Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

the flesh profiteth nothing--Much of His discourse was about "flesh"; but flesh as such, mere flesh, could profit nothing, much less impart that life which the Holy Spirit alone communicates to the soul. the words that I speak . . . are spirit and . . . life--The whole burden of the discourse is "spirit," not mere flesh, and "life" in its highest, not its lowest sense, and the words I have employed are to be interpreted solely in that sense.