Caesar and God

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family. 

All of us are familiar with “no-win” situations. Your boss asks you for honest feedback. A family member asks you to pick a side in a conflict.

As a pastor, I sometimes encounter what feels like a no-win situation when I prepare to preach a difficult text. If I say what the text says, I risk making some enemies. But if I soften the message, then I’m not being faithful to God.

By coming to earth, Jesus put Himself in a no-win situation. God sent Jesus knowing that his own people were going to reject Him. Jesus knew He was going to be crucified. He knew His ministry was going to cause division.

Remember from last week, Jesus is now in Jerusalem. We are days away from his crucifixion. The religious leaders have begun to openly challenge the authority of Jesus. They are trying to catch Jesus in a no-win situation.

But so far, Jesus has evaded their efforts. And He just finished telling a parable in which He clearly implied that God was going to transfer the covenant blessings of Israel to the Gentiles. And this is where we will pick up today in Luke 20:

19 The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people.

These religious leaders feel caught in a no-win situation as well. They want to kill Jesus, but they are afraid of the consequences because many of the people are still following Jesus.

20 So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.

In dramatic detail, Luke tells us about this plot. They need Jesus to say or do something they can use against Him. And if he does, then they can accuse him before the Roman governor. This is like a bad Senate confirmation hearing, right?

21 So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God.

Sure you do… That’s a blatant lie, right? They don’t believe this at all. They are pretending to be disciples in order to ask this question:

22 Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?”

This is a no-win question. If Jesus says yes, then the crowds will abandon Him, and the religious leaders win. Nobody loves the Romans and nobody wants to pay taxes.

If Jesus says no, then the Romans will see Jesus as a threat, and the religious leaders win. The Romans wasted no time in stomping out potential rebellions.

23 But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them,

24 “Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.”

A denarius was a Roman coin and in the Roman Empire everyone used Roman currency to conduct business. The only exception to this was the coin that the Jews were allowed to use for the temple tax. Otherwise, they did not have their own currency. They bought and sold using Roman currency like everyone else.

All Roman currency had the name and titles of the Roman Emperor at the time it was minted, and all coins officially belonged to the current emperor… not to the person using it. The emperor required the people to trade using his currency and every year he demanded a tax from the people that had to be paid in Roman currency.

So, when Jesus asks to see a coin, he knows they all have one in their pockets. He knows they are all carrying the symbol of a man who thinks he is god and thinks he owns everything they have. The Jews may have hated their position as a Roman province, but they were also benefiting from Roman trade. They were using Roman coins.

25 He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

26 And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but marveling at his answer they became silent.

The plot fails. Jesus evades another attempt on his life. But for our purposes, I want to put verse 25 back on the screen and focus on what it means for us.

25 He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

It’s easy to hear this and think of it as a clever reply and keep moving. But it’s a very instructive and convicting statement.

Let’s start with the simple and obvious implication here that Caesar is not God. They are two different authorities.
There are things we may owe to the rulers of this world. We are commanded to submit to and to pray for the rulers of this world. But they are not gods.

The authority of Caesar is trivial compared to the authority of God, signified by the fact that new inscription had to be made on these coins every time an emperor died. There were roughly 85 men who held the title of Caesar.

There is only one God. There is only one Alpha and Omega. There is only one King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

God is sovereign over every authority in heaven and on earth. Daniel 2 says it is God who removes and establishes kings. Job 12 says it is God who makes nations rise and fall, builds some up and abandons others.

This is a simple point, but an important one. Caesar is not God.

Second, I’m not going to do a deep dive this morning into politics and economics. But Jesus explicitly commands us to pay our taxes. To put it differently, Jesus does not reject the authority of human governments, even those that may be unjust or pagan.

God is clearly granting governments the right to levy taxes on their people. And on some level, we are all benefiting from the system. I won’t go any further than that, because Scripture doesn’t… except to say that we are required by God’s Word to obey the civil authorities unless doing so contradicts obedience to God.

One such case can be found in Acts 5, when the high priest orders the Apostles to stop preaching the Gospel and Peter responds, “We must obey God rather than men.”

But most of the time, the civil authorities are not asking us to violate our conscience before God. Jesus says pay your taxes.

Finally, and most importantly, Jesus commands us to render to God the things that belong to God.

We should ask the question, “What am I supposed to give to God?”

We can find a good answer to that question in Deuteronomy 10:

12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?

That’s it! Sounds easy right? All we need to do is perfectly obey God with everything we are and with everything we have!

It’s not easy, is it? It’s daunting and impossible and we’ve already failed miserably. If obedience to God was like paying taxes, we’d all be in jail. But I want you to see how Moses finishes that chapter:

14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.

15 Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.

16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.

18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.

19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

20 You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear.

21 He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.

22 Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.

Moses describes God as a loving and impartial father who set his love upon His people. He describes God as a just and mighty King who works justice for people who need it. Why? Because WE are His currency.

Roman currency bore the image of Caesar and that’s what the world values. But who bears the image of God? Human beings. WE were created by God as His image bearers. WE belong to Him. WE are what He values. We were put on this earth to spread His glory everywhere.

But we’re also like an old penny that has been used and abused for so long that you can hardly see the face of Lincoln anymore. The image of God has been marred by our disobedience and rebellion.

But in Colossians 1, Paul calls Jesus the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. By faith in His life, death, and resurrection we are united to Christ and God is restoring His image in us. Ephesians 4 says that we are being restored after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

What it means for us now to render God’s things to God is first to repent and believe – to receive and rest upon Jesus Christ as the One who restores our value… and second, to grow in your faith and obedience. When the Gospel takes root in your heart it will produce fruit and that fruit looks like worship, and prayer, and good works.

Finally, rendering God’s things to God means we start to love and value the people God loves and values. Let the world have the rest.