the father answered ever since he was a child. The father then asked, “If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.” (Mar 9:22.) Jesus replied to this request, “If thou canst!” The father may have thought that it was impossible for Jesus to cure his son. Jesus then replied, “All things are possible to him that believeth.” The power of Jesus had been questioned, hence this miracle becomes a test of his power. Jesus put the curing of his son on the basis of faith. Jesus virtually said, “It is not if I can do anything, for I can do all things for you; but it is if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” The father understood and virtually said with a broken heart “with tears,” “Does the cure of my son depend on me?” Jesus had said that it did; he had transferred the condition of healing the unfortunate son to that of the faith of the father and son. When the father understood this he said, “I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mar 9:24.) He prayed Jesus to forgive his weakness and to strengthen his faith. Jesus rebuked the demon and he went out of him, “and the boy was cured from that hour.” The demon did not leave the son without a desperate struggle in which the son was torn and “became as one dead; insomuch that the more part said, He is dead.” (Mar 9:26.) After a great number had pronounced the son dead, Jesus took him by the hand and raised him up, and delivered him to his father in perfect health. How the scribes and critics of Jesus must have felt when they saw what was done! Perhaps even the disciples of Jesus were astonished at the miracle.

19, 20 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart.-The nine disciples who had failed to cast out the demon were ashamed to ask this question before the multitude, but when Jesus had left the multitude and they were alone with him, they asked, “Why could not we cast it out?” They supposed that having been once invested with power over demons, it was not to be limited; they did not understand why this power was limited. The reason was to be found in their lack of spiritual faith and in their desire for human honor. They are to learn the lesson that the power which comes through faith in Jesus and which was transistory during the days of miracles must be maintained through a sustaining and everincreasing faith in Jesus; the faith which gave power to cast out a demon is needed to cure a deeperseated disease than even this foul spirit with his train of physical infirmities;all need a faith which purifies the soul.

And he saith unto them, Because of your little faith.-During the absence of Jesus, his disciples had attempted for their own personal honor and glory to exercise power over demons, but it failed for lack of faith. The powers and blessings of God are not to be used for selfish gain or honor; when so used, they put us to shame and become a curse to us. Jesus, after rebuking their “little faith,” or lack of faith, said, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place.” He further states that by such faith the mountain could be removed and that “nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Faith as a grain of mustard seed” means “if ye had the least faith”; it seems that these disciples had some faith, but they had not the degree which they should have had. They believed in Jesus as a powerful prophet, as a king, as one who can do mighty works; but it is doubtful whether they had any idea of the true faith in him as a Savior of sinners, and as sent to save men from sin by the atonement on the cross. Their faith seemed to see no further in his mission than that he would set up an earthly kingdom, and would have power to sustain that kingdom when once established. One grain of the faith shown in Peter’s discourse on the day of Pentecost was greater than the faith which these disciples had in Jesus at this time. If God commanded the mountain to be removed, and promised its removal, faith would act on such a promise; but to move a mountain is a useless miracle; faith in removing spiritual mountains in the world may be exercised today.

Verse twenty-one is omitted here. Mark includes it; it is, “And he said unto them, This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer.” (Mar 9:29.) Some ancient authorities add “and fasting.” It is difficult to determine whether Jesus here refers to any peculiar demoniac possession to be cast out only by a certain high degree of faith, or seeks only to convey a sense of the peculiar work of the ministry, as his instruments for destroying the power of the devil in the heart. It is more obvious that he meant that this special kind of evil spirits which infested this son required special faith or special effort to give effect to their faith.

[The kind of faith or power was the gift of God for the special purpose of performing miracles that is not now possessed. But if Christians will cultivate firm and unflinching faith in God and his word, they can do almost anything through Christ except to perform miraculous power. These gifts to perform miracles were given to the church to teach, instruct, and guide the disciples until the work of revelation was completed or perfected. The perfect knowledge was delivered to the church when revelation was completed. All Christians from that day to this who will follow the word of God faithfully will come to the fullness of the stature of perfect men and women in Christ.]

22, 23 And while they abode in Galilee.-The miracle and conversation of verses fourteen to twenty took place not far from the mount of transfiguration, which was in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi. Parallel records of this incident are found in Mar 9:30-33 and Luk 9:34-35. According to Mar 9:30, Jesus and his disciples crossed over the Sea of Galilee into Galilee, where the present scene transpired. It is interesting to note how the instruction concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus grows clearer each time that Jesus mentions it. There is a gradual unfolding to his disciples his teachings on the great tragic end of his earthly life. At this time Jesus plainly declared that “the Son of man shall be delivered up into the hands of men.” This means that someone will deliver him into the hands of his enemies; his disciples knew that the Jews were seeking to destroy him; hence, Jesus tells them that the time is drawing near when his enemies will have him in their possession. He makes plain to them just what they will do to him. He said, “They shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised up.” These things which are now familiar to us, and which all see to have connection with the spirit of the prophecy, were, as yet, hidden from the disciples. Luke is very emphatic on this point; he says, “But they understood not this saying, and it was concealed from them, that they should not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.” (Luk 9:45.) It is well to keep this in mind in order to understand the events which follow. His disciples had not as yet that light of God’s spirit which should guide them into all truth; they did not have this until Pentecost hence they were slow to comprehend the meaning of the doctrine of the cross. While Jesus was with them he was their guide, and saw for them, and defended them from harm; but now he begins to warn them of the facts of his death in order to prepare them for it. We may wonder that they should be so slow to understand, but our wonder should give way to humiliation at the view it opens to us of the blindness of our common humanity.(1Co 2:14.) His disciples understood enough, however, to be “exceeding sorry.” Luke says that Jesus told them to “let these words sink into your ears.” (Luk 9:44.) If they were not to understand them, they were to remember them, and so Luke adds, “but they understood not this saying.”

