And one out of the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought to thee my son, who has a dumb spirit;
Three disciples had just seen the Lord in glory on the mountain; below, in the crowd, a father waits with a boy no one could help. His words open the case: he names what holds his son, and he brings him to Christ.
The chapter sets a mountain top beside a valley floor. One writer lists everything that had gone wrong at the bottom.
There had been a remarkable display of the glory of God in the peaceful scene on the mountain top. At the foot of the mountain, meanwhile, the dark power of Satan was on show, with all the confusion it brings. The boy was demon-possessed. The father was disappointed and distracted. The disciples were defeated and dejected. The scribes were quite willing to use the incident to their own advantage. The Lord walks into the middle of it and everything changes.
The three Gospel accounts describe this same boy in different words. One writer weighs them against the idea that he was only mentally ill.
It is true that in Matthew 17:14-16 the father of a boy possessed by a demon called him a lunatic, and said the disciples could not cure him. But in Mark 9:17 he said his son had a dumb spirit, and in Luke 9:39 that "a spirit seizes him." It was clearly a case of possession: the Lord rebuked the demon, and it departed from him.
The father names one effect: his son cannot speak. Older translations call this a "dumb spirit," and the writers quoted here keep that wording. Later the Lord speaks to the spirit and adds a second word.
But the boy appears to have been deaf as well as dumb, and presumably he was dumb because he was deaf. At any rate, the Lord, in driving out the demon, addressed him as "you dumb and deaf spirit" (to alalon kai kophon) (Mark 9:17, 25). Notice that the account of this incident uses a distinct Greek word (alalos) for "dumb."
One writer reads the father's description as a picture of something much wider.
The Lord learned on asking that the boy had suffered like this since childhood. It is a picture, only too accurate, of our race. Our race fell into the hands of Satan in its very infancy, in the days of the garden of Eden. The poor child was both dumb and deaf (Mark 9:25). His state reflects the spiritual condition of every representative of fallen Adam. The unregenerate man has nothing to say for God, and he has no ear for the commandments of God. God is to him as though He were not.
The father had already taken his son to the disciples, and they could not help. That failure had a history.
When the Lord sent out the Twelve, He "gave them power over unclean spirits." For a time they used this power, for we read, "they cast out many demons" (Mark 6:7, 13). Here, however, their faith failed. They could not cast out the dumb spirit. Power was present to work miracles and overcome all the power of Satan. But man could not benefit from it, and the disciples had no faith to use it.
The father did not stop when they let him down.
The distressed parent did not despair. He turned from the failing disciples to Him who never fails. How humbling when believers dishonour their Lord in this way!
Later, alone with the disciples, the Lord shows them why they had failed.
Privately the disciples have to learn from the Lord that it is not Satan who is the difficulty, but self. Only in dependence on God, and withdrawal from what works on the flesh, is power over such an enemy found.
Another writer adds that not every evil spirit is met in the same way.
There are differences among the evil spirits, and this kind gave way only to prayer and fasting. The lack of that was grievous in the Lord's eyes.
The moment Jesus reaches the bottom of the hill is read as a small model of something still ahead.
While glory was being displayed on the holy mountain, a painful scene was taking place below. A poor child writhing in agony, possessed by a demon, and the poor father bowed down with grief. The coming down of the Lord Jesus changed everything. Satan's powers were overthrown, and tears gave place to thanksgiving and joy. So it will be in the great day for which we wait, and for which the whole creation groans.
- Bondage. The boy's case is real possession, not imagined illness. He was mute, deaf, and gripped since childhood — a picture of man fallen into Satan's hands at the very start.
- Failure. The Lord had given the disciples power over unclean spirits, and they had used it. Here their faith failed, and the power present went unused.
- Appeal. The father did not despair when they let him down. He turned to the One who never fails.
- Diagnosis. The problem was never the enemy's strength but self. Only dependence on God draws on the power that removes him.
