Give Caesar What is His — Anton Bosch

Jesus Is Questioned About Paying Taxes

Luke chapter 20, so we get back to Luke after a bit of a break and Luke chapter 20 and we're going to read 20 through 26. Luke chapter 20, 20 through 26. Luke chapter 20 verse 20, so they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be righteous that they might seize on his words in order to deliver him to the power and the authority of the governor.

Then they asked him, saying, Teacher, we know that you say and teach rightly and that you do not show personal favoritism but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, Why do you test me? Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have? They answered and said, Caesar's. And then he said to them, Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's.

But they could not catch him in his words in the presence of the people and they marveled at his answer and kept silent. And so remember this is the last week of Jesus's earthly ministry. He is headed for the cross at the end of this week, well the week in the book of Luke of course, and the forces are gathering against him and they're looking for some way to get him out of the way, to get him killed, to get him imprisoned if necessary, but somehow to get rid of him.

And so the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on him. Now he'd just given them some answers to trick questions and questions that were not answerable from a human point of view and so he had confounded them and he'd really put them in a corner with the previous answers that he had given.

And so they're looking for some way to trip him up. Notice it says the chief priests, not the high priests. Although they functioned as the high priests, they were the chief priests and we're going to come back to these guys at a later stage.

And the scribes, they sought to lay hands on him but they feared the people. So they couldn't just grab him and hand him over to Pilate or do something to him because Jesus still has a large following.

Many people, thousands literally following him, believing that he is in fact the Messiah. For they knew he had spoken this parable against them that we looked at in the last session. And so they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be righteous.

The Herodians and Pharisees Unite Against Jesus

So when it says they, the book of Mark and Matthew tell us who the they is and this is important. The they here, it says, were the Herodians and the Pharisees. Now the Herodians, we've not come across these guys before in the book of Luke.

The Herodians were obviously those of the sect of Herod. They, remember Herod was one of the governors and there was a series of Herods right through the scriptures, right through the New Testament. And so there were those amongst the Jews who had allied themselves to Herod, the Herod party.

They were sellouts. They had sold their people for money and for power and for convenience basically to the Romans. And so today we would call these guys the liberals. Then there were the Pharisees who were on the totally opposite side of the spectrum.

These were the conservatives, what we would call the right wing. And so you have the left wing and the right wing. You always have these two concepts. But what is interesting here is that both of these groups had now united in their fight against Jesus.

And this is significant and this is important because you remember that I've warned before that in the time that we're living, that in these days in which we're living, both the left and the right on the political spectrum, not just in America, but in other parts of the world, are uniting and will unite against the church, against the true church.

We say, well, that's impossible because the right is for the church. Well, the Pharisees were for Judaism, but they were not for Jesus. And that's the problem is you can be for the church, you can be for Christianity, but still not be for Jesus.

And that's the problem. And so they have one common enemy and that enemy are the true believers, the true church, as it was then against the Lord Jesus, so it is now. And so you have this unbelievable alliance of two enemies.

Now we've seen this happen before in scripture. We've seen Israel ally with enemy nations so that they can fight a battle against another enemy. And even today we have that happening in the Middle East, and I'm not going to get into into details, but we see how that America allies with certain nations in the Middle East in order to defeat another enemy.

And so your enemy, how does the saying go? Your enemy... Now I've forgotten. But anyway, because we have a common enemy, we are now sort of friends. And this is something that we see in many environments.

And of course, this is a terrible situation. We should never enter into alliances with those that we are not in agreement with, no matter how hard we want to fight against a common enemy. And so they watched him, and they sent spies who pretended to be righteous.

So these guys are literally hired hands, and they're coming to Jesus with the express purpose of trying to ensnare him, trying to get him to say something that would be able to, by which they would be able to hang him.

And so that they might seize on his words in order to deliver him to the power and the authority of the governor. But then they asked him saying, teacher, we know that you say and teach rightly, and you do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth.

Now, everything they're saying is true. Is Jesus the teacher? Yes, he is the teacher. Does he teach correctly? Obviously he teaches correctly. Jesus never taught heresy, never taught anything that wasn't right.

