In Mark 10:35-45 Jesus teaches the twelve a very important lesson about leadership and humility. More than once there was competition among them about who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and they needed to learn that pride and ambition for position and glory do not have a place in the kingdom of heaven.
But I want to focus on the other aspect of this text. Jesus asked James and John if they were able to drink his cup and receive his baptism.
- The Baptism that Jesus Received
The cup that Jesus mentions here is, of course, the cup of suffering. The cup is often a symbol of the wrath of God both in the Old Testament and New Testament. In Psalm 60 David says, “You have made us drink the wine of confusion.” And in Psalm 75:8 Asaph talks about a cup appointed for the wicked:
For in the hand of the LORD [there is] a cup, And the wine is red; It is fully mixed, and He pours it out; Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth Drain and drink down.
In Revelation 14:10 the angel says of anyone who worships the beast that he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation. In Revelation 16:19 great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
So the cup is the cup of the wrath of God. He referred to it during his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36). It was all of the suffering that he had to endure as our substitute, but especially the cross. It was the cup of the wrath of God which he drank for us, but which the wicked must drink for themselves. That is the cup that our Lord referred to when he asked James and John, Can you drink it?
The baptism that he mentions is the same thing, suffering under the wrath of God.
Jesus refers in part to his baptism by John (Mark 1:9-11), which was a sign of his suffering. When John objected that Jesus should baptize him rather than vice versa, Jesus said that it must be done to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). It was Jesus’ initiation into his public ministry and suffering, and God confirmed it with the sign of the dove and with the voice that spoke from heaven.
But his baptism was also a present fact. The Greek has a present tense with both the word drink and baptize, so that we could translate: Are you able to drink the cup that I am drinking, and be baptized with the baptism that I am being baptized with? It is an ongoing thing, as he in all his life endured suffering for our sakes.
That baptism also pointed to the future. Jesus said in Luke 12:50: But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! The basic meaning of the word baptize is wash, and what needs to be washed is dirty. Our Lord had become sin for us and needed to be washed to become clean. The washing is in the torrents of God’s wrath (Ps 42:7).
In both of these figures of speech, therefore Jesus refers to his suffering, and in the second he relates that suffering to baptism. And that word baptism includes the sign of baptism administered by John in the past, his present suffering, and the crucial suffering still to come.
2. The Baptism James and John Could Not Receive
When James and John asked Jesus to give them the two highest positions in the kingdom next to his own, they were thinking just two things.
The first was that they must get their request in ahead of any of the other disciples. So they came to Jesus privately, when the other ten were not around, and made their request.
The form of their request was also significant. They did not begin with the specific request, but said instead, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask.” Calvin says that this reveals that they knew that there was something wrong with their request. He is probably right. But they may also have had in mind Jesus’ teaching that if they asked anything in his name they would receive. It is even possible that they were thinking of the precise words of Jesus in Matthew 18:19: Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.
Whatever the case in that regard, they did want to lock this down before the other disciples were even aware of it.
The other thing on their minds was that this would be an easy thing for Jesus to do. He was going to be a king some day, and he would have a kingdom. All he had to do was say “Yes” to their request, and they would have it made. They also believed that his word was good, that he would not go back on a promise made. They believed those things, and that was good. There was true faith in them, but there was also sin.
So it was a simple matter in their minds: be the first to ask, and get his promise.
Jesus’ answer, therefore, must have been something of a shock: you don’t know what you are asking. They thought it was a simple matter of Jesus’ making an appointment that they knew would not be reversed. Jesus tells them it’s not that simple. There is not only the granting of those positions, but also a way to them. That way is unavoidable. You can’t get to the high positions you seek without following that way.
And what is that way? It is to drink his cup and to be baptized with his baptism. The only way to high honors in the kingdom of heaven passes through suffering.
That way is a deep, a dark, and a very painful way. For Jesus it was the way of bearing the wrath of God. Even the soul of Jesus shrank from it: “Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me!” He knew far better than they the glory and honor, the joy and blessedness of glory, but there loomed between him and glory his baptism of suffering. That was so appalling to him that he was deeply distressed (Luke 12:50) and even asked that the cup be taken away.
