This is the last exorcism that Mark recorded. His narration of this story includes more detail than either Matthew's or Luke's. The disciples' lack of glory in this story contrasts with Jesus' glory in the Transfiguration.
9:14-15 Mark did not explain the reason for the crowd's great amazement (Gr. exethambethesan) at seeing Jesus. Since Jesus had forbidden Peter, James, and John from speaking about the Transfiguration it is unlikely that some glorious afterglow caused the crowd's reaction. Probably the nine disciples' failure to cast out the demon followed by Jesus' personal appearance produced their extreme response.
9:16-18 Perhaps Mark alone recorded Jesus' question to stress His humanity. The result of the demons' activity again shows their destructive purpose (cf. 5:1-5). Jesus had given His disciples power to cast out demons (3:15), and they had done so successfully earlier (6:13). This boy showed the symptoms of epilepsy because of the demons' affliction.
9:19 The unbelieving generation included the father and the crowd. The nine disciples could not exorcize the demon because of their weak faith (cf. v. 29). Jesus' first rhetorical question expressed frustration that His presence with them had not resulted in greater faith. His second question reveals the heavy load that their unbelief placed on Him.
9:20-22 Mark's unique record of Jesus' question shows His compassion. Demons had afflicted the boy for several years. Evidently the failure of the nine disciples weakened the father's confidence in Jesus to help his son.
9:23-24 The father thought the crucial question was whether Jesus could heal the boy. Jesus explained that it was really whether the father believed that Jesus could heal him. This pinpointed the father's understanding of who Jesus was. The issue was not how strongly the father believed Jesus would heal his son. This is an important distinction. Modern "faith healers"usually stress the amount of trust that the person coming for help has rather than the object of that trust. Later Jesus revealed that the disciples' failure to heal the boy resulted from lack of trust in Him too (v. 29).
"One who has faith will set no limits to the power of God."220
"But the faith that has such mighty results will submit to the will of God in making its petitions. Faith-prompted prayer asks in harmony with the will of God [cf. John 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:23-24; 1 John 5:11-15]."221
The father voiced his confidence in Jesus, imperfect as it was, and asked Jesus to strengthen his faith.
"He declares that he believesand yet acknowledges himself to have unbelief. These two statements may appear to contradict each other but there is none of us that does not experience both of them in himself."222
He was an unbelieving believer, namely a believer whose faith was weak.
9:25-27 Jesus acted quickly to avoid greater publicity.
". . . the accumulation of the vocabulary of death and resurrection in verses 26-27, and the parallelism with the narrative of the raising of Jairus' daughter [5:39-42], suggest that Mark wished to allude to a death and resurrection. The dethroning of Satan is always a reversal of death and an affirmation of life."223
9:28-29 Evidently the nine disciples were ineffective because they believed that the power to cast out demons that Jesus had given them was now inherent in themselves. It was not. It was still God's power, and it came directly from Him. Therefore they needed to acknowledge their dependence on Him for power to be successful. Jesus' prayer life reflected even Hisdependence on the Father. Some cases require more spiritual power than others, and some demons are stronger than others (Matt. 12:45). Probably later copyists added "and fasting"because fasting often accompanied earnest prayer in the early church, as it did in earlier Judaism.
This incident taught the disciples that they needed to serve God in constant conscious dependence on Him that expresses itself in prayer. Prayer is a discipline that reminds disciples of and expresses their dependence on God. It also reinforced their belief in Jesus as the Messiah who can defeat Satan and so is worthy of glory, as the Transfiguration witnessed.