- Deliverance. He came down from the glory into the confusion, and everything changed. It is a small picture of the day when creation's groaning ends.
and wheresoever it seizes him it tears him, and he foams and gnashes his teeth, and he is withering away. And I spoke to thy disciples, that they might cast him out, and they could not.
A father brings Jesus his tormented son, after asking the disciples for help and getting none. The Lord had given them authority over unclean spirits, so why did they fail here?
One writer reads each symptom in the father's report as a picture of what Satan's influence does in people:
It seems the boy was not mute by nature. The evil spirit had made him mute, and also caused other painful symptoms through convulsions. His physical condition pictures the spiritual state of many people today who live under the influence of Satan's power. Foaming at the mouth reminds us of the shameful words that come out of men's mouths, as in Jude 13. Grinding his teeth speaks of the bitter rebellion seen at every level of mankind. His pining away shows that such people are damaging themselves, yet have no power to stop it.
The disciples' failure was not a lack of authority. The Lord had already sent them out with it, and they had used it:
When the Lord sent out the Twelve, He "gave them power over unclean spirits." For a time they used this power: we read that "they cast out many demons" (Mark 6:7, 13). Here, however, their faith failed. They could not cast out the mute spirit. Power was present to work miracles and overcome all the power of Satan. But man could not profit by it, and the disciples had no faith to use it.
One writer traces the failure to two things: unbelief, and the state of soul that faith needs. Fasting, he says, means far more than going without food:
Chapter 3:15 makes it clear that the disciples had no excuse. They could not cast the demon out of this poor child. He had given them the power. But when the chance to use it came, they could not. Putting Matthew's account together with Mark's, we learn the whole secret of their failure. The disciples asked, "Why could we not cast him out?" Jesus answered, "Because of your unbelief." He added that nothing would be impossible to them if they had faith even as small as a grain of mustard seed. Both accounts also show that such faith needs a matching state of soul. Prayer expresses, in confidence in God, our realisation that we depend on Him completely. Fasting will mean the state that refuses lawful things and lawful enjoyments (see Numbers 6:3-7) for the sake of fuller devotion to the Lord's service. It may sometimes include going without food, but to limit it to that is to miss its main point.
The Lord answers the report with a lament over a faithless generation. One writer weighs what that lament meant for the disciples, and for how long the Lord would stay:
The disciples' failure meant that the testimony of God through them had fallen to the ground. As a result, that era of God's dealings would come to an end. "How long shall I be with you?" implies that the Lord's stay on earth had a limit. A needy generation, oppressed by the power of the devil, would not drive the Lord away. Just the opposite: it was man's deep need, under the power of Satan, that brought the Lord Jesus into the world. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The needy generation did not end His mission of grace and power on earth. The "faithless generation" did.
Later in the same chapter, John tries to stop another man from doing what the disciples themselves could not do. One writer sets that beside this failure:
The wrong of the situation was that John was trying to stop a man from doing good, which he himself was powerless to do. In the same chapter we read that one of the crowd brought to the disciples a demon-possessed son, a pitiful sight. The distressed father said to the Lord, "I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able" (Mark 9:18). John was among them. They were powerless.
The disciples' inability did not end the father's hope; it redirected it. Kelly notes both the dishonour done to Christ's name and the father's response:
The distressed parent did not despair, and turned from the failing disciples to Him who never fails. How humbling when believers dishonour their Lord like this! … Did He not give the twelve disciples, and more than the twelve, authority over the unclean spirits? How was it then that these put shame on His name by failing to draw on Him?
- Power given. The Lord gave His disciples authority over unclean spirits, and they had used it before this day.
- Power unused. The power was present; the faith to draw on it was not, and the Lord named unbelief as the cause.
- Power's conditions. Such faith leans on God and says so in prayer. It also lets go of lawful comforts for the Lord's service.
- Power dishonoured. Their failure let God's testimony fall to the ground. The men who could do nothing then tried to stop someone else.
- Power unfailing. The father did not despair. He turned from the disciples who failed to the One who never fails.