The Pharisees and the
Herodians were political enemies, though they had different viewpoints, yet they
came together to trap Jesus. It shows how people, who could have different
agenda in life, would come together to confront what they perceived as their common
threat. In this case it was concerning the authority of Jesus. They came
deceitfully to Jesus with their flattery and pious sounding words to trap Him. Though
they hated each other’s guts yet they would unite to go against Jesus, with thorny
questions: “Tell us then, what do You think? Is it lawful
to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?”
In those days,
this topic about paying tax to the Roman Emperor was a major subject. Israel
was under the dominion of the Romans who came and overtook their land. Since
they were the authority of the day, they demanded that Israelites should pay
tax to them. It was the reason for many riots in those days. When Jesus was a
boy living in Galilee, there was a revolutionary named Judas, who led a revolt
against the Romans precisely for this reason. The Romans exterminated it by executing
many of the rebels, leaving them on crosses by the countryside. They served as
a warning that paying tax to the authority was not an option.
Now Jesus, who
came to lead people into God’s Kingdom, was of course expected to oppose this
taxation to the Roman authority. It He didn’t, He would be resented by the
people and would incur their displeasure. The people had been shouting, cheering
and lauding Jesus as the Son of David, the Messiah, God’s anointed King, just a
few days earlier. It would be futile, after all the support He had from the
people, if He didn’t free them from the Roman dominion and liberating them from
having to pay tax.
Jesus perceived
their ill-intention, so He rebuked them, calling them hypocrites, before asking
for a coin used for the poll tax. Jesus had already outsmarted them when He
asked for the coin with the insignia of Caesar. It showed that they themselves
were handling the coin. One of the other reasons for the Jews’ intense dislike
concerning the tax was the insignia on the coin. The Israelites were forbidden
to put image of faces of human on their coins. Holding the coin with the insignia
of Caesar, Jesus asked them whose inscription was on it. They answered “Caesar.”
Here comes the master stroke – He said to them, “Then
render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are
God’s.”
In His answer so
ingeniously crafted, Jesus was saying that they ought to pay Caesar what is due
to him. But they must also give to God what is due to Him. Have they been true
to God? Jesus had turned the table on them. They were the compromisers holding
to the coin with Caesar’s insignia but yet speaking for God. Thus Jesus
answered the challenge of His opponents. Bear in mind that He had already announced
to His disciples that He was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die on the cross.
Many of the tax-rebels had died on crosses. But the one Jesus was going to, was
not for rebelling against the Romans, but to conquer them through His love flowing
from Calvary. Jesus’ answer tells us something we must do today. We should respect
the governmental authority set over us, but we must never fail to give to God the
honour that is rightly His!
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