24-27 And when they were come to Capernaum.–From the time that Herod Antipas killed John the Baptist, Capernaum ceased to be the ordinary residence of Jesus; only twice is it recorded that he visited it again. These visits were on his way to the third Passover (Joh 6:25) and now as he goes on his way to the Feast of Pentecost. Those who gathered the taxes came to Peter and asked, “Doth not your teacher pay the half-shekel?” These were Jews and not Roman taxgatherers, for they would not have proposed the payment as a matter of question. This “half-shekel” was the tribute money which every Jew, rich or poor, over twenty years of age, was obliged to pay yearly. It was used for purchasing the animals and other matters necessary for the daily service of the temple; it was enjoined by Jehovah through Moses (Exo 30:11-16) and amounted (Exo 38:26) to half a shekel. It is translated from the Greek “didrachma,” and equalled about thirty cents of our money. The payment of it was a mark of subjection to Jehovah, as their King, and a symbol of the equal right and responsibility which all his subjects had in his temple. One could volunteer and pay it, but there was no power granted any one to compel its payment. When Peter was asked whether Jesus paid this tribute he answered, “Yea.”

When Peter came into the house, Jesus asked him, “What thinkest thou, Simon? the kings of the earth, from whom do they receive toll or tribute? from their sons, or from strangers?” There are three questions propounded to Peter here; it may be that Peter was in doubt, and Jesus removed the doubt by asking these questions. Peter had just heard God declare Jesus to be his Son on the mount of transfiguration. He had declared to the taxgatherers that Jesus paid the half shekel. Instead of coming directly to Jesus the collectors went to Peter, and now Jesus has the occasion to teach his disciples a very needed lesson. It was taught by the “Socratic method,” that is, by questions. Peter is asked if the kings of the earth collect taxes “from their sons, or from strangers”? Peter promptly answered “from strangers.” “Strangers” does not mean “foreigners,” but persons out of their own family and kindred; that is, from the subjects of the kingdom. Jesus promptly answered “therefore the sons are free”; that is, the sons of the king did not have to pay the tax. His point is that the custom of earthly kings is to collect taxes from their own subjects, and not from their immediate family; that the sons of the king are exempt from paying the taxes that other subjects must pay. And now since God is the king and Jesus is his Son, then he is under no obligations to pay the tax he is exempt. This is another way of declaring himself to be the Son of God.

But lest we cause them to stumble, go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up.-He then instructed Peter to open the mouth of the fish and that he would “find a shekel,” and that he should take the shekel and pay the tax for himself and Jesus, as the tax was a half shekel; the shekel would be sufficient to pay for the two. He did not care to offend any one; others would not understand his refusing to pay the tax; Peter would understand his argument and perhaps others of his disciples, but the tax collectors would not. The sonship of Christ was not enough known by the Jews for them to understand the real reason for his refusing to pay it. There is a liberty with which Christ makes us free, but we should use it in imitation of his own example. Peter was by occupation a fisherman; he knew how to use the articles for fishing, and they were probably in the house where Jesus was at this time. The coin that is translated shekel is the Greek “stater” and is equal in value to about sixty cents of our money. It is the duty of Christians to conduct themselves in all matters wherein they may be supposed to have superior knowledge and privilege so as not to offend anyone.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Chapter 45

Only by Prayer and Fasting

And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

(Mat 17:14-21)

In this passage of Scripture we have the healing of the lunatic by the word of our Lord. It was a miracle that the disciples were not able to perform because of their unbelief. While the Lord Jesus was in the mount of transfiguration, a certain man brought his epileptic son to the disciples. But the disciples were unable to help him.

Marks more detailed account of this event (Mark 9) shows us that this all took place in the midst of large crowd of jeering adversaries. The disciples tried in vain to cast out the evil spirit and cure the child of his seizures. You can imagine the fathers disappointment. When the Lord Jesus appeared, he immediately appealed to him, saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

This is one of those miracles that is recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is reported to us three times because the Holy Spirit intends for us to recognize the importance of and learn the spiritual lessons taught by it. So, without introduction, let me show you what these lessons are.

A Good Father

Blessed are those children who have such a good father. The best parents are those who seek the mercy of God for their children. This young mans father recognized the great need of his son. He recognized that his sons needs were primarily spiritual, not physical. He realized that his boy was possessed of a devil (Mark 9; Luke 9). Blessed is that son, blessed is that daughter whose parents earnestly seek the salvation of their souls.

This man recognized his sons great need was the mercy of God found in Christ (Mat 17:15). He brought his needy son to the Lords disciples, hoping for his cure (Mat 17:16). These were the men he knew had been used of God for the healing of many. Therefore, he brought his son to them. Blessed are those children who have parents who bring them to the house of God, whose parents see to it that they hear the preaching of the gospel. That is the means by which God gives life and faith to chosen sinners, the means by which he communicates mercy to the needy (Rom 10:17; 1Pe 1:23-25).

But it took more than the work of the disciples to cast out the evil spirit and cure the child; and it takes more than the voice of a preacher to save a sinner. The Word preached must be accompanied by the power of God, or it will accomplish nothing. Let us, like this man, take our children and their needs directly to the Savior, making intercession, earnest intercession, on their behalf (Mat 17:14-15).

Here is something that must not be overlooked, when this man brought his child to the Savior, he obtained the mercy he craved for his son (Mat 17:18). I would not make more of this fact than is warranted by the Scriptures; but it is a fact that ought to encourage every believing mother and father to bring their children, in the arms of faith, to the Son of God by prayer. I do not find a single example of anyone bringing a needy soul to Christ during his earthly ministry who did not obtain the mercy craved for the one brought to the Savior.