Did he not show favoritism? No. In fact, one of the attributes of God himself is that God does not have favorites, that God does not choose one over the other because he likes one and he doesn't like the other.

God is totally righteous. And so Jesus doesn't have favorites. When his closest disciples, when Peter said, Lord, don't go to the cross, the Lord Jesus rebuked him. When his enemies came against him, he rebuked them.

And so Jesus didn't show favoritism. And he taught the way of God or the way of God in truth. So these things were true. But did they believe these things? Obviously not. This is flattery. And folk, all of us are susceptible to flattery.

Preachers and politicians particularly are susceptible to flattery. Jesus is not fooled by that kind of thing, and neither should we. When people try and say nice things just in order to get something out of us or in order to get us to do what they want us to do, we need to be wise.

It's easy to make a mistake simply because somebody has said a few nice things, but in fact they have another agenda. And so they asked the question, and here's where we want to spend time this morning.

The Tax Question as a Trap

Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Now, remember that he had very cleverly answered their previous questions. And clearly they had gone away and they had spent time figuring out how can we entrap him.

They realized, whether they realized that he was divine or not, or whether that he had God's wisdom or not, that's beside the point. But what they realized was that Jesus was more clever than they expected him to be.

And that if they were going to ensnare him, they needed to come up with a question that he would be boxed into a corner and that he would not be able to answer. I think we have a little joke when you ask somebody, do you still beat your wife?

We say, well, what is the answer to that question? Now, I'm not asking the question, do I look fat in this dress? I mean, that's another question. Do you still beat your wife? What is the answer to that question?

So if you say no, what does it mean? I used to beat her. If you say yes, well, so there's no way out of that question, because it's designed to entrap you. It's designed to put you in a position that no matter what you answer, obviously, unless you give a long explanation, there is no quick, easy answer that's going to let you off the hook.

So here's the question. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar? Now, remember, there are two parties. There are two groups that are trying to ensnare him. And amongst the people who are listening to him, there are two sets of people.

There are the Jews, the Pharisees, those who are strict on their religion. They did not want to pay taxes to Caesar, because Caesar was a foreign king. He wasn't the king of Israel. He was an imposter, as far as they were concerned.

And we'll have a look at the queen in a moment. The queen was blasphemous, as far as they were concerned. And so to pay taxes to Caesar was blasphemy, because it was acknowledging him as being there by God, which they didn't recognize.

So if Jesus said, yeah, we must pay taxes, well, then at least half of his congregation would have walked out on him. If he said, no, we don't pay taxes, there were those in the crowd who were allied with the Herodians, who were allied with Rome.

And what would they have done? Well, specifically, these spies would have run straight back and said, this man is an insurrectionist. He is against Rome, because he's telling the people, don't pay taxes.

And remember, the issue here is not just the paying of taxes, but it is the message that goes with paying the taxes. And the message is that we submit to Rome, and we acknowledge Rome's authority to levy taxes on us.

And in fact, you will know that there have been cases in American history where certain preachers have said, we do not pay taxes to the American government. And the core of the argument has been because God is the only government we recognize.

We don't recognize the American government, therefore we do not pay taxes. And obviously, that's a stupid argument based on the passage that we're dealing with this morning. And so it's not just the issue of paying taxes, but it's the issue of acknowledging Caesar's right to levy taxes and Caesar's position of authority over the Jews.

So there's no answer. So if Jesus says, you must pay taxes, he's in trouble. If Jesus says, don't pay taxes, he's in trouble. So how does he answer? And of course, we know how this works out. But I want us to just look at the detail this morning, because there are some important details to this that may be helpful for us to understand our present situation here in the world today.

And so he perceived their craftiness and said to them, why do you test me? So Jesus recognized and he says to them straight up, you're trying to trick me. You know, in modern English, why are you trying to trick me?

Why are you testing me? And so he said, show me a denarius, whose image and inscription does it have? And they answered and said, Caesars. So I think this is probably one of the verses that many people, even non-Christians know probably off by heart.

Show me a denarius, show me a penny. Remember, this was a day's wage. Now, here's a picture of one. And this is a genuine one. You can still buy them about 800. Sorry. Yeah, I think about $800. Remember, there were many of these.

