The Pharisees' question and Christ's answer about paying tribute to Caesar reveal an enormous difference in their starting assumptions. Trying to trap the Saviour, the Pharisees ask a question about priorities: which matters more—obedience to an alien but effectively powerful authority, or...
The Pharisees' question and Christ's answer about paying tribute to Caesar reveal an enormous difference in their starting assumptions. Trying to trap the Saviour, the Pharisees ask a question about priorities: which matters more—obedience to an alien but effectively powerful authority, or national self-determination? It is important to note that both of these supposed values lie outside the religious sphere. Moreover, by that time Israel's history already included examples of national dignity demanding resistance while the Lord, speaking through a prophet, called for submission to the conqueror, because he was God's instrument.
Furthermore, the Pharisees expect the Saviour, proceeding from the idea of the unconditional supremacy of God's Kingdom—that is, His sole sovereignty—to call for disobedience to earthly authorities. It is precisely for this eventuality that they have brought the Herodians with them, so that they can immediately hand Him over to those very authorities. But the whole point is that the Pharisees regard the Kingdom of God and the principate of Augustus as phenomena comparable in nature and scale, which can be set against each other within the proposed alternative, however deceitful it may be. For them, the Kingdom of God is a politically successful earthly state of Israel, to be led by the awaited Messiah.
But the Lord's answer leaves no part of this outlook of the Pharisees intact. In Christ's answer, the Kingdom of God and Caesar's kingdom appear as two planes that do not intersect and are incomparable in scale. The Kingdom of God belongs to eternity and embraces all that exists, while an earthly kingdom, limited in time and space, cannot even be a small likeness of it, any more than a swarm of ciliates in a puddle in a yard can serve as a likeness of the Earth's biosphere.
Thus Christ's answer completely rejects the Roman—and also the later Jewish—sacralization of the earthly kingdom. The apostle Paul will later give the definitive clarification on this subject when he says that our citizenship is in heaven and that we should obey earthly authorities only because, and insofar as, they oppose evil and violence.
But the most important thing in Christ's words is the call to give God's things to God. Even the question of the relationship between the earthly and heavenly kingdoms recedes into the background. What matters most is not how we arrange our earthly affairs, but how we build our relationship with God. Whether to pay tribute to Caesar is not a simple or obvious question, but it is quite possible to resolve it. A person's life, however, is determined not by this, but by what they bring to God.
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22:15 Mar 12:13; Luk 20:20.
22:16 The Herodians were a set of men peculiarly attached to Herod, and consequently zealous for the interest of the Roman government, which was the main support of the dignity and royalty of his family.Thou regardest not the person of men - Thou favourest no man for his riches or greatness.
22:17 Is it lawful to give tribute to Cesar? - If he had said, Yes, the Pharisees would have accused him to the people, as a betrayer of the liberties of his country. If he had said, No, the Herodians would have accused him to the Roman governor.
22:18 Ye hypocrites - Pretending a scruple of conscience.
22:20 The tribute money - A Roman coin, stamped with the head of Cesar, which was usually paid in tribute.
22:21 They say to him, Cesar's - Plainly acknowledging, by their having received his coin, that they were under his government.And indeed this is a standing rule. The current coin of every nation shows who is the supreme governor of it. Render therefore, ye Pharisees, to Cesar the things which ye yourselves acknowledge to be Cesar's: and, ye Herodians, while ye are zealous for Cesar, see that ye render to God the things that are God's.
22:23 Mar 12:18.
22:24 Deu 25:5.
22:25 Now there were with us seven brethren - This story seems to have been a kind of common - place objection, which no doubt they brought upon all occasions.
22:29 Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures - Which plainly assert a resurrection. Nor the power of God - Which is well able to effect it. How many errors flow from the same source?
22:30 They are as the angels - Incorruptible and immortal.So is the power of God shown in them! So little need had they of marriage!
22:31 Have ye not read - The Sadducees had a peculiar value for the books of Moses. Out of these therefore our Lord argues with them.
22:32 I am the God of Abraham - The argument runs thus: God is not the God of the dead, but of the living: (for that expression, Thy God, implies both benefit from God to man, and duty from man to God) but he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: therefore, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not dead, but living.Therefore, the soul does not die with the body. So indeed the Sadducees supposed, and it was on this ground that they denied the resurrection. Exo 3:6.
22:33 At his doctrine - At the clearness and solidity of his answers.
22:34 Mar 12:28; Luk 10:25.
22:35 A scribe asking him a question, trying him - Not, as it seems, with any ill design: but barely to make a farther trial of that wisdom, which he had shown in silencing the Sadducees.
22:37 Deu 6:5.
22:39 Lev 19:18.