God and Government
Luke 20:20-26
Theoretically, every dollar you make the rest of the year will be tax free. Nine days ago Wisconsinites passed our tax-freedom day. Up until April 28, every dollar you earned went to pay your federal, state and local taxes. I believe that also includes the high tax on gasoline. Did you know that in Wisconsin we pay 51 cents in tax on every gallon of gas we buy? 51 cents! As you are aware, Wisconsin also has one of the highest state tax rates. We all pay painfully high property taxes. My sister has a house in Ohio that is worth 50% more than our house, but their property taxes are one-half of ours. There is no doubt that Wisconsinites pay our share of taxes. That is why when Jesus makes an authoritative statement about taxes, we should sit up and listen.
20 Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. 21 So the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. 22 Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
23 He saw through their duplicity and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?”
25 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
He said to them, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
26 They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent.
When the Pharisees ask, “is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?”, our gut reaction is to want Jesus to say something like, “No, it is not lawful to pay taxes to the government. The evil government is burying you with incredibly heavy tax burdens. Just say no to taxes!” Wouldn’t that have been great if Jesus had said that? We could carry our Bibles to our IRS audit and explain to them that Jesus said we don’t have to pay taxes. As nice as that would be, we don’t receive a divine tax-exemption from Jesus, but we do get one of the greatest social-political statements in all of history. For 2000 years, theologians, politicians, popes and kings have all studied the genius contained in Jesus’ answer. They don’t all apply his teaching in the same way, but believers and non-believers alike agree that his statement is remarkable for its wisdom and simplicity. But Jesus was not just making a brilliant social commentary. His statement demands a fundamental allegiance to God as our sovereign king. This is not about taxes or issues of separation of church and state—this is about a line in the sand—will you bow to the king of kings or does your allegiance lie elsewhere?
But before we get Jesus’ perfect reply, we need to see how the Pharisees tried to set up the perfect trap for Jesus. Verse 20 tells us that they sent spies to try to trap Jesus into saying something that would lead to his incarceration or execution by the Roman government. It’s what modern crime investigators call a sting operation. It was a calculated and carefully crafted plan of entrapment. First, let’s make sure we understand the actors in this drama. In verse 20, Luke refers to the bad guys as “they”, but in parallel passages in Matthew and mark, we learn that the “they” is actually two different sets of people—the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees and Herodians could not be different. The Pharisees hated the Roman government and did not like paying taxes. The most zealous Pharisees thought paying taxes made them slaves to the pagan government. On the other hand, the Herodians were government sympathizers who supported the Romans through the house of the Jewish governor Herod. The Pharisees and the Herodians are an unlikely team to work together because they are enemies of one another. But their hatred for Jesus is greater than their hatred for one another, so they joined forces. The Herodians were hoping Jesus would say that Jews did not have to pay taxes so they could report him for an act of treason. The Pharisees were hoping Jesus would say that taxes were required so then the average Jew would hate him for supporting the Romans. Jesus was trapped on one side by the Herodians and on the other side by the Pharisees. Two sworn enemies who sought to destroy Jesus, their common enemy. As the old saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. They thought they had set the perfect trap.
The bait they used for the trap was flattery and boy did they lay it on thick. They gave him three positive strokes. They said to Jesus
1. You speak and teach what is right
2. You do not show favoritism
3. You teach the way of God in accordance with the truth
Flattery may sound nice, but it is a wicked tool used for selfish gain. I heard another pastor give an excellent comparison between gossip and flattery. Gossip is something you say behind a person’s back but would never say to their face, but flattery is something you say to a person’s face but would never say behind their back. These spies would never say these kind things about Jesus to their comrades, but they said it to Jesus to flatter him put him off his guard. I know sometimes we struggle with gossip, but what about flattery? Have you ever complimented another person for your own gain? This is a tough one because when we flatter someone, it sounds like we are being nice. Aren’t we supposed to be nice? Niceness is other-centered and is intended to encourage others, but flattery is self-centered and is intended for your own benefit. Proverbs 26 puts it this way, “A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin.” Flattery is in the same camp as a lying tongue. Why? Because flattery is a lie. When you flatter someone, you may think it sounds nice, but in reality you have lying lips and a selfish heart.
The irony is that when the spies were attempting to flatter Jesus, they were actually speaking the truth. Look at the content of their flattery again.
1. You speak and teach what is right
2. You so not show favoritism
3. You teach the way of God in accordance with the truth
This would make a perfect three-point sermon. This is sound doctrine spoke from the lying lips of Jesus’ sworn enemies! If everyone actually believed these three points we would not need to do a Da Vinci Code outreach.
The players were the Pharisees and Herodians, the bait for the trap was flattery and the question demanded a definite response: Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? This question required a yes or no answer. Answer ‘yes’ and the Pharisees have him—answer ‘no’ and the Herodians turn him in. They had devised the perfect trap—or so they thought.
The Pharisees and Herodians were obviously impressed with their own
brilliance, but their perfect trap was about to be undone. In v 23, Luke gives
us a glimpse into the inner mind of Jesus. 23 He saw through
their duplicity and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose
portrait and inscription are on it?” A denarius was given to Jesus and they
rightly answered that Caesar’s portrait was on the coin. We can narrow down the
range of possibilities to two Roman coins. Jesus would have been holding one of
these two coins. The first would have had the portrait of Caesar Augustus.
