The middle part of Matthew chapter 22 is incredible. Three groups are going to use questions to try and trap Jesus into saying something that will get him killed. They all, government, the Pharisees, and Sadducees all wanted to get rid of Him.
The Herodians represent the secular, political and economic culture, the Pharisees represent the religious establishment, and the Sadducees represent unbelievers.
They didn’t know it at the time, but they were also examining the Passover Lamb.
In Exodus 12 it’s established that the Lamb used for the Passover meal had to be examined thoroughly and found without blemish. Here Jesus was examined publicly by all groups, and as we will see, was found to be perfect.
Of course it was also an opportunity for these people who were speaking to Him to repent and believe as they heard the truth. Maybe some did. Let’s read 15-22…
In verses15-16a we see that bitter enemies will conspire to get rid of Jesus. Both government and religion are against Jesus. Nothing has changed in our day. The establishments that have the most to lose, especially economically, will band together to keep Jesus out of the picture.
Can you even count the groups that are trying to get rid of Christianity in our culture today? Jesus is a common enemy of the world. And if we truly associate with him, he says we will be too.
We also see in the next couple verses that questions again can often be used as weapons. We’ve all done this haven’t we?
Asked a question that we really didn’t want an answer to, but we were testing another person, sometimes so that we could use their answer against them or prove them wrong, or judge them.
Here with Jesus they had nothing valid to hold against him, so they were trying with their great intellect to force him into giving an answer that would upset either side.
The Jews lived in occupied territory ruled by Rome and they hated having to pay this Roman tax, and they thought for sure Jesus would share their hatred and say something that would get Him in trouble with the political authorities that were listening. That’s no doubt why the Pharisees brought the supporters of Herod along.
If he said don’t pay the tax, the Romans would get him, if he said do pay the tax, then the Jews would get him.
Of course his answer is perfect and he uses an object lesson. He asks them for a denarius, which is a Roman coin displaying an image of Tiberius Caesar with an inscription around the outside that read, “son of the divine Augustus”.
Isn’t that interesting and totally offensive to Jesus the real son of the only Divine One. There was also the goddess of peace on the other side, with the inscription, “High Priest”. Of course Jesus was the high priest and prince of peace.
This is why he’s calling them hypocrites. Not only does he see right away what there motives are, but also, they didn’t have to have these coins.
In Judea the Romans were sensitive to the Jews religion and allowed the Jews to pay the tax with a silver half-shekel that did not have these pagan images on them, so why did the Pharisees have a Roman coin with these idols on it? Jesus knew they would.
Because they were so covetous of the power and wealth that they could receive by allying with the Romans, that they basically sold out and compromised their faith and principles out of greed.
Jesus actually traps them simply by showing that the Pharisees carried and used these coins that they forbid in their law. They were worshipping money and this money was an idol itself, never mind the images and inscriptions on it.
That culture was supposed to worship Caesar as a God, so when Jesus makes the statement about rendering, he is making the point that they should give Caesar only what Caesar should get, the money, but the worship must go to God.
All the people marvelled at Jesus’ words because once again they could find no fault from either the political or religious side. The words of Jesus have the power to defeat any attack.
What are the lessons here? We are to submit to the government in civil matters and to God in spiritual matters. These things should be separate, and man or idols should not receive what is rightfully God’s.
I would argue that II. money is the world’s biggest idol regardless of what is printed on it. But have you ever noticed that we do the same thing with our money that the Romans did? Both our money and the US money have images of political leaders on it.
The American bills even have “In God we Trust” printed on them. Why is that? Why is that printed on money?
On most bills it’s printed above the picture of the White House and on the dollar bill it’s beside a very interesting picture of a pyramid with an eye above it, with Latin inscriptions called the great seal. Some believe this is the mark of the beast.
The Latin phrases mean: “He (God) approves of what we are doing”, and “New Order of the Ages”, and “One out of many”. Doesn’t that sound creepy when you think of the prophecies in the book of Revelation about the future economy and world system?
