20:17–19 Jesus has previously predicted his death at 16:21; 17:12; and 17:22–23. This prophecy is more detailed: Jesus will be betrayed, condemned, mocked, flogged, and crucified, then raised on the third day. Beyond the obvious problems of betrayal by a companion, of injustice, and of physical agony, the mockery and crucifixion will be profoundly shameful, which is especially daunting in that culture, where honor is so important. The prophecy should erase the disciples’ belief in Jesus as a military Messiah, but the next paragraph shows they cannot shake their convictions.

20:20–28 Verse 20 seems like a sharp break, as the disciples disappear and a mother takes the stage, but the disciples’ silence is more apparent than real. They objected when Jesus first predicted his death (16:22; 17:23). We can read the question from the mother of James and John as more disregard for Jesus’ prophecies.

The mother of James and John boldly asks Jesus to place her sons at his right and left in his kingdom (20:21). The next time we read of anyone at Jesus’ right and left, it is the two insurrectionists crucified beside him. The mother of James and John thinks of anything but that. Right and left are positions of honor beside the king.

The question is foolish and selfish, yet it is born of faith. She asks for positions of honor in Jesus’ kingdom because she believes he is the king and will reign. Faith leads her ask which thrones they will occupy. On the other hand, she thinks he will reign soon. She ignores the word of the cross and hopes for their supremacy over the other disciples.

Since Jesus replies to James and John rather than to their mother, we assume that they have prompted their mother to petition him. Jesus both corrects and questions them: “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They wrongly claim, “We are able” (v. 22).

To share in Christ’s glory is to participate in his suffering, as Jesus says when he asks if they can “drink the cup that I am to drink.” A “cup” signifies suffering, and often wrath, retribution, and punishment, in the OT (Isa. 51:17–18; Jer. 25:27–29; Revelation 18). The Lord tells Jeremiah to declare judgment using the metaphor of a bitter cup: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them” (Jer. 25:15–16).

In Gethsemane, Jesus twice asks if “this cup” could pass him by as he faces the cross. Once again, the cup represents the wrath of God. This time Jesus drinks the cup of God’s wrath for his people. James and John cannot drink that cup. Their confidence is groundless, and they quickly fail when a cup finds them later as soldiers arrest Jesus in Gethsemane. Later, however, James and John do drink. James is an early Christian martyr (Acts 12:1–2), and in old age John endures prison and exile (Rev. 1:9). In Matthew, however, the brothers are immature. In his patience, Jesus lets them abide in their ignorance. They will drink, he says, but the Father must decide who takes what rank in the kingdom (Matt. 20:23). The interchange reveals both Jesus’ patience with his disciples and his subordination to the Father. That theme is prominent in John but present here in Matthew as well.

When the other ten overhear this conversation, they become indignant, so Jesus calls them together for instruction. He first contrasts the Gentiles’ notion of greatness with his own: “The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them . . .” (v. 25). Jesus is describing, not accusing. Rulers measure greatness by the number of servants. The Romans counted the slaves one possessed; Westerners now look to organization charts. God measures differently.

The next four lines follow the conventions of poetic parallelism.

    Whoever would be great among you

    must be your servant,337

    and whoever would be first among you

    must be your slave,

    even as the Son of Man came not to be served

    but to serve,

    and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Notice the progress: the great one is a servant; the first is a slave; and the Son of Man, the greatest of all, gives his life as a ransom. The last line is climactic.

The passage is as theologically rich as any in Matthew. Four topics demand comment. First, Jesus places his standards in opposition to the world’s. Greatness lies in service: the ruler gives his life. Second, Jesus says that his life is a pattern for ours. We cannot give our lives “as a ransom,” yet “even as” (Gk. hōsper) signifies that disciples can and should seek greatness through service, as he does. When Jesus acts with his deity to the forefront, we believe. When he acts with his humanity to forefront, we take him as model. One aspect we can imitate; one we cannot. A good deal of Christian living depends on the ability to distinguish the two.

If the first two points underscore the commonality between Jesus and disciples, the next two highlight the differences. Third, therefore, readers ought to notice the construction “the Son of Man came . . . to give his life.” The small phrase “came to” appears several times in the Synoptics and hints both at the preexistence of Jesus and the purposes of his incarnation. We call Jesus’ birth the incarnation because he existed elsewhere before his birth. He came according to a plan, to accomplish his divine mission. He came “to call . . . sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). He came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). He “did not come to judge the world but to save the world” (John 12:47). He “came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).

Fourth, Jesus came to give his life “as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). Ransom, with its twin redemption, is one of the NT’s chief terms for the atonement. To ransom or redeem is to pay a price to obtain the release of a captive. In Jesus’ day, a king might ransom a general or a relative captured in battle. One might also pay ransom to liberate a slave. Jesus offers himself, not money, to redeem his people from bondage to sin and the consequences of that bondage. In Exodus, God redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt, saying, “I will deliver you from slavery. . . . I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God” (Ex. 6:6–7). In Psalm 130:8 the Lord says he “will redeem [or “ransom”] Israel from all his iniquities.”

Jesus says his death will be a ransom (Matt. 20:28). As noted, ransom is one of the ways the NT describes Jesus’ substitutionary atonement, accomplished when he offers himself as a sacrifice for his people on the cross. In Romans 3, Paul links justification by faith to redemption. Paul says that God granted an alien righteousness to sinners, one that comes “through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (Rom. 3:21–23). Thus believers are “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:24–25).

By using the terms for justification, propitiation, and redemption in close proximity and without distinguishing them, Paul treats the terms as compatible ways to describe what happened when Christ offered himself as a blood sacrifice to atone for sin. Yet “ransom” is more than a synonym for sacrifice, atonement, justification, or propitiation. Ransom describes specific elements of Jesus’ work.338

The concept of ransom compares the human condition to slavery or captivity from which no human can extricate himself. Jesus secures a release from sin, its power, and its consequences, including guilt, condemnation, and death. He does so by paying a (nonmonetary) price, the price of his “precious blood” (1 Pet. 1:19).

The ransomed belong to a new master. Acts says Jesus “obtained” or “acquired” his people “with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). First Corinthians declares that its readers “were bought with a price,”339 so “do not become bondservants of men” (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23). Jesus liberates disciples from sin and its power. Whatever their circumstances, none is a spiritual slave. Disciples are free. Or rather, they belong to the Lord, who has liberated them from a malign master and put them into noble service.

Jesus came to offer his life as a “ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). The Greek is lytron anti pollōn. The first word means a purchase price (see above). The second is a preposition that ordinarily signifies substitution and exchange. Jesus gave his life instead of, on behalf of, in the place of, others. The object of Jesus’ sacrifice is “many.” “The many” is a fairly common idiom, derived from Isaiah 53:11 and its context. Describing God’s suffering servant, Isaiah writes, “My servant [shall] make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”340 Thus “the many” are the redeemed of God. In Romans 5:12–17, “many” again represents God’s redeemed people.