Satans Influence

We have before us a pitiful example of the destructive influence of Satan upon those who are under his influence. This young man was possessed of a devil. During the days of our Lords earthly ministry, demon possession was a very common thing. One reason it was allowed was to give clear evidence of Christs power over hell. Another reason why God allowed that horrible evil was to teach us that Satans influence is always destructive (Mat 17:15).

Like a roaring lion, he seeks to devour the souls of men (1Pe 5:8). The old serpent appears to seek the destruction of young souls especially. Thousands upon thousands of young men and women seem to be wholly given over to Satans influence, and are taken captive at his will to the destruction of their souls (2Ti 2:26).

Ignorant, indulgent parents often look upon the reckless rebellion of their children as a passing phase. They excuse a childs disregard for authority, moral perversity, and pleasure seeking behavior as sowing their wild oats of youth. How foolish! How irresponsible!

Do not overlook the fact that this young man was raised by a man who believed and worshipped and loved the Lord Jesus Christ. Many look upon parents whose children are rebels as though the parents themselves must be bad parents. Such thoughts arise from hearts full of pride and self-righteousness. David was a man after Gods own heart. Yet, his sons and daughters were all, except Solomon, reprobate rebels.

Though this mans son had been under Satans dominion for a long time, though it appeared that he would ultimately be destroyed (or destroy himself) by Satans devices, he obtained mercy. What a blessed, sweet, revelation that fact is! Satan was given permission to torment this young man to make way for the greater manifestation of Christs glory in healing him. As God gave Satan permission to afflict Job, that he might show his goodness and grace more gloriously, he often allows the fiend of hell to cast his chosen into the fires of their own lusts for a season, that he may snatch them as brands from the fire by his omnipotent mercy.

We must never despair of those who seem most in need of mercy. When the Son of God spoke to this young man, he was immediately cured, immediately healed, immediately saved from the grasp of Satan. When we read of our Lords miracles like this one, we should be encouraged to believe that he may yet repeat his wonderful work in the lives of others today.

Faithless and Perverse

In Mat 17:17 we read, Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. These words are often misunderstood. Our Lord Jesus was not here speaking to his disciples, but to the jeering multitude, and specifically to the scribes and Pharisees who had mocked his disciples for their failure. Those words, O faithless and perverse generation, he never used n speaking to or about his disciples. Though, like his disciples today, their faith was often weak, they were not faithless. Neither were they a perverse, rebellious, and stubborn generation; though, like us, there was much perversity in them. The Pharisees, on the other hand, though they were highly respected religious leaders, were just that, a faithless and perverse generation, just as their fathers had been (Deu 32:5). The Lord Jesus demanded that the child be brought to him publicly, before those faithless and perverse people, that he might publicly shame them.

Faith and Unbelief

Yet, when the disciples asked why they could not cast out the evil spirit, our Savior said plainly, Because of your unbelief (Mat 17:19-20). Sadly, there is much unbelief in the most faithful believers. These disciples were believers. Yet, they could not perform the work before them because of their unbelief. The weakness of their faith is often set before us, and in many ways, in the Scriptures. It is set before us for the encouragement of Gods people in every age (Rom 15:4).

It is faith in Christ, not great faith, just faith in Christ that is the evidence and assurance of a God-wrought salvation in our souls (Heb 11:2; 1Jn 5:1). The weakest faith in Christ is as truly the evidence of grace as the strongest. A drop of dew is as truly water as all the rivers of the world. It is of the same nature and quality, though not the same in quantity. So it is with God-given faith. That faith, which is the gift and operation of God the Holy Spirit, is the evidence and proof of our union with Christ, of our election, redemption, and regeneration by his grace (Act 13:39; Act 13:48).

Yet, we must not fail to see that nothing so greatly hinders our usefulness as our unbelief. These disciples truly trusted Christ as their Savior and Lord. Yet, their unbelief made it impossible for them to perform the miracle they had been commissioned to perform (Mat 10:8). I am fully aware of Gods sovereignty, divine predestination, and eternal election. I know that the purpose of God stands forever, and that it is altogether immutable. But we must never blame God for our failures. The word of God lays the blame upon our unbelief, and nowhere else. Peter sank because of unbelief (Mat 14:31). Israels failure to obtain the blessedness that might have been theirs was because of their unbelief (Isa 48:18; Mat 13:58; Mar 6:5-6). The disciples failed to grasp the good news of Christs resurrection because they believed not (Mar 16:11-14). I often wonder what blessings I have missed, what works I have been unable to perform, and what wonders I have failed to see because of my unbelief (Joh 11:40).

Let us not pass over this matter lightly. Faith is the key to success in our warfare. Unbelief is the path to heartache, trouble, and defeat. As faith languishes, usefulness languishes. The same Israelites, who went through the Red Sea in triumph, became cowards on the borders of Canaan, and could not enter the land because of unbelief (Heb 3:19).

Faiths Power

Our Savior says, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you (Mat 17:20). I think there is an obvious reference here to Zec 4:7. Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. Zerubbabel, of course, typified our Lord Jesus Christ. And our Savior here declares that if we look to him, if we trust him, no obstacle will be too great for us to overcome, no work too difficult for us to perform, and nothing shall be impossible to us.

That is not to be understood as a blanket promise that we can do anything we want to do, or have anything we want to have, if we just believe and our faith is strong enough. This promise is made to the smallest grain of faith, not to strong faith. If we have true faith in Christ, nothing shall prevent us from glorifying our God, doing the work he has given us to do, and overcoming every obstacle that opposes us or would hinder us in this world.

Faith in Christ is the most powerful influence in the world (1Jn 5:4). The Word of God gives constant testimony to the power of faith in the lives of Gods elect. It was faith in Christ that caused Joshua and Caleb to give a good report (Num 13:30). It was faith in Christ that sustained Job in hope (Job 13:10). It was faith in Christ that caused Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to remain faithful (Dan 3:17-18). It was faith in Christ that caused the woman who was a sinner to love her Savior (Luk 7:47-50). Hebrews 11 gives us example after example of the power of faith, showing us that faith honors God and God honors faith.

