2. The Judge Judged in Our Place | Karl Barth | Page 267 | Part III

"He had made His cause theirs. He had promised that where two or three of them were gathered in His name He Himself would be there in the midst (Mt. 1820).

...the event which was about to break in all its malice there might come the suggestion of an easier way for Himself and His disciples than that which He had entered.

He knows that man is lost unless he is in some sense aware of it. He knows that for Himself and His disciples calling on God is the only way to meet and defeat it. For the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Mk. 1438). The flight of the disciples at the crucial moment (Mk. 1450) and the denial of Peter (Mk. 14661.) will show how weak the flesh is, how quickly they will find and take the easier way, how necessary it was for them to obey His call to watch and pray. For His sake and for their own they ought not to have left Him alone when He went forward to pray."