This was very common. This was a day's wages. This would have been the, not the specific coin, but the currency. This would have been the one that they show Jesus. It has on it, the picture of Tiberius who was the Caesar at the time.

Remember that Jesus was born at the time of Caesar or just after Augustus came Tiberius. And so this has the image of Tiberius on the front. It looks like a particularly ugly character. But it is the inscription that is particularly the problem.

Now, one of the things that they did is that the inscription is obviously in Latin. There's another inscription on the back which we'll talk about. The inscription is in Latin, but it is also abbreviated.

So you can get a lot more information on it. And the inscription says, Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the divine Augustus. And that's where the problem lay. On the coin, he claims to be the son of God, the son of the divine Augustus.

And of course, the Caesars did claim to be divine. They claimed to be gods. And of course, just Jesus asking for the coin puts them in a difficult position. And I think we don't recognize this when you just read the passage.

Because in their pocket or in their money pouch purse that they were carrying, they contained, they had in their hands a thing that says, Caesar is God. And so just to have it in their possession was a problem.

So they are answering their own question in a sense. And Jesus maybe didn't even have to go beyond that because he could have said, show me your coin. And the moment the guy reached into his purse and pulled out the coin, that answers the question.

But you have a coin, you're saying to me, I shouldn't be paying taxes to Caesar, but you carry this thing around that says, Caesar is God. Not only does it say, and for Jesus, this is a particularly blasphemous coin, because on the back side of the coin are the words, and you can make it out clearly on this one.

This one's difficult to read, but on the right, Pontiff Maxim. Pontiff Maxim. The woman that's sitting on the throne is Tiberius' mother. And that's not going to get into that. Pontiff Maxim is abbreviation for Pontifex Maximus.

Maximus, you don't need to be a student of Greek to understand means the greatest. Pontifex is priest, the great priest, the high priest. So not only does Tiberius and other Caesars claim to be God, but they claim to be the greatest high priest, literally the greatest high priest, the high priest of all high priests.

You'll recognize from our studies in the He is the great high priest. There is no greater high priest than him. So not only does the coin say that Caesar is God, but the coin also says that Caesar is the great high priest.

You'll also recognize that statement, Pontifex Maximus is the title of the Pope today. You may not have heard that title, but that is his title, one of his titles. But normally we speak of him as the pontiff, which are the same words.

And so the coin is a problem. So Jesus says, show me the coin. And of course his question is, whose picture is this? Now the symbolism of course is the coin is Caesar's coin because it's got his name on it.

If you borrow a book from me, it'll have my name in the front of the book. What does it mean? It means it's my book. You need to give it back. The fact that the coin has Caesar's name on it means it's Caesar's coin.

And literally in their understanding of the law, it was his money. And so they had to pay this, just by the way, the tax that he's talking about here is not the tax that the tax collectors would collect, which would be a toll tax.

So you passed by and there would be a tax on goods that you were moving and that kind of thing. This is what they call a poll tax. In the old days in England, they had a poll tax. And a poll tax was simply a tax because you existed.

That's all. You didn't have to do anything. If you were an adult, male or female, you paid this every year just to exist, just to be. And so by paying it again, you're saying I'm Caesar's in a sense. So you can see the problem that Jesus has in answering the question.

Rendering to Caesar Under Governmental Authority

And of course, we know the answer. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's. So what is Jesus saying about the coin? Whose coin is this? It's Caesar's coin. Is it God's coin? No. Are the dollar bills that you have in your pocket, is that God's?

Well, obviously we understand that ultimately everything is God's, but God doesn't deal in dollars or in pesos or in anything else. God is beyond those things. These are the world's things. They belong to the world.

And so Jesus says, whose coin is this? He's part of what he's asking. Whose coin is it? It's Caesar's coin. And of course, the answer is give to Caesar what is his. This belongs to him. And of course, we know that that's only half of his answer because he then answers the other half of the question.

But I want to stop here for a few moments because this is the question that we struggle with today in America and in many other countries as a result of COVID and the imposition of mandates and all of these kinds of things.