In this 20th verse, our Lord once more compares faith to a grain of mustard seed. Mustard seed faith is little faith with a big Object The Omnipotent Christ!

Gods Work

Gods work must never be attempted by the arm of the flesh or with careless indifference. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting (Mat 17:21). These words were addressed as a gentle rebuke to the disciples, who had perhaps become overly confident of their powers as the servants of Christ (Luk 10:17). Like Israel, puffed up with the fall of Jericho, we are all quick to say, The men of Ai are but few there is no need for us to put forth all our strength (Jos 7:3). But it is a mistake, a fatal mistake, to underrate our foes (Eph 6:12). Satan will not be unseated without a fight. This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. So long as we are in this world and seek by faith to serve our God and Savior, let us do so by prayer and fasting, by faith in Christ, denying ourselves.

As always, we must interpret this statement in Mat 17:21 in its context. Our Savior is still referring to the message of Zechariahs vision in Zechariah 4. The vision was about Gods work, the building of his house, the saving of his people, which is the very thing portrayed in the mercy performed upon this demon possessed boy. Gods message to his prophet then is his message to his disciples here, and his message to us today. The work is all Gods. He uses men to perform his work. He allows us to lay brick, take away stones, and preach the gospel. But nothing depends upon, or is determined by man. The work is all his. This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it (Zec 4:6-7). Let us, therefore, serve him with prayer, trusting him, and fasting. By fasting (if I understand it correctly) I mean denying any strength, goodness, power, or ability in ourselves, seeking not our will but his, seeking not our own gratification but his glory.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

The King returning to the Field of Conflict

Mat 17:14-16. And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

Down from communion with saints, and the confirmation of his claims by the Father’s voice, our Lord comes to give battle to the devil. Our Moses descends from the mount, and finds evil exultant in the multitude below. During his absence, the enemy had triumphed over his feeble followers. In the midst of jeering adversaries, the disciples had tried in vain to cast out an evil spirit from a youth who had been rendered lunatic by its horrible possession. The poor disappointed father appeals to the Lord at once most humbly, states the case clearly, and pleads most fittingly. His epileptic son was a lunatic, sore vexed with pain, and in grievous peril through sudden falls. The case was a shocking one to have in one’s presence: the cries and contortions which attend epilepsy are frequently terrible to hear and see. The disciples had evidently done their very best; and as they had on other occasions cast out devils, they were surprised to find themselves defeated; but defeated they were, for the despairing father truthfully cried, “1 brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.’1 Alas, poor man, thou didst but speak as all have done since, when they have trusted in disciples, and not alone in their Master! Wise was it on thy part to hasten to Jesus, kneeling down to him, and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son.”

How often does sin drive men to one extreme or the other! ” Ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.” Certain men are moonstruck and pained at one time, yet hard and callous at another; for a season raving with excitement, and soon afterwards dead as a stone. When sin reveals itself in connection with wildness of mind, it is hard to deal with. How often have anxious soul-winners been obliged to confess concerning a certain individual that “they could not cure him”! We have been foiled by a person of a singular temperament, and the passion which possessed him has been peculiarly ungovernable. Possibly he had no link towards better things but an aged parent, whose pleadings piteously held us in deep anxiety for the half-lunatic and altogether depraved young man. Willing as we were to reform and restore the wretched rebel, we were altogether unable to help. It needed in our case that Jesus should come, even as in the narrative before us. Lord, do not leave us; for if apostles could do nothing without thee, poor weaklings are we!

Mat 17:17. Then Jesus answered and said, 0 faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.

The whole generation among whom he lived caused the Saviour suffering by their want of faith, and the absence of that straightforward confidence in God which would have secured them the greatest blessings. His own disciples-he had been with them, and yet they had not learned to have faith in him. The scribes and Pharisees-he had suffered from them many times already, and now they must make a poor lunatic the centre of conflict with him. Ho had been in fellowship with heaven, and it was a terrible jar to his heart to come down among such an unruly and unbelieving company. They were both “faithless and perverse”, the two things commonly go together: those who will not believe will not obey.

What a trial was all this to our Lord’s holy and gracious mind! ” How long shall I be with you?” Must I continue in such unworthy company? “How long shall I suffer you?” Must I always be thus tried by your ill manners? It was a moment when his triumphant foes and unbelieving friends alike deserved rebuke. But the word once spoken, Jesus will not leave the poor sufferer before him to endure the malicious attacks of the evil spirit.

See how our royal Captain turns the tide of battle with a word! He transferred the fight from the disciples to himself: “Bring him hither to me.” Once in the circle of our Lord’s own power, all is done. “Bring him hither to me.” Never let us forget this precept. When most self-despairing, let us be Christ-confiding.

Mat 17:18. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.

” Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed.” One word from Christ, and Satan flees. Mark calls this evil spirit “dumb and deaf”, but he heard Jesus, and answered to his voice with a cry; and rending the child terribly, came out of him, never to return. “The child was cured from that very hour”; that is to say, at once and for ever. God grant us faith to bring our boys and girls to the Lord Jesus with confidence in his power to cure them, and cure them for all future life! Even though young people may have become violent in temper, and precocious in vice, the Lord can at once subdue the evil power. There was no need for the boy to wait till he grew up. He was under the power of the devil while a child, and he was cured as a child. Let us seek the salvation of children as children.

Mat 17:19. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we. cast him out?

This was a very proper question. When we make a failure, let us own that we have failed, take the blame of it to ourselves, and apply to our Lord for his gracious intervention. When we are beaten, let it be said of us, “Then came the disciples to Jesus.” Let us make a private, personal matter of it: “They came to Jesus apart.” Let us sit humbly at our Lord’s feet to receive rebuke or instruction as he sees fit.

