He Spoke to Spirits

Mark 9:25 (NET) Now when Jesus saw that a crowd was quickly gathering, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 It shrieked, threw him into terrible convulsions, and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He is dead!” 27 But Jesus gently took his hand and raised him to his feet, and he stood up.

Gathering crowd

Instead of waiting for the crowd to gather as a showman would, Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit before the crowd had a chance to gather fully. Jesus was never a showman. He gained a lot of attention because of his tremendous wisdom, power and authority. But, he never sought attention.

The unclean spirit

The spirit is described as unclean. Whatever the uncleanness was, the symptoms in the boy were the inability to speak or hear. The demoniac in Mark 5 also had an unclean spirit. His symptoms were hanging around dead bodies in tombs, cutting himself, disturbing the peace and super strength. There are many kinds of uncleanness and many kinds of unclean spirits.

Jesus often spoke to this kind of spirit to get rid of it. They always obeyed him. The disciples tried and failed. In the next post, we will look at the cause of their failure.