Who is Jesus addressing as a "faithless and perverse generation" (Matthew 17:17)?

The disturbed man had brought his son to the disciples, but they could not cure him. It is this that draws out the Lord's lamenting words, "O faithless and perverse generation." For the disciples had been sent for the purpose of costing out demons (Ch.10:1). Their inability then proved both their lack of faith and their perversity, which implies their using wrongly what they were entrusted with. The power given them to cast out demons was not only neglected; it must have been misused, just as we too may misuse abilities given us. Gift is given us to be of help to others, yet we may use it for our own self-gratification, as the Corinthians used the gift of tongues (1Cor.14).

But whatever the failure, the Lord is still the resource: He rebuked the demon, causing it to leave the boy. In Matthew His authority is emphasized, so that there is no mention here of the details of His patient labor, as in Mark, the gospel of the Servant (Mk.9:20-27): the child is cured from that hour.

A Lunatic. — "It is good for us to be here," Peter had said. He was only thinking of himself, and of the two with him. He would therefore have made three tabernacles, to prolong that blissful scene. But others had to be cared for, and soon would Peter even be convinced that to abide there was impossible. There was work to be done in the plain. The presence and the power of the Lord was urgently needed below. For on the next day, when they came down from the mountain, "much people met Him. And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master [or, Teacher], I beseech Thee look upon my son: for he is mine only child. And, lo, a spirit takes him and he suddenly cries out and it tears him that he foames again; and, bruising him, hardly departs from him. And I besought Thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not" (Luke 9:38-40). A pitiable case! an earnest appeal "mine only child!" The widow of Nain had her only son raised up (7:12). Jairus had his only daughter brought back to life (8:42). Now this afflicted father pleads pathetically for his only child, whose case had hitherto been deemed a hopeless one. Even the disciples could not heal him by casting out the demon. The father's appeal was not rejected. "Bring thy son hither," were the words of encouragement to the parent. "O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I be with you, and suffer you?" was a word of reproof, however, addressed to them all. As the child was yet a-coming, the demon threw him down and tare him. It was manifestly a case of demoniacal possession, and to the last that demon would show his power over his victim. But his tyranny was to he terminated. The Lord "rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father."

But let us go on with our chapter. If the Lord takes up into the glory, He comes down into this world, even now in Spirit and in sympathy, and meets the crowd and Satan's power with which we have to do. While the Lord was on the Mount, a poor father had brought to the disciples his son who was a lunatic and possessed by a devil. Here is developed another character of man's unbelief, that even of the believer — inability to make use of the power which is, so to say, at his disposal in the Lord. Christ, Son of God, Messiah, Son of man, had overcome the enemy, had bound the strong man and had a right to cast him out. As man, the obedient One in spite of Satan's temptations, He had overcome him in the wilderness, and had thus a right as man to dispossess him of his dominion over a man as to this world; and this He did. In casting out devils and healing the sick, He delivered man from the power of the enemy. "God," said Peter, "anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, and he went about doing good and healing all those that were oppressed by the devil." Now this power should have been used by the disciples, who ought to have known how to avail themselves by faith of that which Jesus had thus manifested on earth; but they were not able to do it. Yet what availed it to bring this power down here, if the disciples had not faith to use it? The power was there: man might profit by it for complete deliverance from all the oppression of the enemy; but he had not faith to do so — even believers had not. The presence of Christ on earth was useless, when even His own disciples knew not how to profit by it. There was more faith in the man that brought his child than in them, for felt want brought him to its remedy. All therefore come under the Lord's sentence, "O faithless and perverse generation!" He must leave them, and that which the glory had revealed above, unbelief shall realise below.

Observe here, that it is not evil in the world which puts an end to a particular intervention of God; on the contrary, it occasions the intervention in grace. It was on account of Satan's dominion over men that Christ came. He departs, because those who had received Him are incapable of using the power that He brought with Him, or that He bestows for their deliverance; they cannot profit by the very advantages then enjoyed. Faith was wanting. Nevertheless observe also this important and touching truth that, as long as such dispensation from God continues, Jesus does not fail to meet individual faith with blessing, even when His disciples cannot glorify Him by the exercise of faith. The same sentence that judges the unbelief of the disciples calls the distressed father to the enjoyment of the blessing. After all, to be able to avail ourselves of His power, we must be in communion with Him by the practical energy of faith.