Mat 17:20. And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Want of faith is the great cause of failure among disciples, both as to themselves and their work for others. There may be other specific maladies in certain cases, but this is the great and main cause of all failure: “Because of your unbelief.” If there had been true faith, of the real and living kind, the disciples could have wrought any miracle, even to the moving of a mountain. Whatever faith we may have, we shall not work a miracle, for this is not the age of prodigies. Is our faith therefore limited in its sphere? Far from it. We can now by faith accomplish that which is fit and right without miracles. Our faith may be small ” as a grain of mustard seed,” but if it be living and true it links us with the Omnipotent One. Still is it true, “Ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove.” Mountains shall move before our faith by means as sure as if they were miraculous; by means even more wonderful than if the course of nature had been changed. Comparatively speaking, the suspension of natural law is a coarse expedient; but for the Lord to work the same result without violating any of his laws is an achievement not less divine than a miracle. This is what faith obtains of the Lord at the present hour: her prayer is heard, and things impossible to herself are wrought by divine power. Spiritually and symbolically, the mountain is removed. Literally, at this hour the mountain stands, but faith finds a way round it, through it, or over it; and so in effect removes it. In the mission field, mountains of exclusiveness which shut out missionaries have been removed. In ordinary life, insurmountable difficulties are graciously dissolved. In a variety of ways, before real faith hindrances disappear, according to the word of the Lord Jesus-” Nothing shall be impossible unto you”

Mat 17:21. Howbeit this kind goeth not out hut by prayer and fasting.

Though want of faith was the chief hindrance to the healing of the poor lunatic child, yet the case was one in which special means were needed. Faith would have suggested and supplied these special means: since they were absolutely necessary in the case if the disciples were to succeed in it, faith would have exercised herself in them. With God all things are equally possible; but to us, one devil may be harder to deal with than another. One kind will go at a word, but of others it may be said, “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” He that would overcome the devil in certain instances must first overcome heaven by prayer, and conquer himself by self-denial. The drink-devil is one of the hind which may assuredly be conquered by faith; and yet we must generally use much intercession God-ward, and total abstinence, as an example man-ward, before we can displace this demon. Our business in the world is to deliver men from the power of the devil, and we must go to Jesus to learn the way. No amount either of prayer or self-denial must be spared if we can thereby deliver one soul from the power of evil; and true faith in God will enable us to put up the prayer and practise the self-denial. May be, some of us have failed because we are not yet well instructed in the right method of procedure. Either we are trying faith without using the appointed means, or we are using the means but not exercising simple faith in God; and in either case we shall make a failure of it. If we go to work by faith in God, in Christ’s own way, we shall drive out the evil spirit.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s The Gospel of the Kingdom

when: Mar 9:14-29, Luk 9:37-43

kneeling: Mar 1:40, Mar 10:17, Act 10:25, Act 10:26

Reciprocal: Mat 9:18 – worshipped Luk 9:33 – and let Joh 4:46 – whose

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

7:14

The act of the man kneeling down to Jesus was one form of worship. The reader should see the various meanings of the word in the comments at chapter 2:2.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Mat 17:14. Kneeling to him. An act of homage, not necessarily of worship. The scribes were questioning with the disciples; the multitude were amazed and ran to Him (Mar 9:14-17). The failure of the disciples (Mat 17:16) had probably occasioned a denial of Christs authority on the part of the scribes. Hence the agitation of the crowd.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Observe here, 1. A sick patient brought to Christ, the great physician, for cure and healing. A lunatic, that is, a person, at certain times of the moon, afflicted with the falling sickness.

2. This sickness of his was aggravated by Satan, who bodily possessed him, and cruelly cast him into the fire and into the water, but rather for torture than dispatch.

O how does Satan, that malicious tyrant, rejoice in doing hurt to mankind! Lord, abate his power, since his malice will not be abated.

Observe, 3. The person who brought him forth for cure, his compassionate father, who kneeled down and cried out, need will make a person both humble and eloquent. Everyone has a tongue to speak for himself; happy is he that keeps a tongue for others.

4. The physicians that he was first brought unto: first, to the disciples; and when they could not cure him, then to Jesus. We never apply ourselves importunately to the God of power, till we begin to despair of the creature’s help.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mat 17:14-18. And when they were come to the multitude Namely, the day following, Luk 9:37, there came a certain man, kneeling down to him In great humility before Jesus, and with deep reverence for him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son Compassionate his miserable condition, for he is lunatic and sore vexed With terrible fits. This mans disease, says Dr. Campbell, we should, from the symptoms, call epilepsy, rather than lunacy. The appellation given it () shows the general sentiments, at that time, concerning the moons influence on this sort of malady. It appears from Mar 9:17-20; Luk 9:39; (where see the notes,) that the disorder, whatever it was, was owing to his being possessed by an evil spirit; he might, nevertheless, be properly said to be lunatic, though his case was chiefly preternatural, as the evil spirit would undoubtedly take advantage of the influence which the changes of the moon have on the brain and nerves. I brought him to thy disciples This he had done in Christs absence; and they could not cure him Could not cast out the evil spirit, as appeared by their having attempted it without success. Christ gave his disciples power to cast out devils, when he sent them forth to teach and preach, Mat 10:1; Mat 10:8, and then they were successful; yet, at this time, they failed in the operation, though there were nine of them together: and Christ permitted this, 1st, to keep them humble, and to show them their dependance upon him, and that without him they could do nothing; 2d, to glorify himself and his own power. Jesus answered, O faithless and perverse generation In these words our Lord might first intend to reprove both the disciples and the father of the child, for the weakness of their faith. With respect to the disciples, this appears evident from Mat 17:20; but the reproof, contained in the words, could not be designed principally for them: for though their faith was weak, they were not faithless, nor do they appear to have deserved so sharp a rebuke. It seems to have been intended for the people, and, perhaps, especially the scribes, who are mentioned, Mar 9:14, as disputing with the disciples, and, it should seem, insulting over them, as having now met with a case that was too hard for them; a distemper which they could not cure, even by the name and power of their Master. And this conduct of the scribes, which proceeded from their unbelief, was highly criminal, since Jesus had already given so many undeniable demonstrations of his power and divine mission. Therefore he treated them no worse than they deserved, in calling them a faithless and perverse generation, and in adding, how long shall I be with you Namely, ere you be convinced? How long shall I suffer you, or bear with your infidelity? A reproof much more applicable to the scribes, than either to the disciples or the father of the child, the weakness of whose faith proceeded from human infirmity, rather than from wilful obstinacy and perverseness. After having thus rebuked the scribes, he turned to the father of the child, and said, Bring him hither to me And while he brought him the evil spirit tare him, and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming, Mar 9:20; Luk 9:42. Doubtless Jesus could easily have prevented this attack of the devil, but he wisely permitted it, that the minds of the spectators might be impressed with a more lively sense of the young mans distress. He then rebuked the devil. Commanded him to come out of the youth, Mar 9:25. And the child was cured from that very hour The cure was immediate and perfect! Great encouragement this to parents to bring their children, whose souls are under the power of Satan, to Christ, in the arms of faith and prayer! He is able to heal them, and as willing as able.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