In a more limited sense, that same way must be followed not just by Jesus, nor by those who would sit at his right hand and his left, but by all who enter the kingdom. All must take up their crosses and follow him.
But Jesus’ question was a rhetorical one. He meant to say to them, “You can’t. You can neither drink my cup nor endure my baptism. They would destroy you.”
Truly James and John did not know what they were asking. Nor did they know what they were saying when they answered Jesus so confidently, “We can.” The cup perhaps puzzled them, but the baptism probably meant to them what they had heard of Jesus’ baptism by John. That was easy: a mere matter of some water and some words – whatever words John used. They must later have looked back at this moment with acute embarrassment: “How could we have been so foolish?”
3. The Baptism James and John Would Receive
If it is true that Jesus’ question in verse 38 is a rhetorical one, how can it be that he goes on to say in verse 39 that they will indeed drink his cup and receive his baptism?
There are two answers to that question.
The first is that they will be with him in his baptism. They do not receive it personally, in the sense that they suffer the full weight of God’s anger like him. But they are one with him. Looking at it from a different perspective, from the dogmatical one, in his suffering he was their federal head, so that what he suffered God received as if they also had suffered it.
This is the teaching of Romans 6, a very important passage for understanding the meaning of baptism. Paul talks there about our union with Christ in his sufferings. He says first that we died with him. We were baptized into his death (v.3). baptism into death (v.4) and united together in the likeness of his death (v.5). We died with Christ (v.8). He also says that we were buried with him (v.4) Finally, he says that we were crucified with him: “Our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with (v.6).”
And this suffering with Christ is closely connected with baptism. We were baptized into Christ Jesus. That means that we were baptized into his death. We were buried with him through baptism. We receive his baptism then because we are in him. His crucifixion, death and burial are all ours.
But this being dead and buried with Christ in baptism, also means that we live with him. Verse 4 says it in so many words. Verse 5 says it again. “So we believe that having died with Christ we shall also live with him (v. 8).” “We are alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord (v. 11). “
Colossians 2:11 says the same thing.
It’s the same thing that Jesus says in Mark 10 about drinking his cup and receiving his baptism. He did not go alone into that baptism but took us with him. Having gone through that darkness and come out into the light of glory, he also takes us out into the same light.
So that’s first. James and John must be dead and buried with him in baptism. So must we. Baptism signifies it.
The second part of that baptism is partaking of the sufferings of Christ. We do not personally experience the wrath of God on Jesus Christ. He endured it for us, and we are so much one with him that it can even be said that we go through it. But there is a way in which we do experience his baptism personally. We become partakers of his sufferings. When we suffer for righteousness’ sake, then we are being baptized with his baptism. He said that if the world hated him it would also hate us, and if the world persecuted him it would also persecute us. After he had gone away into heaven, James and John did partake of his baptism in that way. James became a martyr (Acts 12:1,2), and John was banished to Patmos (Revelation 1:9).
We may take that one step farther. We also feel the anger of God when we sin. Though it is not the full burden of God’s wrath, and though God uses it to correct us rather than destroy us, we are touched by the same fire of wrath that consumed our Lord Jesus Christ.
So baptism means these two things according to Mark 10. It means that we are dead and buried with our Lord Jesus Christ, and that, because we are dead and buried with him, we shall also be raised with him in newness of life. It is a sign of life and hope and joy. It is God’s promise that he will bring us safely through death into glory. It is probably not for any one of us to sit at either his right hand or his left, but still there is for us an eternal weight of glory far surpassing anything we can imagine here.
The second thing it means is that we will be, indeed must be, partakers of his suffering. We must take up the cross and follow in his footsteps. There is no other way to enter the kingdom, not to speak even of sitting at his right or left hand. You cannot be one with Christ and escape suffering. When you are baptized and when you witness the sign of baptism, and when you present your children for baptism, then the Lord Jesus Christ is saying to you, “You will indeed drink my cup and be baptized with my baptism.” To dwell in the house of the Lord forever, we must all pass through the valley of the shadow of death, endure the hatred of the world, and bear many things for his sake. It behooves us to count the cost.