Mark 9:17–27 records the incident of the father who brought his demon possessed son to the disciples of Jesus to be prayed for, and they could not cast it out (please read). Jesus had been up on the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James and John, and as they descended, they saw a big ruckus going on. The father explained to Jesus the situation and was distressed because the disciples could not heal his son who was manifesting, foaming at the mouth and writhing on the ground. He said to Jesus, “If you can do anything to help us, have compassion on us.” Jesus said, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.” The disheartened father, in tears, cried: “Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief!”
The question is: Can faith and unbelief coexist? I have pondered this, and I believe that they can.
First, I know the father had faith that his son would be healed, or he would not have brought him for prayer in the first place. But when the demon in the boy began to put on a show, manifesting and causing an uproar, it shook the disciples’ faith, and when they could not cast the devil out, it shook the father’s faith. Of course the father was besieged with doubt and unbelief when he saw that Jesus’ disciples were not able to deliver him. It is the enemy’s job to pour on negative stimuli, and if we respond with our five senses, we will begin to doubt. This is what happened here. Secondly, it took faith on the father’s part to say to Jesus, help my unbelief. He believed that Jesus could help him to believe—that was an expression of faith.
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:13: “Faith is a spirit: we having received the same spirit of faith, we believe, and therefore we speak.” Where is faith born in us? In our spirits, not in our brain, and certainly not in our emotions. 1Thessalonians 5:23 states that we are made a tri-part person: spirit, soul, and body. Obviously, the body is the outer man. The soul and spirit make up the inner man. There is a separation between soul and spirit, but it is not easily defined. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, able to divide asunder soul and spirit, just as the bone and marrow can be separated by a surgeon’s scalpel. The bone and marrow are very closely united, but a skilled surgeon can separate them. Likewise, the soul and spirit can be separated or defined by scripture pertaining to them.
The spirit is the part of us that is born again. Before salvation, the spirit is dead, that is, separated from God. We are born again in our spirits. Romans 10:8 states that the word of salvation is near us, even in our mouth and in our heart: that is, the word of faith. We are born again when we believe in our hearts—our spirits: “That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (vv.9-10).
When we believe on and confess Jesus Christ, God’s Son, risen from the dead, the spirit of Jesus, that is the sonship spirit, enters our hearts, allowing us to be able to say, Abba Father. In Romans 8:15-16, Paul called it “the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Therefore, the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.”
He wrote in Galatians 4:6 “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”
These are just a few scriptures that show that it is our spirit that is born again. I believe that the born-again spirit almost always expresses itself positively, because it is where faith resides. Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth when they shared the good news of their miraculous pregnancies and who their sons would become. Mary said: “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Jesus rejoiced in spirit (Luke 10:21).
What about the Soul?
The soul is the part of us that includes our mind, our emotions, and our will. It is the thing that we know best, because we have lived with it our entire lives, including before salvation. It is the seat of our emotions, expressing them both positively and negatively.
The soul responds to the five senses of the body, and therefore, is more prone to negative emotions such as discouragement, doubt, unbelief, and fear. In Gethsemane, Jesus faced His greatest hour of mental and physical warfare as He wrestled against drinking the cup of sufferings facing Him. Three times He prayed to His Father that the cup might pass from Him (read John 17). He knew exactly what was coming as just days before Elijah and Moses appeared unto Him on the Mount of Transfiguration and spoke of His coming death. I believe the Father allowed Him to experience the glory He had before the world began to remind Him that it would return after the sufferings of the cross.
Now in Gethsemane, several times He prayed to the Father: “Restore to me the glory I had with you before the world began.” He was overwhelmed by the sufferings He faced. He was in such agony His sweat fell to the ground as great drops of blood (Luke 22:44). God had to send an angel to strengthen Him so that He could endure. At one point, He returned to His three disciples whom He had asked to pray with Him, and found them sleeping. He said: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:19).
In the days prior to this, Jesus had told His disciples over and over that He would be arrested, tried, crucified, and on the third day, He would rise again. But now, in the throes of acute agony, I believe Satan was taunting Him that He would go through all the suffering of the cross, die a horrible death, and would not be raised again. Look at Hebrews 5:7-8:
“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;”
His soul was being bombarded with lies from the devil. This brought on fear! Jesus, the Son of God, feared, and His body reacted so violently His sweat became bloody droplets. It was the human part of Him that experienced this profound emotional and physical agony. His spirit was relating to His Father, calling him Abba, and declaring, All things are possible with you! But His soul was battling fear. We are told just how desperate His trauma was by the four kinds of prayers He prayed:
1. Prayers- deesis: Prayers for specific requests as John 17 records: For Himself to have the glory restored, for His disciples to be kept from the evil of the world, and for those who would come to believe on Him through their words, including you and me.
2. Supplications- hiketeria: To entreat, to approach with humble, earnest prayer.
3. Strong Crying- krauge: An outcry, to cry out with raised voice, especially in grief or clamor.
4. Tears- dakry The highest form of supplication.
Jesus was in the depths of anguish and sorrow as He prayed three times for the cup of suffering to pass from Him, and here we see that He cried out loudly with strong voice and tears unto Him who was able to save Him from death! We need to clarify that He was not asking to be delivered from dying. The usual Greek word for from is apo, but in this verse the Greek word translated from death is ek which means out of —He was pleading with His Father to save Him out of death!
He knew the plan was that He would die on the cross, and on the third day be raised up in glory. He had agreed with the plan, because He said, “No man takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. This commandment have I received of my Father” (Jn.10:17-18). But in His suffering, the human part of Him was crying out to His Father: “Remember, You promised to raise me up out of death!”
This is foretold in the Psalms: “For You will not leave my soul in hell (sheoul = grave); neither will You suffer Your Holy One to see corruption” (Ps.16:10). “But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave” (Ps.49:15).
It was necessary for Jesus to die, and He was willing to fulfill the plan, but His flesh was crying out to be saved, “and he was heard in that he feared.” God heard Him, because He humbled Himself unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil.2:8). He was heard, and on the third day, He was saved out of death! Not from—but out of! And because “He tasted death for every man,” we have the assurance that we also will be saved out of death! The fear of death brings bondage, because fear has torment (1Jn.4:18). But we have been delivered from the fear of death because:
1. Jesus tasted death for us and came out on the other side to glory restored (Phil.3:21).
2. Through death He destroyed him who had the power (authority) of death, the devil. (Heb.2:14).
When the Temple soldiers came to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane, Peter drew a sword and cut off the ear of one of the high priest’s servants. Jesus quickly picked up the ear and reattached it to the man’s head, rebuking Peter, saying: “Shall I not drink the cup My Father has given me to drink?” He had wrestled in agony over drinking the cup of sufferings, but He won the battle.
This is why He is able to be a merciful and faithful high priest to us. This is why He is able to be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. This is why He is able to help us through our doubts and fears. He understands what we face, because He faced it:
“For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
“Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (Heb.4:15-17). The word succour means to come to one’s aid, to rescue. Jesus is able to come to our rescue when we are suffering, because He suffered in the days of His flesh.
You Cannot Have a Sympathetic High Priest without a Suffering Savior
When in a season of suffering, and our faith is severely tried, bombarded by doubt and unbelief, let us come boldly before the throne of grace, to our compassionate High Priest, to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We will find, like the desperate father who had exhausted all means of deliverance for his son, that we too can come to Jesus and cry out: “Lord, have compassion on us—and help us!”
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