We then come to the incapacity of the disciples to use by faith the power which was then present. The poor man with the demoniac son had brought him to the disciples, and they could not cast the demon out. This draws out from Jesus the expression of the uselessness of His stay with them, when even His disciples could not make use of His power. This it is which finally leads, not to the prophecy and declaration that He would suffer, and depart, and rise again, but to the immediate expression of what drove Him away. "O, faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" The unbelief even of His disciples, hindering the efficacious testimony to His power, led to His going away. His person remained the same, and His personal grace, but His work was hindered by the faithlessness even of His own. How long was He to stay and bear with them? Thus we learn what closes a dispensation and the Lord's dealings in goodness, not the power of evil that brought Him here, but the powerlessness of those who follow Him, in making good the testimony He has given of His power and goodness. This does not cease, but in the same sentence in which He say, How long? He says, Bring thy son hither. It is what we have seen, the closing of His service here, but His person and grace only shining out the more brightly; the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and exercised wherever there was a want that came to Him, the actual meeting-place between man and God - a want, and grace in a Saviour.

The next scene plunges us at once into the realities of the world as it is, the more painfully felt because of the bright vision of the age to come on the mount of transfiguration, whether in the sample of the kingdom of the Son of man or the inner scene of those who entered the cloud. Here, on the contrary, we have the world as it now is through the power of Satan. "It came to pass that on the following day241 when they came down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. And a man from the crowd cried out saying, Teacher, I beseech thee, look upon my son, for he is mine only child: and behold a spirit takes him and suddenly he cries out; and it tears him with foaming; and with difficulty departed from him after crushing him. And I besought thy disciples that they might cast him out, and they could not." It was a picture, indeed, of Israel and we may say of man. Such was the power of the demon over him; and the fact most distressing was that the disciples were quite unable to meet the case. They were men of God; they were His most honoured servants, already sent out with power and authority by the Lord Jesus, as we saw in the beginning of this chapter: and yet they could not cope with this aggravated form of demoniacal possession.

"And Jesus answering said, O unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and suffer you? bring hither thy son." The Lord had thus before His mind the vivid feeling of His approaching departure: "how long shall I be with you and suffer you?" It was for want, not of power but of faith, that they could not cast the spirit out. Faith always supposes two things — sense of the weight and yoke of evil that presses on man, and confidence in God as always superior to evil in His gracious power and supreme. There may be failure, but never final defeat where room is left for God to come in, and the heart cleaves to the certainty of His glory concerned in the matter. The lack of this was what grieved the Lord Jesus; their inability was due to want of faith and of self-judgment.

The disciples, though sent to cast out demons (Mt.10:1), had failed to do so in this case. No doubt it was to these that the Lord spoke, just as much as to the father, "0 faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" Where was the faith that rightly give the Lord His place? He deeply felt the pain of enduring their faithlessness, as on another occasion we are told, "He marveled because of their unbelief" (Mk.6:6). What a trial to Him were those years of His bearing with the unbelief both of the world and of His own disciples

In the first place, He puts His finger upon the spot where the root of the failure lay. They were a faithless generation. The root was unbelief This applied to His disciples, as well as to the rest. If their faith had fully laid hold of who He was, they would not have been baffled by this test, any more than when confronted by the matter of feeding the multitudes. They were still like the man of chapter 8, before he saw all things clearly.

But now the Master Himself is in the midst, and the word is, "Bring him to ME." However, the first result of the boy being brought was disappointing, for the demon flung him down in a terrible fit. Yet this was made to serve the purpose of the Lord, for on the one hand it made the more manifest the terrible plight of the boy the very moment before he was delivered, and on the other it served to bring out the feelings and thoughts of the anguished father. His cry, "If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us," revealed his lack of faith as to His power, whilst he was not too sure of His kindness.

First we have the exposure of the flesh in its unbelief (vv. 40-41). In the presence of the failure of the disciples to cast out the demon, the Lord has to say, "O unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and suffer you?" (v. 41, N. Tr.). Desperate need was there in the case of the child possessed with the demon; grace was there to meet the need in the Person of Jesus; the professed disciples of the Lord were there, but, alas, the world looks to them in vain. They are helpless by reason of the unbelief of the flesh that renders them incapable of using the power of the Lord at their disposal, and the perversity of the flesh that could not profit by all the marvellous manifestations of His power and grace.

(5) The weakness and folly of man (which are but his perversity) are now exhibited among those who have received Christ, and have received from Him also a power which they are not competent to use. It is this which the case of the lunatic child is evidently intended to impress upon us. The disciples had been applied to, to cast out the demon, for which they had had authority given them by the Lord, and they had failed to do so. The father brings his child to Christ with this statement; and it is this which forces from Him the groan over a "faithless and perverse generation" by whom the love which bound Him to them was made to suffer through their unbelief. Seldom does the Lord exhibit to us so clearly the trial of uncongeniality which was His amid His chosen associates. Here it is openly exhibited, and the occasion was such as to require that the cause of a failure which had been manifest should be manifest also.

The foot of the mountain showed a very different thing. There was the power of Satan, and such a power of Satan that baffled the disciples. We have this accordingly brought out very clearly in the man that they presented to the Lord. "I brought him to thy disciples," said the poor father, "and they could not cure him." And the Lord utters words of unusual severity. "O faithless and perverse generation! how long shall I suffer you?"