This kind can only come out by prayer
The cup that cannot pass
(This is our second post working through material from David Crump’s Knocking on Heaven’s Door on Prayer and the New Testament. Posts 1, and 3.)
Is there a correlation between faith, its quantity or quality, and the efficacy of prayer or the reliable occurrence of miracles? Experience suggests that such easy correlations are always evasive, elusive, and perhaps maddeningly so. We want a relationship between faith, prayer, and outcomes, and our expectations are constantly thwarted by reality.
Crump examines a few different lines of evidence. He draws upon Van Der Loos and Gerhardsson for their analyses of Jesus' miracles in the gospels. Jesus' performance of non-therapeutic miracles (e.g. "nature miracles") are not occasioned by faith, but seem to happen "in spite of the disciples' lack of faith" (p.42). On the other hand, therapeutic miracles occur as Jesus freely and prodigally responds to practically anybody coming and asking. No apparent seeker is turned away, and the petitioner's faith is not apparently a requisite. Nor do miracles guarantee faith in response. So "faith itself is not the cause of miracles" (p.45) nor is it the guaranteed result of them.
Secondly, Crump looks more closely at Mark 9.14-29, the healing of a demon-possessed boy. The parallel passages (Matt 17.14-21, Luke 9.37-43) refocus the matter. Matthew, on the disciples' lack of faith; Mark, on the failure to pray; in Luke, the failure/accusation seems even less clear. The rebuke in Mark 9.19 though has its focus/target on the 'generation’ - Jesus' opponents, and their "cynical pursuit of miracles, not as demonstrations of the kingdom's power within their own lives but as evidence subject to their scrutiny" (p.48). The father figure is not a genuine seeker, on this reading, but a cynical tester.
What, precisely, is happening in v23-24? Whose faith? What is the father asking for? In v23, is it the faith of the petitioner that's in view? Or the miracle worker? (i.e. Jesus). Crump, following Marshall, understands "Everything is possible for one who believes" to be Jesus referring to himself, but the father misunderstanding him to be referring to himself. It is Jesus' faith that matters, which is perfect; The father's faith is not just weak, it is cynical and self-seeking; Jesus acts despite the father's faith. In this light, the request of v24 is not for 'more faith', but still the father looking for a miracle to help him believe. He requests a miracle, a sign, as a prerequisite for his faith. Jesus' healing of the boy doesn't depend upon the father's faith at all, it happens in spite of him.
What then of the private conversation in Mark 9.28-29? The faith comments earlier in this story refer to the crowd, and cynical opponents of Jesus. The disciples' problem isn't their faith, quality or quantity. The only faith that matters here is the miracle worker's, i.e. Jesus' faith. The disciples' failure is not a failure of faith, but of prayer. The implication is simple : they didn't pray. They relied on themselves and presumed power, instead of prayerful dependence upon God. Miracles are the work of God, not the work of believers.
Summarising up to this point, Crump concludes: (1) Jesus looks for faith from petitioners, but for their benefit, not his; both God (the Father) and Jesus freely can, and do, work miracles not in response to petitioners' faith; (2) Jesus is the model of faithfulness, who makes all things possible; (3) God is free to provide miracles for those who lack faith, and free to withhold miracles from those who lack prayer; "miracles do not happen because we pray; they happen because God chooses to hear our prayers and graciously respond" (p.53).
This chapter moves to its end by considering Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Here we see the truly faithful one wrestling in agony; he recognises that all things are possible with God, but introduces a new key element, "if you are willing". It is the will of God that changes our whole vista here. "Nothing is beyond God's ability, but some things are outside God's purposes" (p.59) - nowhere is this more clear than in the passion of Christ. His suffering is willed by a God powerful enough to avoid it, loving enough to undertake it. Our faith must be stretched to believe that God is capable of answering even our greatest prayers, indeed even beyond our prayers, and yet tempered by the trust in his good and sovereign will, to accept answers that are 'no', and even involve our suffering.