The Flesh Indeed is Weak

Matthew and Mark, relating Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane, have him returning briefly at one point to find his companions sleeping.  He upbraids them with “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (KJV).  Other translations try to substitute some such notion as “human nature is weak,” but the Greek root (which we usually present as “sarc-“) makes the bodily association plain.

Christianity endlessly repeats Jesus’ phrase—“the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”—but in reality Christianity has little use for it.  Christian lore has much more affinity for a raw-boned character such as an idealized Paul, able to undergo amazing physical trials, but only insofar as his more-or-less willing spirit allows him.  Such an approach would be more accurately phrased as “the flesh indeed is willing, but the spirit is weak.”

(To be plain, the “spirit” reference in Gethsemane has no divine implications, especially in light of John’s statement that before the crucifixion “the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (7:39).  The “willing” spirits of Peter, James, and John in the garden were their own.)

We are sinful because our fleshly—and I mean fleshly—natures issue forth behaviors and utterances that our conscious selves can scarcely own.  Jesus is at great pains to declare that sinful behavior comes from the heart and not the mind.  Consider dietary laws; the Jew is not righteous, according to Jesus, because the Jew adheres to dietary restrictions, but rather because in those and all other matters his behavior is characterized by an upwelling of innate benign impulses.

The same general characterization of righteousness applies to the Christian as to the Jew, and indeed is irrespective of religion.  The very concept of religion is meaningless in the teachings of Jesus, because the foundation of the teachings of Jesus is the fleshly, the (for want of a better word at present) “infra-cognitive”—that is, that which precedes and undergirds all concepts.