Years ago, while preaching through the Gospel of Mark, I used the commentaries by Hendriksen. He is excellent. He pointed out a parallel in the text—one that I picked up and ran with.
I was reminded of it again this week while listening to Chris preach at our prayer service.
When Jesus looked upon the demon-possessed boy and heard the father recount his son’s tragic history, He saw Himself.
He perceived a profound parallel between this broken earthly family and the eternal Triune family.
I was struck when I first read that, but it has continued to captivate me as I’ve meditated on it.
Here is a son in the arms of his father. And here is a father crying out, “This is my son!”
Jesus had just come down from the mountain of transfiguration, where the Father had declared, “This is my beloved Son!”
Here, too, was a boy assaulted by Satan. When Jesus asked how long this had been happening, the heartbreaking reply came: “Since childhood.”
This child had not known the simple pleasures and innocent joys of a normal childhood. His father had not been able to watch his son play in delight.
Instead, he had witnessed a horror story since infancy. From his earliest days, this boy had been targeted—hunted—by evil spirits.
Jesus knew that experience. He remembered how, from the announcement of His birth, the King of Darkness filled the heart of Herod with murder. He remembered how, even from childhood, He too had been pursued, sought after, and marked by Satanic schemes. He had not enjoyed a normal Jewish boyhood. He had lived in hiding, in Egypt—the land of Israel’s former slavery—surrounded by the idolatrous signs of demonic power and the pervasive influence of evil.
The boy child had one saving grace: a father who loved him. The father described the demon’s murderous attempts—how it had thrown the boy into fire and water to destroy him. And yet the boy lived. He had a father who rescued him, who doused the flames, who pulled him from the depths. The jaws of death snapped but never prevailed.
Jesus knew the saving hand of a loving Father. His Father in heaven had protected Him as a helpless child, delivering Him from Herod’s assassins. From Heaven, He stirred Jesus' earthly father, Joseph. He moved him inwardly, to move the family to Egypt. Later He returned them safely to Nazareth.
Even in adulthood, when crowds sought to kill Him prematurely, Jesus was preserved by His Father's providential hand.
Jesus saw in this boy a reflection of Himself—momentarily under the grip of the enemy. And He knew what that would mean for Himself. He, too, would one day be given over the that grip.
Jesus rebuked the demon and cast it out, never to return. Thus foreshadowing His own victory—when Satan would be finally rebuked at the resurrection.
The boy cried out, convulsed violently, and lay motionless. Pale and lifeless, he seemed dead. The crowd concluded: “He is dead.” Word spread rapidly through the amassed crowd. Deliverance had cost him his life. Evil had triumphed.
And the father? Silent. Likely breathless. Was this the end? Had Jesus failed him? What would he tell his wife, the boy’s suffering mother? "Was it not better to have a demon-ravaged son than a dead one? Was my faith too weak to claim the promise, ‘All things are possible for one who believes'? I had believed!"
But this was not the end. He was not dead—and Life stood beside him.
Jesus stooped down, reached out His hand, and took hold of the boy—just as his earthly father had done countless times before. And He raised him up. As the boy stood, vitality returned. He breathed. His color came back. He stood on his own feet. He was free—restored to the arms of his rejoicing father.
Jesus knew His day would come. A decisive act of warfare, to break the dragon’s grip on His children and brothers. He would cry out, breathe His last, and faint lifeless. And the crowd would say, “He is dead.” Hope would falter, for “He is dead”.
The heel was bitten by the great Snake, and the Son is killed.
But like the boy, Jesus would rise. The Father's hand would reach down, take Him by the hand, and raise Him. His heart would be glad, His whole being rejoice, and His flesh dwell secure. He would not be abandoned to Sheol or his flesh see corruption. He would stand, walk, arise — and go back to His Father.
Yet a great chasm of difference lies between Jesus and the boy. Both were sons—but only Jesus is the Son. The boy was a child of Adam, under Adam’s curse. Jesus was no such child, but a brand new Adam; Head of a new race, not a member of the old one.
The boy, for all his innocence, was still a sinner. Guilty, defiled, subject to death. Jesus had no mere childish innocence—He possessed holiness refined in the furnace of affliction and temptation. His sinlessness was not fragile like Adam’s; it was forged and unbreakable. Jesus was not under sin’s condemnation, death’s power, or Satan’s authority. He could not be possessed by the Evil One.
The boy represents us all—lost, broken, guilty.
But Jesus is the Savior. He is so named Jesus, “for He will save His people from their sins.”
He was like us in every respect—yet utterly unlike us in this: He alone is Redeemer.
What none of us could be, He was.
What we could never do, He did.
What was required for our salvation, He fulfilled completely.
Our Jesus not only relates to us—but surpasses us. And through Him, we are saved.