LXX.

THIRD WITHDRAWAL FROM HEROD’S TERRITORY.

Subdivision E.

HEALING THE DEMONIAC BOY.

(Region of Csarea Philippi.)

aMATT. XVII. 14-20; bMARK IX. 14-29; cLUKE IX. 37-43.

c37 And it came to pass, on the next day, when they were come down from the mountain, b14 And when they came to the disciples [the nine apostles which had been left behind], they saw a great multitude about them [We last heard of the multitude at Mar 8:34. See Exo 34:29), but this can hardly have been so, for it would have been at variance with the secrecy which Jesus enjoined as to his transfiguration. Moreover, so important [422] a feature could hardly have escaped from the narratives of all three evangelists. Undoubtedly the amazement was caused by the sudden and opportune return of Jesus. Those who urge that this was not enough to produce amazement show themselves to be poor students of human nature. The multitude had been listening to and no doubt enjoying the questions of the scribes. The unexpected appearance of Jesus therefore impressed them with the sudden sense of having been detected in wrong-doing which invariably leads to amazement. Moreover, those who remained loyal to Jesus would be equally amazed by his approach, since they could not but feel that an exciting crisis was at hand.] a14 And when they were come to the multitude [i. e., when Jesus and the multitude met], bhe asked them, What question ye with them? [He surprised the scribes by this demand and they saw at once that he knew all and they felt rebuked for their unwarranted exultation, and so kept silent.] c38 And, behold, athere came to him a man, bone of {cfrom} the multitude, akneeling to him, banswered him, ccried, saying, bTeacher, a15 Lord, bI brought unto thee my son, who hath a dumb spirit; ahave mercy on my son: for he is epileptic, and suffereth grievously; cI beseech thee look upon my son: for he is mine only child. 39 and behold a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out; b18 and wheresoever it taketh him, it dasheth him down: cand it teareth him that he foameth, band grindeth his teeth, and pineth away: cand it hardly departeth from him, bruising him sorely. [When the scribes did not answer, the father of the demoniac boy broke the embarrassing silence by telling Jesus about the matter in question. His child was deaf, dumb, and epileptic, but all these physical ailments were no doubt produced by the demon or evil spirit which possessed him. The phrase “hardly departeth from him” rather suggests the continual unrest in which the demon kept his victim rather than that the demon ever really relinquished his possession of him. Pauses in the delirium of agony were regarded as departures of the [423] demon.] a16 And I brought him to thy disciples, band I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; c40 And I besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not. bthey were not able. aand they could not cure him. 17 And Jesus answered and said, {banswereth them and saith,} aO faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I bear with you? cbring hither thy son to me. bunto me. [As there was no reason to accuse the apostles of perversity, it is evident that the rebuke of Jesus is addressed generally to all and not particularly to the disciples. The perverse faithlessness and infidelity of the scribes had operated upon the multitude, and the doubts of the multitude had in turn influenced the apostles, and thus, with the blind leading the blind, all had fallen into the ditch of impotent disbelief. The disbelief of the people was a constant grief to Jesus, but it must have been especially so in this case, for it fostered and perpetrated this scene of weakness, mean-spiritedness, misery, and suffering which stood out in such sharp contrast with the peace, blessedness, and glory from which he had just come.] 20 And they brought him unto him: c42 And as he was yet a coming, bwhen he saw him [saw Jesus], straightway cthe demon dashed him down, and bthe spirit tare him grievously; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. 21 And he asked his father, How long is it since this hath come unto him? And he said, From a child. 22 And oft-times it hath cast him both into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: {ahe falleth into the fire, and oft-times into the water.} [By causing the long-standing nature of the case and the malignity of it to be fully revealed, Jesus emphasized the power of the cure] bbut if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us. 23 And Jesus said unto him, If thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth. [Jesus echoed back the “if thou canst” which the man had uttered. If Jesus marveled at the faith of a Gentile which trusted the fullness [424] of his divine power, he also marveled at the disbelief of this Jew which thus coolly and presumptuously questions the sufficiency of that power. In the remainder of his answer Jesus shows that the lack of power is not in him, but in those who would be recipients of the blessings of his power, for those blessings are obtained by faith.] 24 Straightway the father of the child cried out, and said I believe; help thou my unbelief. [He confessed his faith, but desired so ardently to have the child healed that he feared lest he should not have faith enough to accomplish that desire, and therefore asked for more faith.] 25 And when Jesus saw that the multitude came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. [Jesus had found the multitude when he came down from the mountain, but the excitement in this multitude was evidently drawing men from every quarter, so that the crowd was momentarily growing greater. A longer conversation with the man might have been beneficial, but to prevent the gathering of any larger company Jesus acted at once and spoke the words of command. Since the demon was manifestly of a most daring, impudent, and audacious nature, Jesus took the precaution to forbid it attempting to re-enter its victim, a precaution which the conduct of the demon abundantly justified.] 26 And having cried out, and torn him much, he came out: and the boy became as one dead; insomuch that the more part said, He is dead. [The malicious effrontery and obstinacy displayed by this demon stands in marked contrast to the cowed, supplicating spirit shown by the Gergesene legion. See Mat 13:32). Faith has such power with God that even little faith becomes well-nigh omnipotent in an age of miracles.] b29 And he said unto them, This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer. [Prayer was the means of increasing faith. Demons, like spirits in the flesh, have different degrees of will force, some being easier to subdue than others, and this once, being particularly willful and obstinate, required more faith to expel it.]

