NOTES for Mat 22:15-22

The long, ornate introduction poorly conceals the malice with which the Pharisees ask their provocative question. Christ’s rebuke of the questioners for hypocrisy before giving His answer therefore seems entirely natural.

In answering, He did not even take the coin in His hands, but merely asked them to show it from a distance. Under Jewish law, Jesus was not obliged to take into His hands a coin bearing a pagan image; doing so would have required a ritual washing. Yet it seems that here He not only observes the Law but also demonstrates His noninvolvement in Caesar’s world, while nevertheless not calling for resistance to it. By calling people to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, He calls them to give the state what necessarily follows from the reality of earthly life, but rejects the deification of the state and its rulers. Here we see the basis of the principle of separation between Church and state as distinct organized structures. They can cooperate successfully, but must not take each other’s place.

The Pharisees were astonished when they heard His answer, but what astonished them more? Was it that He had nullified their provocation, or that He had opened new horizons to them? What if at that moment He managed to shake even one of them out of the accustomed rut of self-confidence?