17:1-9 What is the significance of what happened to Jesus here?
17:1-9 What is the significance of what happened to Jesus here? This is called the transfiguration of Jesus. Being transfigured like this was a preview of Christ’s future glory in God’s eternal kingdom (cp Mk 9:1-8; Lk 9:27-36). We learn in Lk 9:31 that Christ’s death was predetermined by Him and God both, because that is what Moses and Elijah discussed with Him (cp Jn 10:17-18; He 2:14-15). The transfiguration also fulfilled Christ’s prophecy in Mt 16:28 (cp Mt 16:28). Peter, James and John were the ones referred to here. They were eyewitnesses to the transfiguration and saw Jesus as He will be in the eternal kingdom (cp Jn 1:14; 2Pe 1:16-18). See also comments on Mt 16:28 and 2Pe 1:16-19.
This scripture has been used many times to teach that believers must first pray and fast before attempting to cast out demons like Jesus did in V18, but that is not correct. To properly understand Jesus’ saying here we need to study the context in which He said it. It was the disciples’ lack of faith, as Mt 17:20 clearly teaches, that enabled the demon to resist them, and Jesus was pointing here to the future ministry of the disciples and their need for faith to perform His work. Such faith only comes by constant contact with the Lord through prayer and fasting, and abiding in His word, but it does not have to be any greater, metaphorically speaking, than a tiny mustard seed for it to work. This is for our admonition too. It stresses the importance of our own Christian walk being one of prayer and fasting and abiding in God’s word to do His work. Then it only remains for us to exercise our faith by acting upon His word. We do not have to specifically fast and pray in order to be able to cast out demons - we simply cast them out in Jesus’ name by the authority of His word (cp Mk 16:17-18).
The word free here means exempt from an obligation. So what Jesus is in effect saying is that as earthly kings do not tax their own sons, He, as God’s Son, should be exempt from the temple tax which was levied on behalf of God (cp Ex 30:12-13). But to show His submission to ruling authority, Jesus paid the tax for Himself and Peter (cp Ro 13:1-7; Tit 3:1; 1Pe 2:13-17).
Jesus caused it to happen. The fact that He said it would be there caused it to be there. Jesus spoke it into being the same as He spoke everything else that did not previously exist into being (cp Jn 1:3; Ro 4:17; Eph 3:9; Col 1:16-17; He 1:1-2; 11:3). Causing the money to be in the fish’s mouth is one of the miracles Jesus did that He said Christians could also do (cp Jn 14:12).