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P a g e | 1 Luke 20:20-26
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s
Jesus’ enemies are still out to get him. They are looking to entrap
him any way that they can. They have challenged his authority in
the temple courts, and he has frustrated them with his question
about John the Baptist and exposed their motives with his story
about tenant farmers killing the servants of the owner and then his
son. They know that Jesus is talking about them.
But they have not given up. Now two groups, according to Mark’s
account – the Herodians and the Pharisees – join forces to try to
trip Jesus up so that they can hand him over to the power and the
authority of the governor. The Herodians and the Pharisees are not
natural bedfellows. They are not friends. They are at opposite ends
of the political scale. The Herodians suck up to the Romans and
are known as collaborators. The Pharisees are concerned more
about Jewish rights and law, and hate the liberal Herodians.
But their hatred of each other is exceeded by their hatred of Jesus
– Jesus threatens the political equilibrium and position of the
Herodians with the Romans, and the religious hegemony of the
Pharisees. So they combine forces with a question that is aimed at
getting Jesus in trouble one way or the other.
First they butter him up and flatter him.
“Teacher we know you speak and teach what is right”
“you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in
accordance with the truth.”
They are laying it on thick. They are pretending to be honest,
pretending to be sincere.
P a g e | 2 They are using flattery.
Flattery is the mirror image of gossip.
With gossip, you say things behind people’s back, that you would
not say to their face.
With flattery, you say things to people’s face, that you would not
say behind their back!
God doesn’t like flattery.
“A flattering neighbour is up to no good; he’s probably planning
to take advantage of you.” (Proverbs 29:5 MSG)
And so the carefully crafted, politically loaded, hot potato
question of Jesus’ day is delivered between a sandwich of
obsequiousness and flattery:
22: “Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
The tax in question is a very controversial head tax – an annual tax
of one denarius that has to be paid to Caesar every year simply
for the privilege of existing. When it was introduced 25 years
previous, when Jesus was just a boy, it caused a real stink. A man
named Judas the Galilean led an insurrection, an armed revolt,
refusing to pay the tax and refusing to obey Caesar. It did not end
well for him.
There is no way Jesus can answer this question without getting in
trouble they think. If he sides with the tax-paying, Roman
collaborators, the Herodians, he will offend the Jews and
undermine their hatred of the Romans and the oppressive tax
system and what they see as the blasphemous worship of the
divine Caesar and his image on this coin.
If he sides with the Pharisees and the Jews, in their hatred of
Caesar and all things Roman, he will be reported by the Herodians
and get in serious trouble with the authorities as a potential
insurrectionist. Jesus the Galilean.
P a g e | 3 Jesus looks at them and sees right through them. Their clever
Jeremy Paxman questions. Their duplicity. Their hypocrisy. Their
craftiness. He sees it all for what it is.
So he asks them for a coin, the coin in question - a denarius. He
asks them whose inscription is on the coin – whose image – (Gk
Eikon) and then comes out with a statement that is now well
known as an established idiom:
25: “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”
The KJV says “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s” – which means
pay back. Pay back to Caesar what belongs to him, and to God
what belongs to him.
Our responsibility towards government and those in authority:
The inscription on the denarius coin read:
“Tiberius Caesar, Son of the God Augustus, Pontifex Maximus (High
Priest).”
King…Son of God…High priest
Is Jesus saying acquiesce and submit to the Romans, or is he
saying revolt and start a revolution?
He is saying neither. He is honouring the right of limited, human
government.
Tiberius Caesar calls himself a king, a son of God, a high priest.
Jesus calls himself King, Son of God and High Priest.
One king has all the coins in the world, with his inscription on them.
The other King does not have a denarius, or penny, to his name.
P a g e | 4 Give back to Caesar what belongs to him…his coins, his money,
his taxes. But not the title Son of God, King and High Priest.
Give to God what belongs to him and what bears his image.
Government is an institution that is talked about and endorsed in
the bible. Jesus assumes the validity of the secular state and its
state even when it is controlled by a man that thinks he is God –
like Caesar.
