Acts 12:1,2

MARTYRDOM OF JAMES

1, 2. This Herod Antipas was the grandson of the King Herod reigning when our Savior was born, and notorious for slaying the infants of Bethlehem, and even himself, while the innocents were bleeding, and Jesus safe in Egypt, summoned to stand before God and account for his diabolical atrocities. The Herodian dynasty reigned over several of those Asiatic provinces of the Roman Empire, simply as proconsuls, though retaining the honorary title of king. When James and John, the sons of Zebedee, honored by our Savior as sons of thunder because of their oratorical power, assisted by their mother, sought of Jesus the first place in His coming kingdom, thus aspiring to the episcopacy in the gospel church, and unhesitatingly meeting the conditions by answering in the affirmative our Savior's question, “Are you able to drink of my cup and to be baptized with my baptism?” i. e., the cup of Gethsemane and the bloody martyrdom of Calvary, little did they understand the force of those words. James, the elder, doubtless led the way in this application to the Master for the pre- eminence in the coming kingdom. He got it, and was the first of all the apostles to seal his faith with his blood. They all passed out of the world through the bloody martyrdom [but John, who was banished, and as we believe translated]; but James led the Way, having his head cut off with the cruel sword of Herod at that early day. So he got his request, first in martyrdom and first in heaven.