It is reported in two of the gospels that Jesus said, “The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”. The two reports are word for word.
Matthew 26:41 (NIV) "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
Mark 14:38 (NIV) “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
After the last supper, Jesus led that sombre group of disciples – minus Judas – to Gethsemane, which means “oil press”, but I’ll leave that for another blog. Here Jesus will wrestle in prayer in the greatest spiritual battle of His life thus far. The Gethsemane scenes are harrowing and filled with such intense, exhausting anguish that He sweats blood. The Lord shares with His friends His deep sorrow. They sense the approaching dread but are still struggling to understand it all. They have no idea how shocking and faith destroying the next hours will be for them. They fall asleep praying, leaving Jesus to battle on alone. It is a long dark night of the soul, with a hastily convened mock trial, a vicious scourging and the most humiliating and cruel execution by the end of the next day.
Once that night Jesus returns to the group, all now sleeping, and said, “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me a single hour …?” It’s disappointed rebuke … they had no idea. And then He said those words, "Watch and pray so that you (too) will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." And He goes again to pray alone to deal with the flesh. Jesus needed intercessors. We all do at times. But that statement, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”, is telling. It has troubled many a scholar and preacher over the centuries. Of course, logically speaking, Jesus is not referring to Holy Spirit – He is referring to Himself. He is committed to doing the Father’s will and fulfilling His redemptive mission. But He is facing the fiercest moment of His life He has ever known – temptation on a scale that dwarfed those 40 days in the wilderness three years earlier. This is the greatest, most crucial moment in history … He wants to obey, but the flesh recoils in utter horror and fear … the flesh is weak in that it cannot yet support the willing spirit.
The narratives give us no answer, or explanation, about exactly what is this weakness of the flesh – Jesus never explains it. He just admitted that it was a critical issue that should never be underestimated; that this weakness of the flesh opens the door to temptation. Jesus issues the same warning to the disciples (to stay alert and watchful) as God issued to Cain. Yielding to temptation was Cain’s signal failure - the power of flesh overwhelms his spirit. It led to murder.
James 1:14-15 (NIV)
“… but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
Oh, there is so much to unpack here – but we haven’t the space. But note my emphasis here. In short, the desires of the flesh give temptation its power. Soon, enough power develops and multiplies. That power intensifies the longer we entertain those evil desires, and so, generating such force as to overpower our sanctified spirit. Jesus knew this, well. This was the battle in the garden. This Gethsemane scene highlights the battle between the inner person (the centre of our will), and the outer person, the bodily flesh with its more obvious inherent weakness. There are several spirit-flesh discussions in the New Testament (1 Cor 7:34; 2 Cor 7:1) from which we learn much about how our sinful flesh takes a lot of work to defeat. Jesus was sinless, but this did not stop the enemy working hard to get at His flesh so as to overwhelm His spirit. This is at the core of all temptation – it wants to go to flesh as fast as possible. When it does, we lose. And we know!
How did Jesus win that battle in Gethsemane?
He prayed in His spirit, focused in spirit, pressed on in spirit until the flesh could fight and overwhelm His spirit no more. This is the power of humility. He focused on the Father, on the throne and His spirit gained tremendous ascendancy over flesh. This is our battle every day in prayer, too. Too often we stop praying before our spirit has what I call a strong ascendancy in our tripartite being. This is where our soul and flesh taught how to respond to the leadership of that sanctified part of us – our spirit. And this is a big battle, as Jesus stated in Gethsemane.
The Apostle Paul celebrates this discovery and experience …
Romans 8:2 (NIV)
“… because through Christ Jesus the law of the (Holy) Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death (which is still at work in our soul and flesh and produces death).”
Romans 8:12-14 (NIV)
“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.”
Living according to the flesh is allowing temptation to overwhelm your spirit and keep its willingness inoperable. It is not by Holy Spirit we put to death the misdeeds of the flesh (as the NIV translation suggests above – there is no “the” in the text here denoting person), it is by means of our sanctified spirit gaining ascendancy in prayer over our sinful flesh and crucifying any unholy desire that attracts temptation like rotten fruit in the hot sun will surely attract flies and vermin. This is exactly what Jesus did that night (He didn’t need to crucify any sinful desire, of course) but in prayer He rose up in spirit to humble the (susceptible to temptation) flesh unto obedience. Of course, Holy Spirit does help us, but He doesn’t do it all for us. He will support and empower what we seek to do in spirit.
Pray into these things. Keep praying until you sense your spirit rising up in a holy, powerful righteousness that flesh simply must obey.
That’s the way it is for born agains.
Ps Milton