Chapter # 10 Paragraph # 5 Study # 4
October 17, 2023
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(440)
1901 ASV
10:38 But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?
10:39 And they said unto him, We are able. And Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall drink; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized:
10:40 but to sit on my right hand or on [my] left hand is not mine to give; but [it is for them] for whom it hath been prepared.
10:41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be moved with indignation concerning James and John.
10:42 And Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones exercise authority over them.
10:43 But it is not so among you: but whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister;
10:44 and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all.
10:45 For the Son of man also came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
- I. Round Two: The Kingdom's Requirement Of Servanthood (10:32-45).
- A. Part One: The King's Example; 10:32-34.
- B. Part Two: The Disciples' Complete Absence Of Understanding; 10:35-45.
- 1. The "approach" of James and John to Jesus.
- 2. That it is James and John who are directly involved as "the sons of Zebedee" is also to be regarded with some thought.
- 3. The Kingdom and man's ambition.
- 4. The Kingdom and God's requirement for man's ambition.
- a. Jesus responds with the declaration that James and John "do not (emphatic "ouk") know (have a clue; "oida") what you are asking for yourselves".
- 1) This declaration is rooted in two expressed realities.
- a) The previous texts regarding the disciples lack of comprehension of Jesus' coming death and third-day resurrection tell us that they had no idea of the actual nature of the Kingdom as sacrificial.
- b) The culture of the teaching of the Jews had no place for the actual concept of "sacrifice" as an essential of the Kingdom.
- i. Their immersion in "sacrifice" by virtue of the constant sacrifices of the temple priests had only required of them "sacrifices" that they made out of their abundance -- with special adjustments for the poor.
- ii. Their grasp of "sacrifice" did not reach into them as "total loss".
- i) The "tithe" was seen as the only real constant, and it was only ten percent.
- ii) This explains their shock at Jesus' declaration that the rich could only "be saved" (10:26) by an exceptional work of God Himself (10:27).
- iii) Even the claim by Peter ("we have left everything") is about sacrifices of possessions, not oneself, and it had to be buttressed with promises of a "hundred fold" return in this present time.
- iv) Even Jesus' words in 8:35 did not register beyond sacrifices of stuff.
- v) At a later time, the disciples seem to have realized that their physical deaths might be involved as the boasts that "I will die for you" reveal; but those were empty boasts, not expressions of a commitment to the Kingdom's requirement of total selflessness.
- vi) This also exalts Paul's exhortation in Romans 12:1-2 to the level of "Kingdom Characteristics".
- 2) Jesus' choice of words in "you do not know" indicates a lack of the comprehensive grasp regarding the Kingdom's most crucial characteristic.
- b. Then He asks, "Are you able to drink the cup which I am drinking or to be baptized the baptism which I am being baptized?"
- 1) In Mark's record of this "cup" (14:36 and context) he records Jesus' declaration of the deep level of "grief in His soul" (14:34).
- a) Luke's Gospel declares "bloody perspiration" (Luke 22:44) and an angel to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43).
- b) And all of the records tell of the complete obliviousness of the disciples who go to sleep.
- 2) This question identifies "baptism" according to its "regular nature", i.e., "being immersed into" so that "identity with" is the outcome.
- a) Jesus' "baptism" was circumstantially the cross.
- b) But the "identity" issue of the cross was "punishment for wrong doing" and the New Testament claim is that Jesus was fully identified with our sin(s) so that His death was rooted in His having become Sin for us that we might become "righteous" in the reckoning of God.
- c. And, finally, He declares that James and John will, in fact, participate at this level, but that even that will not make it possible to be given their ambition.