Why is it that God is associated with money in the US, the great capitalist nation? I may be taking this too far, but it seems to me to be a pretty arrogant statement that God’s favour lies in America, and the financial prosperity and power is the proof of that. That’s dangerous thinking, prosperity gospel to the max.
God’s people should not be pledging allegiance to a flag, to money, to anything but the Living God himself. Render unto God what is God’s and to Caesar, or government, or country, what belongs to it. Follow the laws of the land if they don’t cause you disobey God, vote, and pay your taxes, that’s it.
So the Pharisees and the Herodians gang up to try and trap Jesus very unsuccessfully, and then in verse 23 the Sadducees give it a go. (Read) …They didn’t believe in the resurrection and only used the first five books of Moses as their Scriptures.
They ask Jesus essentially about Levirate marriage, and if there is a resurrection, and a woman has had many legitimate husbands who have died, who will be married to her in the resurrection.
Jesus has a great answer starting with literally “you are deceived”. The question itself is completely wrong. Because he says, you know neither the Scriptures or the power of God.
Both of these confront their lack of belief in the resurrection, the cornerstone of our faith. First he corrects the marriage in heaven thing by saying that we will be as or like angels. There will be no need for marriage because there will be no death and no need to reproduce.
He’s really correcting the commonly held idea that the afterlife will be just a better extension of the current one. But Jesus is saying it will be a completely different existence.
To show that they didn’t know the Scriptures he uses the very words of Moses from Exodus 3, part of the Scriptures they believed to be authoritative. And he showed that in fact Moses was implying the resurrection when He said in the present tense, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.
He is not the God of the dead but of the living, implying that those three men from their Scriptures are not dead, but alive with Him.
He also says they don’t know the power of God, and of course this must refer to His power to raise people from the dead.
In 1 Corinthians 1:18 Paul says “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved (the same as being raised from the dead), it is the power of God.
A few chapters later he says “God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.” God is the only one with the power to create, and to bring life back to the dead.
So Jesus had a very successful day against his opponents, and the crowd walks away in amazement.
Unfortunately this just made his enemies all that much more angry and determined, but of course that was the ultimate goal. That they would follow through with the plan that would glorify Jesus in his death and resurrection.
The point of all this I think, is that Jesus is making it very clear that like Him when he walked on earth, III. we have dual citizenship both in the world and in God’s Kingdom. We are to be good citizens in each place but we are not to get them confused.
These citizenships are not consecutive. In other words we are full citizens in both kingdoms right now. We don’t wait til we die to be citizens of God’s Kingdom. We can’t neglect one while we enjoy the other. As a citizen of the world we must pay for the services and benefits we get from our nation and our world. Render to the world what it is rightfully owed.
But as a citizen of God’s Kingdom, all our allegiance and worship must be given to God only. And when there is a choice to make between the two, it makes the most sense to choose the one that is eternal over the one that will end soon.
Perhaps this is one of the great challenges for today’s Christian because the world seduces us to worship it. We have been deceived into thinking the world provides what we want and need.
But our goal should be as Jesus taught us to pray, that we be a part of bringing God’s Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. And if you think of all the implications of that it’s mind boggling. One of those implications is that everything is already paid for in heaven, everything is free, there are no taxes.
I believe if we did this world God’s way, that could be the reality here as well. From the beginning God was to be our government here on earth with the promise of supplying all that we need. Starting with Israel and going stronger than ever today, we have supplanted God’s rule for the rule of man.
Maybe Jesus is not coming back until we reverse that by bringing people to Christ and teaching them to obey all that he has commanded as we are instructed in the Great Commission, so that His rule is once again here on earth as it is in heaven.
Just maybe when he came the first time he created the church to express His authority in the world. Full of disciples following Christ and making disciples of all people so that paradise could be here again.