There is a ongoing serious debate amongst Christians as to what degree do I need to obey the government? To what degree does the government have the right to dictate to me? Now, Romans chapter 13, and this is the most abused, well, not the most abused, but one of the most abused chapters in the Bible right now.

I don't know how many sermons I've listened to that totally use this passage and twist it and turn it in every which way, basically, to get it to say what it does not say. I listened to one this last week and I was so disgusted because it came from a good church.

But the guy was preaching and he was saying, basically, this says that you don't have to do what the government tells you to do, which is exactly what the passage doesn't say. Now, I'm turning to Romans 13.

I'm not going to go through Romans 13, but I want you to see that this is not just money. This is not just taxes. Romans 13, 6 says, for because of this, why? Because of what? Because the government is set by God.

That's the previous verse, verse 5. The government is set there by God. Now, understand me. I'm not saying that the Biden government is specifically set by God and that before that, the Trump and then and so on.

But the principle of government is set by God. God has designed order and God wants order. In fact, Paul says we need to pray for the government that we might live peaceable lives, not comfortable lives, but peaceable lives.

And so the purpose of the government is to bring order into society. And that is a principle that God established. And God stands behind that. God does not choose. And of course, God has his plan and God sets things in motion in order to fulfill prophecy and all of these things.

We understand that. But at the end of the day, we can argue and say, well, is Putin set there by God? And I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. But what I do know is that the principle of government in Russia is set there by God.

Remember that the context in which Jesus is operating and Paul is writing is in the context of a Roman government, a wicked government, an immoral government. All of these Caesars who claim to be the great high priest, who claim to be divine, were sexually of the most immoral people of all ages.

They had no respect for life. They would kill their brothers and their mothers. Nero killed his mother. They had no respect for life. They were evil and they were wicked. And yet Jesus says, give to Caesar what is his.

And Paul is saying here, because the government is set there by God, the principle of government is set by God, pay taxes for they are God's ministers, God's servants, attending continually to this very thing.

You know, verse seven is where I want to get you. Render therefore to all their due. Taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. So the issue of taxes is not just taxes, but it is honor.

It is obedience. It is fear. It is respect. All of these things belong to Caesar. Now I know you're going to say, well, what about God? I'm going to get to God. But the degree to which the government is entitled to respect, notice he doesn't say love them.

He doesn't say you have to like them. But the principle is that they are set there and they have the sword. In other words, there is a system of punishment. And because of that, you need to respect them.

You need to obey. And so do we obey the government? Yes, we obey the government. Now it doesn't matter how you twist this. And it doesn't matter how many counter arguments you come with. The scripture is clear.

Romans is clear. Peter is clear. Jesus is clear when he says, give to Caesar what is Caesar's. There are two exceptions in my understanding. The one exception is when the government tells us to do something that is anti God, that is against what God tells us, or the Bible tells us, or when the government tells us not to do, that we're not allowed to do what God tells us we must do.

When Government Conflicts With God

So if the government says we may not meet as a church. Now you see, you remember, we went through all this whole thing last year. The government has never told us here that we may not meet as a church.

They simply said, you can't meet inside. So what do we do? We meet outside, but they never stopped us from meeting. Now, if the government says you may not meet, and we may not meet while you can go to discotheques and bars and they're all open, and everything else is open, you can go to the gym, but churches can't meet.

Is there an issue here? Yes, there's an issue here. They are now specifically making a law against the church, and we cannot obey that law. But when they are making rules that apply to everyone, for the good of everyone.

Now remember, we don't all agree on what is good for us. I've used the example of the speed limit. You may think that 20 miles an hour is a good, is a safe speed. I may think 80 miles an hour is a good speed.

The government says 35. 35. So what do I do? I do what the government tells me to do, because the rule is not made to make life difficult for me. It's what they believe to be safe. Now, are they right?

No, they're not necessarily right. Most of the time they're wrong, I think. Well, that's a big statement. They're often wrong, but it doesn't matter, because the principle, the reason the laws and the rules are made, is to keep order in society, and for the good of the community.

Now, we can argue about whether this rule is fair, and whether it's not fair. Folks, there were many rules that the Romans made that were not fair. You remember, one of those rules was that if a Roman soldier was moving from one place to the other, he could grab the closest Jew that he found, and said, carry my kit for me, carry my pack.

