Ep. 92: Paying tax to Caesar
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MATTHEW 22:15-22, MARK 12:13-17, LUKE 20:20-26
They next attempted the much more dangerous device of bringing him into collision with the civil authorities. Remembering the ever-watchful jealousy of Rome, the reckless tyranny of Pilate and the low cunning of Herod, who was at that time in Jerusalem, we instinctively feel, how even the slightest compromise on the part of Jesus concerning the authority of Caesar would have been absolutely fatal. If it could have been proved, on undeniable testimony, that Jesus had declared himself on the side of the so-called ‘Nationalist’ party. He would quickly have perished!
The plot was most cunningly concocted. The object was to trip him up. They now came to Jesus with flattery, intended to wrong-foot him, appealing to his fearlessness and singleness of moral purpose, to induce him to commit himself without reserve. Here was their question, was it lawful for them to give tribute to Caesar or not? Were they to pay the tax of one drachma or to refuse it? We know how later Judaism would have answered such a question. It lays down the principle, that the right of coinage implies the authority of levying taxes and indeed constitutes such evidence of the government as to make it duty absolutely to submit to it. To have said No, would have been to command rebellion; to have said simply, ‘Yes’, would have been to give a painful jolt to his own claim of being Israel’s Messiah-King!
When pointing to the image and inscription on the coin. He said, ‘What is Caesar’s render to Caesar and what is God’s to God.’ It did far more than rebuke their hypocrisy and presumption; it answered not only that question of theirs to all earnest men of that time, but it settles for all time and for all circumstances the principle underlying it. Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world.
It was an answer not only most truthful but of marvellous beauty and depth. It elevated the controversy into quite another sphere, where there was no conflict between what was due to God and to man, in fact, no conflict at all, but Divine harmony and peace. Neither did it speak harshly of the Nationalist aspirations, nor yet plead the cause of Rome. It did not say whether the rule of Rome was right or should be permanent, but only what all must have felt to be Divine. And so they, who had come to entangle him, went away, neither convinced nor converted.
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)