The early church leaders endorse the same thing. When writing to
the Romans, Paul states:
“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is
no authority except that which God has established. The
authorities that exist have been established by God….. This is also
why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who
give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe
them: if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if
respect, then respect; if honour, then honour.” (Romans 13:1-7
excerpts)
Peter writes similarly:
“Submit
yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority:
whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to
governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong
and to commend those who do right……. Show proper respect to
everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honour the
emperor.” (1 Peter 2:13-17 excerpts)
But it is a limited authority, says Jesus. Yes pay your taxes, pray for
and obey government. You have heard, no doubt, about the
new Christian who was plagued by his conscience for dodging
taxes. He wrote a letter to the IR: “Dear Sir. My conscience has
P a g e | 5 bothered me. Here is £500 I owe in unpaid tax.” He signed off the
letter and then added, “PS. If my conscience continues to bother
me, I will send the rest.”
There are, though, as Jesus clearly intimates, limits to obedience to
the state.
R. Kent Hughes lists at least three instances in which a Christian
must resist authority:
1) When asked to violate a command of God
The early disciples were arrested and forbidden to preach the
gospel by the authorities. When released from prison, they went
straight back to preaching, and their response when challenged
was: “We must obey God rather than men”.
2) When asked to do an immoral act
3) When called to act against their Christian conscience to obey
government.
Our responsibility towards God:
“Give to God what is God’s”
Give to Caesar what carries his image, and give to God what
carries his image. The coin belonged to Caesar because it bore
his image, and we belong to God because we bear his image.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image (Eikon) of
God he created him; male and female he created them.”
(Genesis 1:27)
P a g e | 6 Every human being on this earth carries in him or her the image of
God. We were made in his image, in his likeness – male and
female.
You see this when you look at children and see in them the
likeness of a parent. I was talking to someone the other day, a
young person from this church, and they just – for a moment –
looked like their dad. The way that they tilted their head, their
mannerisms, the way that they spoke.
Rachel gives my daughter Beth piano lessons and she tells me on
occasion that it is like teaching a mini version of Geoff. I thought
she was talking about those transcendent and awe-inspiring
moments when Beth’s prodigious music talent shines through, but
she was, in fact, I think, referring to the way that Bethan can scowl
and furrow her brow.
We carry in us the image, the behaviour, the mannerisms of our
parents.
As we grow older, we start to act like our parents, we find
ourselves saying the same things that our parents said, that we
swore we would never say. How did this happen to us.
We are like God. We carry his likeness. But that image has been
marred and spoiled and distorted by sin. But we still belong to him.
Give to Caesar what carries his image – and give to God what
carries his image.
And here is the thing – the more we give ourselves to God, the
more he changes us by his Holy Spirit, the more that we fully cede
our life to him – the more we become truly ourselves – the me that
we were meant to be.
The more we become like God – the more we become like Jesus –
the more his image becomes distinctively recognisable in us. We
P a g e | 7 become more beautiful – more the way that we were made to
be. Our personality and character and attributes become more
defined and more attractive.
Giving yourself to God – giving your life to him, your career, your
aspirations, your relationships, your life – everything that you are
and have – just means that you become more and more the
person that you were originally made to be.
If you give yourself wholly to God – he will take your marred
appearance and the distorted image of Christ in you and he will
restore you and make your more and more like Jesus.
God never diminishes us – he always makes us greater and more
beautiful. Holiness is not boring and austere and miserable –
holiness is wholeness, and it is when the image of God is most
visible in us, his children.
C.S.Lewis puts it like this:
“Christ says, 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so
much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have
not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No halfmeasures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and
a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want
to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand
over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent
as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give
you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will
shall become yours.'” (C.S.Lewis – Mere Christianity)
“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who
live in it” (Psalm 24)
He is the King, the Son of God and the High Priest – give to him
what belongs to him – he owns it anyway.
P a g e | 8 Questions and discussion points:
1. What were the Pharisees and Herodians hoping to achieve
by their questions to Jesus?
2. What was the question that they asked Jesus and why was
this controversial?
3. How did Jesus answer them?
4. What was the inscription on the coin that Jesus referred to?
5. What then does it mean to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s
and to give to God what is God’s?
6. How are we to react to those in authority over us in
government? (See Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17)
7. What are the limits to human government? (See Acts 5:27-29)
8. What does it mean to give to God that which carries his
image?
9. How can we have more of God’s image in our lives?
10.
Discuss the C.S.Lewis quote. What does it mean for us?