NOTES for Mat 17:14-27
Could it be that the disciples did not have faith even as large as a mustard seed, since they could not cast the demon out of the boy? Yet we have read that they had succeeded before: the Lord Himself had given them authority over unclean spirits. Apparently, the power of faith is not merely the degree of our certainty about one truth or another concerning God or the world. The Lord binds faith and prayer, that is, communion with God, into a single whole. This means that the issue is not certainty but closeness to God, an inner unity with Him. It is no accident that the Lord mentions fasting: when fasting, a person draws the strength of life not from food but from communion with God and lives by His life. Such unity is not given to us once and for all. Today we may be closer to God and tomorrow farther away (although this is not always determined by our subjective feelings). Consequently, what separates faith from unbelief is not doubt about God’s existence, but an inner closedness to Him: prayerlessness and the absence of striving toward Him.