And he was entitled to command that, to commandeer this man for a mile. It doesn't matter if the man was going in that direction, he has to carry the pack for a mile. And Jesus says, that's a stupid rule.

He's got no business taking you out of your way to get you to carry his pack. Is that what Jesus said? No, he says, if he makes you walk a mile, and specifically a Roman soldier that he has in mind, then you walk another mile with him.

You give him to. Why? Because in honoring and respecting the government, we respect God who put the government in place. But more specifically, because of our testimony. Folks, when Christians don't pay taxes, when Christians rebel against the government, as Christians are rebelling against the government in America and in Australia, many other countries right now, it is a bad testimony.

Because the world looks at us and says, you guys claim to be Christians, but you're actually rebellious. Instead of being meek and lowly like the Lord Jesus, you just want to fight all the time. And folks, our testimony is being damaged by our behavior.

And so, give the government what the government requires, unless it contradicts scripture. There is a second one, and I don't want to spend too much time on this, unless it goes against your conscience.

You have the right to say, I have a personal conviction about this thing or that thing. But here we get into murky water. Because what has informed your conscience? If your conscience is based on Facebook, you can't trust it.

If your conscience is based on the Word of God, you've steeped yourself in the Word of God, you've studied the Word of God, you've meditated on it, it's the thing that permeates every fiber of your being.

I would trust your conscience. The problem today is that the vast majority of Christians' conscience is formed by the news media and by the mass media, by conspiracy theories and all of these sorts of things.

And then to say, well, it's my conscience. No, it's not your conscience, it's somebody else's idea. So when we claim conscience, we have to be very, very careful how we claim that. And so those are the exclusions, that's the fine print.

Obedience in Ordinary Matters

Anything out of that, we don't have many choices. The reality is that all of us have lived in a world in which we have all sorts of things imposed on us. But we live with it, because the rules are made for a reason.

Right there is an exit sign. I think the thing's ugly. I think it really doesn't fit with our decor. But the government says you've got to put an exit sign there, so we put an exit sign there, so we can get on with the business of doing church.

Government says we have to have that door there. So if there's a fire or something, it's an alternative way of escape. Now, we never use that door, it has no purpose. It's just there. But they say we must have it.

We have it. And we can go on and on and on about the building and about how many things that we do. We say, well, that's arbitrary. I'm not even going to begin to talk about ADA stuff. The height of the counters in the kitchen, the height of the counters in the restroom, the size of the toilet, the list goes on and on and on.

And we've lived with that. Churches have lived with those things for centuries. Now, suddenly, the government says you have to wear a mask. We say, I'm not wearing a mask, or whatever it may be. Now, I don't want to get too far down this road, but I think you get the picture.

And I trust that those who are watching online, and I know that there are many who have very different ideas, and I'm appealing to you, if you have different ideas, take an honest look at what Jesus is teaching in Luke chapter 20, and what Paul teaches in Romans chapter 13.

And if you have an honest look, you'll find that there is not much room for disobedience and for rebellion. We must always remember that Jesus comes in a particular context. If Jesus had been born, and if Paul, who then writes a lot of the New Testament, if these men had come in an ideal environment with a Jewish king on the throne, who is a God-fearing king, with a priesthood that is functioning with Israel as God had designed it to be, if Jesus had come at that time, we could throw all these scriptures out and say, well, they were living in a different setup.

They were in a godly environment. They had a godly king. They had godly rules. But I really believe that one of the reasons Jesus comes, there are various reasons, but one of the reasons Jesus comes into a Roman situation is that we have no excuse.

There is no way you can compare the American government, or the English government, or the Australian government, or even the South African government to the Roman government. This government was far worse than anything we have ever seen.

And yet they have no excuse but to pay the taxes and to obey the laws. And if they had no excuse, we have even less excuse. All right. Now, I've lost my place here. Render, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

Bearing God's Image and Belonging to Him

Now, here's the other side of the story. Genesis 127. So God created man in his own image. What was the question? I'm not going to find it now. Whose image is on the coin? Whose image is on your life?

