Mark 10:39

They did not know what they were asking. This was no question for the suffering Son of Man on His way to the cross. Rather — could they drink of what it was His to drink? Could they be baptized with the baptism that was before Him? Sadly, ambition even in the things of the kingdom is soon followed by confidence in self: "We are able." What an answer! Need we wonder that these two also forsook Jesus and fled in the hour of the cross? Yet the Lord seals their answer with His promise of His own bitter portion, inward and outward.

The word is used to picture the overwhelming sufferings the Lord Jesus endured, to finish the work He came to earth to do... He asked the sons of Zebedee if they could drink that cup, and be baptized with the baptism He was to be baptized with. They did not know the depths of suffering the question involved, and they said they could.

There was a cup He alone could drink; when it is a question of atonement He is all alone in that. His cup was beyond the power of all created intelligences to share. One only, Himself alone, could drink it. He suffered for sins at the hands of God. He suffered for righteousness at the hands of man. The atoning sufferings of Christ must always stay distinct.

They would drink His cup. That cup held more than the suffering from God; it held sufferings from men, rejection, reproach, and much else besides. In His rejection and sufferings from men they had to enter in. And to this we are also called. "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you might follow in His steps" (1 Peter 2:21).

Christ's humbling is so complete, His self-surrender so full, that He says: I have no place to give in My kingdom. It is not Mine to give, except as My Father may desire. And this is the One who, by His personal glory, had perfect knowledge of everything and the right to everything. But I have something to give you now: it is suffering. Yes, suffering for and with Him is what Christ gives His servants now — a high privilege... The highest honour we can have here is suffering with and for Christ... He took in two different kinds of suffering: the cup, which is inward suffering, and the baptism, which pictures what we are plunged into outwardly. The two cover every kind of trial, inward and outward.

Yet He did not explain what they did not understand. They would only learn it through hard experience. They would indeed drink the same cup as He did, and be baptized with the same baptism. That meant being identified with Him in His suffering and death. This was not because they were able for it, but because His grace would sustain them in it. Later, looking back, they would deeply realize this, and marvel that they had been so ignorant.

They said they were able to follow Him to death. They are two of the most honoured names of the New Testament. They gave up all to follow the Lord. James was the first of the twelve apostles to die a martyr's death. John was the last to die, after his sufferings on the lonely island of Patmos... They had a Master who knew them better than they knew themselves. He used their fall, like Peter's fall later, for nobler work and a greater place in His testimony than they had imagined or their faith had yet laid hold of.