[FFG 422-426]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

DEMONIACAL EJECTMENT

Mat 17:14-21; Mar 9:14-29; Luk 9:37-43. Mark: And having come to His disciples, He saw a great crowd round them, and the scribes arguing with them. He and the three disciples had been absent from the nine and the multitude during that memorable night of the transfiguration. In the morning, when they come down from the mount, they find an oral debate going on between the nine apostles and the scribes; i.e., the pastors of the Churches, who had gathered with the multitude. The subject of the debate was the failure of the nine to cast out an awfully stubborn and formidable deaf and dumb demon, which had occupied an only son from his infancy. And immediately all the multitude, seeing Him, became aroused, and running to Him, seized Him; i.e., gathered about Him, and took Him into a special diagnosis. He asked the scribes, Why are you disputing with them? The salient point in the debate was, that as the nine had failed in all their efforts to cast out the demon, at the same time alleging that if their Master were there, He could cast him out; the scribes stoutly disputed their word, and argued with them that if He were there, He would fail just as they had done. And one of the multitude, responding, said, Teacher, I brought my son to Thee, having a dumb spirit, and when he may seize him, he convulses him; he froths, gnashes his teeth, and pines away. Matthew says: He is a lunatic, and suffers exceedingly, and frequently he falls in the fire, and often in the water. Luke: And, behold, the spirit takes him, and immediately he cries out, and he convulses him with foam, and scarcely departs from him, contorting him.

We see from these descriptions that the child was an epileptic, of the very worst form, his convulsions being so frequent and violent as not only to take away the faculty of hearing and speech, but to render him at times insane, raving like a maniac. When these awful convulsions came on him, he screamed and roared at the very top of his voice, falling, rolling, in indescribable agony, gnashing his teeth, foaming at the mouth, and finally pining away, gasping for breath, and apparently ceasing to breathe, looking pale as a corpse, perspiration evanescing, becoming dry, ashy, cold, and to all appearances lifeless. And I said to Thy disciples that they may cast him out, and they were not able. Responding, He says to them, O faithless generation, how long shall I bear with you? We see here how grievous their unbelief and consequent failure were to Jesus. Lord, save us from grieving Thee in a similar manner! Bring him hither to Me; and seeing Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him; and falling on the ground, he continued to wallow, foaming. Here you see, the demon knew Jesus, having long ago been a pure spirit in the celestial universe, gazing upon the glory of the Son, before he had the misfortune to deflect with the great apostasy, following in the track of fallen Lucifer. See how awfully stubborn and malignant he is! Seeing Jesus, and knowing that his time is short, he seizes the moment left him to execute his wrath on his poor victim, seizing him instantly, convulsing him with horrific spasms, so that, falling on the ground, he wallows, foaming as if he were dying. And He asked his father, How much time there is since this happened to him? And he said, From his infancy; and frequently he throws him into the fire, and into the water, that he may destroy him; but if You are able to do anything, help us, being moved with compassion in our behalf. And Jesus said to him, If you are able to believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And immediately the father of the little child, crying out with tears, continued to say, Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief. Here we see a glorious illustration of the omnipotence of faith.

O what an inspiration this wonderful Scripture flashes out on a desponding Church and a sinking world!

Millions on all sides are sweeping into hopeless ruin; whereas alt that is needed that we may be saved to the uttermost, and our friends and loved ones rescued from Satan to go to heaven with us, is faith in Jesus. It costs nothing but your sins and your doubts, which were Satans millstones around your neck, dragging you to perdition. Your family are unsaved, your loved ones hanging over hell by the brittle thread of life. Soon it will be eternally too late. Will you not fly to the mercy-seat in their behalf? I trow, no demon more obstinate, potent, and incorrigible than this one possesses any of them. Though awful devils have them by the throat, Jesus is more than a match for them all. Will you not give Him a chance before demons people hell with the inmates of your home and community? You see here that true faith is accompanied by tenderhearted humility, illustrated by the fact that this man is so intensely exercised for the salvation of his son, that his tears gush out copiously, and flow in rivulets over his face. So get down before God till you, in spite of doubts and devils, with heart-gushing tears, can say, Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.

And Jesus, seeing that the multitude are running together, rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him, Dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee, Come out from it and enter no more into him. Crying out, and convulsing him much, he came out. He became like a corpse, so that many said, He is dead. When Jesus was talking to the man, the multitude, observing that something was going to be done, and all eager to see, immediately began to crowd in from all directions to witness the sight. As this would produce a great confusion, Jesus instantly commands the obstinate demon, who had resisted all the efforts of the nine, to come out. The demon avails himself of the last moment to execute vile retribution against the poor epileptic. So, in the very act of evacuating him, he convulses him so awfully that he pines away, pallid and ghastly as a corpse, and the people all around say, He is dead. I have witnessed many scenes of this kind in my revival- meetings, people falling amid frightful convulsions, foaming at the mouth, pining away, gasping for breath, and the unspiritual people around saying, He is dead, She is dead. I could give you the positive history of many such cases, which I have seen with mine own eyes. Frequently have they been hauled away from my meetings like dead people, but they always came to life.

