They said to Him, “We can.” Jesus said to them, “The cup that I am going to drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am going to be baptized you will be baptized,
They say with confidence, “We can,” yet within that confidence there was still the naivety of not fully recognizing their own weakness. Nevertheless, Christ declares that they will indeed share in His sufferings. James was later martyred, and John, over the course of a long life, endured persecution and exile. They would not drink Christ’s atoning cup in the same sense, because only He bears the punishment for sin as Savior, but they would drink the cup of a disciple’s suffering. This word shows that being near to Christ means also sharing the hardships of His path.