Augustus was emperor of Rome when Jesus was born. He was the one who ordered the
census which resulted in 
Joseph
and Mary traveling to Bethlehem where Jesus was born in a barn. Even then God
was directing the decisions of the most powerful man in the world in order to
fulfill the Scripture that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem. At the time of this
event in Luke 20, Caesar Augustus would have been dead for fifteen years, but
coins with his inscription would have still been in use. Notice the reverse side
of the coin which has a picture of a comet with the Latin words “divine Julius”.
Around the time that Julius Caesar was murdered, a comet appeared in the sky.
The Romans took this to be the soul of Julius Caesar rising to the heavens which
elevated him to the role of a god—hence the title of “divine Julius.”
The
other and perhaps more likely coin that Jesus held would have bore the portrait
of Tiberius Caesar—the reigning emperor of Rome at that time. The front of this
coin reads “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus” and the reverse side
has Tiberius seated on a throne with the words “Pontifus Maximus” which is
translated as high priest. Are you getting the picture here? The Romans also
thought Caesar Augustus was a god and the coin which Jesus probably held
referred to the current Roman emperor as the son of god. So here we have
the true son of God and Creator of the universe, holding a common Roman coin
which claimed that the pagan emperor is the son of god.
You may not like to pay high taxes, but at least our currency does not elevate our government leaders to divine status. If there was ever a time for Jesus to denounce the evils of the secular, idolatrous government, this would have been the perfect opportunity. The most powerful ruler of his day was calling himself the son of god and Jesus was holding his coin. But again, much to our disappointment, Jesus did not grant an exemption from paying taxes. But he did crush the spies sent to trap him by making his famous, brilliant statement: Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. The trap had been sprung but it didn’t catch Jesus. Jesus would not allow himself to be trapped by either side because he satisfied both complaints with a single sentence. He was saying that even believers owe a limited allegiance to the government, part of which entails the paying of taxes, but our ultimate allegiance is to God.
Paul expands on Jesus’ teaching in Romans 13. Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. This is why Jesus said that we owe a limited allegiance to the government—because they are ordained representatives of God. It may not seem like this is true and most of the time the government leaders don’t act like this is true, but it part of God’s sovereign plan. And if that wasn’t clear enough, Paul spells out one of the applications of this principle a few verses later: This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. There it is, in all of it’s Biblical authority—pay your taxes!
So if we owe allegiance to both God and the government, how do we separate the two? The well known passage in Acts four helps inform our decisions. Peter and John were arrested and threatened by the Sanhedrin to no longer speak or teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.” So the principle is that we must obey the governing authorities unless man’s laws conflict with God’s laws. God’s law will always trump man’s law. The principle is clear, but the application of the principle is not always so clear. This is why Christians break laws by smuggling Bibles into closed countries. This is why believers broke the law by hiding Jews during the holocaust. But does this mean that a public school teacher should preach to his or her students? If they did, the school administration would approach the teacher and warn them not to speak or teach in Jesus’ name. Should the teacher defiantly respond with John and Peter’s powerful Biblical phrase—“Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.”? It can get complicated in a hurry, can’t it? The principle is clear, but the application requires much wisdom. When Pastor Don Greven contacted the Liberty Counsel regarding Diversity Day, he was using the existing laws of men to support the higher laws of God.
As much as we would like Jesus to solve all of the issues surrounding the so-called separation of church and state, he didn’t answer these issues. Much like the tax issue, we would like to have quotes from Jesus which would require prayer in public schools. It would be very convenient if Jesus would have settled the abortion debate by declaring Roe v. Wade to be a heinous and unjust law. But he didn’t do any of these things because this was not his intent. What Jesus said transcends all of the issues of his day, of our day and all future controversies as well. Jesus did far more than cleverly worm his way out of a trap—he set forth an unequivocal choice—follow God or follow the world.
Look again at his famous reply: Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. According to Jesus, what belongs to Caesar? The Jews and all citizens owed taxes and limited allegiance to Caesar. Why did they owe taxes? Because Caesar’s image was on the coin. The money bore the image of Caesar and was a sign of allegiance. The more important question is “why do we owe allegiance to God?” The answer is that we bear his image. Just as the image of Caesar was stamped on the Roman coins, so the image of God is stamped upon every human being. Who possesses the image of God? Believers only? No, the image of God is permanently affixed in each person—whether or not they believe. Another way of stating Jesus’ principle is like this: the image of Caesar means give Caesar your tax—the image of God means give God your life. Just as surely as I can pick up a quarter and see the image of George Washington, we have the image of God stamped upon us. Caesar can have his silver coins, but God deserves your soul and life. We are his. We belong to him. He has marked us with his seal. You can’t lift up your shirt and see it. It’s not a tattoo, but it’s there. Brilliant as they are, Jesus’ words are not social, political or economic commentary, they are a call to all humanity worship the Creator. The movie Toy Story has a memorable scene where the cowboy Woody looks at the bottom of his boot where his owner had written his name, “Andy”. Woody belonged to Andy because he was marked with his seal. How much more are we marked with the image of our Creator?
Give to Caesar what is Caesars—pay your taxes, obey the laws of man. But give to God what is God’s. You belong to God. We are his possession. Give Caesar your coins, but give God your life.
Rich Maurer
May 7, 2006