The image of God. Man was created in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. So if the coin belonged to Caesar because it had his image on it, who do you belong to?

To God. And therefore, what is given to Caesar, what belongs to him needs to be given to him. But what belongs to God must be given to God. Now, remember, I said that God doesn't deal in pesos, or in dollars, or in South African rands, or English pounds.

God deals in lives. And so what does God want? What is God's tax? It's not the tithe. Folks, this has got nothing to do with money. For us, God wants you. And we're not even speaking about the cross that he purchased us.

We were his to begin with, and sold under sin, and then he purchased us again on the cross. We are his. He says, you are not your own, you have been bought with a price. So give to God what is God's, what is his.

You are his. And you cannot buy God off by giving him money, or giving him a cut of your time. Everything is his. All of you is his. And all of you must be given to him. It's very acceptable in some circles to cheat on your taxes.

And that thinking has come into Christianity, where we feel it's quite acceptable to cheat God out of his due. So I'll give God some, but I'm not going to give him everything. No, give God what is his.

And folks, as we are at the beginning of this new year, maybe we can think about this possibility of saying, Lord, this year I'm going to give you what is yours. Folks, there is not one of us, including myself, who've not shortchanged God in the past.

Who have not used time, and energy, and resources just for ourselves. And I'm not saying that God doesn't want us to have recreation, and rest, and all of those things. We understand those things. But at the end of the day, is all I am his?

Or do I just give him a little bit? Just to keep him happy. Give to God what is his. You see, now the problem here is that people will preach against Romans chapter 13. And they'll say, no, you don't have to obey the government.

Meekness Instead of Rebellion

But that rebellion does not just exist against God. The moment you are rebellious, you will rebel against anything. There's a stupid dad joke that I love, which most people don't really appreciate. But there's this guy who was shipwrecked, and he washes out on the island.

And the islanders come, and they resuscitate him, and they pump the water out of his lungs, and he wakes up, and he opens his eyes, lying on the beach. And his first question is, is there a government here?

Because if there is, I'm against it. You see, if we're against authority, whether it be the authority in the home, or the authority in the church, or the authority in the country, we're ultimately against the authority of God.

Because we're just rebellious. That's just the human nature. But as Christians, we need to have that rebellion dealt with. Jesus says, learn of me. I am meek and lowly in heart. And in that process, you'll find rest.

But Christians are all hot and bothered, and fighting everything and everyone. And they wonder why they don't have peace. They wonder why they can't sleep. They wonder why they're depressed. They wonder why they need to take sleeping tablets, and all sorts of stuff.

See psychiatrists, and all sorts of stuff to try and get through life. Because they're all pent up, fighting, arguing, debating, instead of just submitting to God. Say, Lord, I don't like the government.

But you've asked me to obey them, I'll obey them. I don't like my boss or my supervisor. But you've asked me to submit to them, I'll submit to them. That's where we find peace. You see, at the end of the day, we are not the judge of your boss, or of your parents, or of the government.

God is the ultimate boss. And he will call them to give an account. By the way, the coin that Jesus paid, and remember he sends Simon on another occasion, he catches the fish, takes the coin, pays his tax.

We say, I'm not going to pay taxes, because they use the taxes for wrong purposes. For abortion, amongst other things. The taxes Jesus paid, paid for his crucifixion. Think about that. He paid the system that would crucify him.

So God give me grace, that I may give to Caesar what is his. That I give my boss what is his. But at the end of the day, I give to God what is his. Because vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

Trusting God to Judge Rulers

And one day Pilate, and Tiberius, and Augustus, and Nero, and every one of those evil Caesars, and every American president, and every American congressman, and every American senator, and every judge will stand before him and be called to give an account for what they did.

God is keeping a record. It's not up to us. You see, sometimes we feel helpless. We say, well, why? I can't deal with this. They're making all these rules for me, and they're changing the rules all the time.

It's not my problem. If they're unfair, God will deal with them. It's not for me to make it fair. And we say, well, we live in a democratic society. We need to have our say. You have your say at the ballot box.

And you have your say at the throne of grace. Those are the places where you have freedom of speech. Come to the throne of grace and leave your problems there. He will deal with it. It's not for us to try and fix things.