Matthew 26:41

Matthew 26:41. Watch and pray. The care for them, which was involved in the rebuke even, now becomes most prominent. They needed then, and, as the original implies what is habitual, always to watch, to be on their guard, as well as to pray. And that for themselves: that ye enter not into temptation. This includes an entertaining of the temptation. Others explain it: a temptation greater than ye can bear. Luke, whose account is at this point more condensed, inserts this admonition in a different place (Matthew 22:40; Matthew 22:46).

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. ‘The spirit,' i.e., the human spirit, but only as quickened by the Holy Spirit. Of itself it could have no such willingness. In the Epistles the word ‘flesh ‘generally means the whole depraved condition of man; but here, where it is contrasted with the human spirit, it probably refers to the material part of man's nature. The human spirit (when acted upon by the Holy Spirit), is willing to do the present duty, but the flesh, the body, which is weak (and weakened through sin), hinders and often produces failure. That was the case with the disciples. Nor is an application to our Lord forbidden. In Him, though weighed down by sorrow, so that the flesh almost gave way to death in its weakness (‘even unto death'), the willingness of the spirit triumphed. Possibly there is a hint of the conflict in believers between the ‘spirit' and the depraved nature (‘flesh'), even though in this case its actings were through the weary body.