<p>17:16&nbsp;<em>So I brought him to your disciples-</em>&nbsp;Lk. 9:40 adds that he &quot;besought&quot; them, he begged them, to heal the child. According to Mark, when the father of the dumb child brought him to the disciples, he tells Jesus that &ldquo;I brought unto thee my son&rdquo;, but the disciples couldn&rsquo;t cure him (Mk. 9:17 RV); he perceived Jesus as His followers, just as folk do today. The Lord had earlier given them power over &ldquo;unclean spirits&rdquo; (10:8)- but still they couldn&rsquo;t heal him. The power given to them was therefore potential power, but it was no guarantee that they would actually do the works. Alternatively, we could conclude that that power was only given to them temporarily. Or, that there is a difference between the twelve, and the more general &ldquo;disciples&rdquo; / followers of Jesus. However it would have been strange indeed if the man had not brought his son to the group of the twelve in the hope of healing. And it is the disciples, presumably the twelve, who then come to the Lord and ask why they could not perform the cure (:19).</p>
<p><em>But they could not cure him</em>- They had no&nbsp;<em>dunamai&nbsp;</em>(possibility); Mk. 9:18 uses a different word- according to Mark, the man said that they &ldquo;could not&rdquo; using&nbsp;<em>ischuo&nbsp;</em>(more carrying the sense of physical power). The man therefore bewailed at least twice that the disciples couldn&rsquo;t help; and he asks the Lord Jesus to help &ldquo;if You can&rdquo; (Mk. 9:22-&nbsp;<em>dunamai</em>). They did have the possibility; but they lacked the faith to actualize it (Mt. 10:8; Lk. 10:19,20 &ldquo;I give unto you power&hellip; over all the power of the enemy&hellip; the spirits are subject unto you&rdquo;). We too have been given potentials which require faith to exploit, and our failures to do so leave people with the impression that the Lord Himself is limited- for, like the disciples, we are His representatives in this world, and people coming to us are effectively coming to Him.</p>
<p>Mk. 9:23 adds that the father of the child was asked whether he could believe [i.e., that Jesus could cast out the demon]. The man replied that yes, although his faith was weak, he believed [that Jesus could cast out the demon]. His faith was focused on by Jesus, rather than his wrong beliefs. Faith above all was what the Lord was focusing on&nbsp;<em>in the first instance</em>. Mark also adds the detail that the Lord &ldquo;asked his father: How long has this been happening to him? And he said: From a child. And often it has cast him both into the fire and into the waters to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus said to him: Rather, if you can! All things are possible to him that believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out, and said: I believe! Help my disbelief!&rdquo;. It is a feature of our nature that we can believe and yet disbelieve at the same time. We frequently commit the horror of limiting God in our attitude to prayer. All too often we see ourselves in the man who believed and yet still had unbelief: &quot;If thou (Jesus) canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible&quot; (Mk. 9:22,23). The man thought that Christ's power to help was limited: 'If you can do anything to help, well, please do'. The Lord Jesus turned things right round: 'If you can believe, anything's possible' - in other words, God can&nbsp;do anything, but His ability to directly respond to some particular need is limited by our faith, not by any intrinsic lack of ability within Himself. The man hadn't thought about this. He saw God as sometimes able to help a bit; Christ turned the man's words round to show that God's power is infinite, limited only by our faith. The word &quot;believe&quot; in Mk. 9:23 is omitted from many texts. Thus we could paraphrase: &ldquo;Regarding that &quot; If you can...&quot; which you said- as regards that, well, all things are possible&rdquo;. This is&nbsp;the view of F.B. Meyer and Marvin Vincent. The RV reads: &ldquo;And Jesus said unto him, If thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth&rdquo;. It is clear enough that God at times limits His power. He&nbsp;<em>could</em>&nbsp;save everybody, indeed He wishes to do this, yet He allows human freewill to be genuine and meaningful, to the extent that not all will be saved. Israel in the wilderness &ldquo;limited the Holy One of Israel&quot;. He was left by Israel as a mighty man powerless to save. The Greek word&nbsp;<em>dunatos</em>&nbsp;translated 16 times &quot;mighty&quot; is also 13 times translated &quot;possible&quot;. God's might is His possibility. But our freewill can limit that might. All things are possible to God, and therefore all things are possible to the believer- but if the believer has no faith, then, those possibilities of God will not occur (Lk. 1:49; Mk. 9:23; 10:27). And so I have no problem with a God who limits His omniscience.</p>