The physical phase of this case is abundantly illustrated in all of our lunatic asylums, without which our communities would be terrorized this day by raving maniacs. I now have in mind a good, true, and efficient, sanctified Methodist preacher, who, like this boy, had epilepsy, in its worst form, till one and twenty, when a sanctified sister, finding her way to his fathers house, told him about Jesus, and prevailed on him to commit to Him soul and body. Though three times, amid these awful convulsions, he had been laid out and pronounced dead, when he got his eye of faith on Jesus, though all physicians had abandoned him to die, the Blessed Healer, in a moment, cast out the stubborn demon, completely healing soul and body, so that he has never since had a trace of epilepsy; but, responsive to the call he received when Jesus healed and sanctified him, from that day he has been preaching holiness to the Lord.

Mat 17:19 : Then the disciples, coming to Jesus, privately said, Why were we not able to cast him out? Jesus said to them, For truly, I say unto you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Be thou moved hence, and it will be moved, and nothing shall be impossible to you. But this kind goeth not out except through prayer. E. V. says, Through prayer and fasting, some good man evidently adding fasting, feeling that it would strengthen the statement, as it does not here appear in the original. We must remember that the disciples did not fast till after the Lord had left the world, as this would have been out of harmony with the glorious sunshine of His perpetual and omnipotent presence. He said that they would fast after He had gone away. Hence it is all right and pertinent for us to fast, as the Spirit leads, till He returns in glory. We must remember that our Savior is talking about spiritual things, referring to the little mustard seed and the great mountain to illustrate the omnipotence of faith. God appreciates quality rather than quantity. Hence, though your faith may be small, if it is free from doubt, the tiny mustard seed will make the great mountain of sin leap away, and sink out of sight into the sea of forgetfulness.

In these two notable transaction i.e., the transfiguration glory on the mountain summit, and the casting out of this awfully cruel, stubborn, obstinate demon down at the base, we have a vivid illustration of heaven and hell in close proximity. So terrible is the conflict between the powers of darkness in this world, that we often find the bright summit, the transfiguration glory, and the dark valley, pervaded by infuriated demons, in close proximity. Where God works, Satan works too, et vice versa. Hence the Christian soldier should never be discouraged at the rage of hell and the howl of devils; but on the contrary, in that case, should always take courage, as Satan is not fool enough to waste his ammunition. When the powers of darkness rendezvous and the formidable difficulties intervene, always look out for bright victories.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Mat 17:14-21. Healing of the Demoniac Boy (Mar 9:14-29*, Luk 9:37-43).The story is much shorter than in Mk. The reference to possession does not come till the end; in Mat 17:15 the child is described as epileptic. Perhaps the story was told in Q. The fathers appeal, Lord, have mercy (Mat 17:15), gives us the well-known Kyrie eleison. Instead of prayer (the verse (Mat 17:21) in Mt. is spurious) and fasting (Mar 9:29), Jesus here puts the emphasis on faith (cf. Mat 21:21, Mar 11:22 f.). The Sinaitic Syriac has your unfaith; perhaps little faith is a softening of this.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

17:14 {2} And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a [certain] man, {f} kneeling down to him, and saying,

(2) Men are unworthy of Christ’s goodness, yet nonetheless he pays attention to them.

(f) As men used to do when making supplication.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

3. Instruction about the King’s principles 17:14-27

Jesus’ instruction of His disciples in view of the King’s coming death and resurrection and the kingdom’s postponement continued. Jesus had taught them about His person (Mat 16:13-17) and His program (Mat 16:18 to Mat 17:13). He now taught them principles that clarified His work and His person further.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The exorcism of an epileptic boy 17:14-21 (cf. Mar 9:14-29; Luk 9:37-43 a)

The term "exorcism" means the action of exorcizing or expelling an evil spirit by adjuration or the performance of certain rites. In Jesus’ case this involved His authoritatively commanding a demon or demons to depart with no appeal to a higher authority or incantations, which are common in exorcisms that other people perform.

"The contrast between the glory of the Transfiguration and Jesus’ disciples’ tawdry unbelief (see Mat 17:17) is part of the mounting tension that magnifies Jesus’ uniqueness as he moves closer to his passion and resurrection." [Note: Carson, "Matthew," p. 390.]

It also recalls Moses’ experience of descending Mt. Sinai only to find the Israelites failing by worshipping the golden calf (Exo 32:15-20).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The Greek word gonypeteo, translated "falling on his knees" or "knelt," suggests humility and entreaty, not necessarily worship (cf. Mat 27:29; Mar 1:40; Mar 10:17). Likewise "Lord" was perhaps only a respectful address (cf. Mat 8:2). The young man’s epilepsy was evidently a result of demon possession (Mat 17:18). The impotent disciples were some or all of the nine who did not go up the mountain for the Transfiguration.

There are many instances of the disciples’ failures in this section of Matthew (cf. Mat 14:16-21; Mat 14:26-31; Mat 15:16; Mat 15:23; Mat 15:33; Mat 16:5; Mat 16:22; Mat 17:4; Mat 17:10-11). Earlier they had great miraculous powers (Mat 10:1; Mat 10:8). However, their power was not their own; it came from Jesus. As Jesus progressively trained the disciples, He also withdrew some of their power to teach them that it came from Him and related to their trust in Him (Mat 14:16-17; Mat 14:31; Mat 15:5; Mat 15:8).

"The sovereign authority of Jesus the Messiah in healing and exorcism is unique; his disciples can draw on it only by faith, and that is what they have failed to do in this case." [Note: France, The Gospel . . ., p. 659.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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