Jesus, Your Tax Specialist

All right, well, you can turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 12. We'll get there in just a minute. I have to confess, I'm wondering if you can relate to this, but I'm actually surprised at how few times over the course of my life I have caught on fire. The reason I say that is because when I was younger, growing up in elementary school, it felt like that was all they wanted you to know: what do you do if you catch on fire? Right, stop, drop, and roll. I mean, we had assemblies about it, we watched little videos about it, and we had coloring pages about it. If you catch on fire, you need to know what to do. And I haven't caught on fire a single time in my forty-some-odd years of life. Okay, I have never once had to stop, drop, and roll. I mean, I know what to do. If it happens, I'm ready. I'm ever vigilant. If I catch on fire, I am doing it. I'm stopping what I'm doing. I'm not going to keep carrying on, watching whatever's on TV or something. I'm going to stop, drop, and roll, so you can be sure of that.

The passage we are going to look at this morning presents us with another conflict, similar to catching on fire, in that you would think it would happen more than it actually does. In fact, I think a lot of Christians spend a lot of time acting as if it does happen more than it actually does. But that doesn't make the lesson any less important. See if you can figure it out as we go along. I won't let you know what it is until the end, but it's here in Mark 12:13-17.

"And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, 'Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone's opinions, for you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?' But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, 'Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.' And they brought one. And he said to them, 'Whose likeness and inscription is this?' They said to him, 'Caesar's.' And Jesus said to them, 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' And they marveled at him."

In this passage, we focus on that very last statement: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." But I don't want you to lose sight of what's going on. Jesus is on the Temple Mount. He's teaching in the temple. This is just days before his crucifixion. So what we're seeing here is that, even before Jesus gets to the cross, he is humbly yet confidently dismantling every attempt they throw at him to justify his execution. Right off the bat, we're told that they are trying to trap him, that this is a trick. They are trying to get him to say something that would bring justification for what they want to do to him.

Let's look at this trap that they set for him. I want to make sure my slides are working. I've been told I'm still not doing a great job at this, but they're changing, at least up to this point. They are opposed to Jesus' teaching. They are opposed to what Jesus is doing. And what we're talking about is these religious leaders: the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, all of those who are part of the Jewish religious system that Jesus is dismantling. Jesus is not just disrupting but dismantling it. They want to take care of him, and they want to not only arrest him but ultimately execute him so that he is a problem dealt with. He's taken care of. He's out of the way. It's nothing that they need to bother with anymore.

But they have a problem. They can't do this because they are afraid. If you look back to verse 12, we're told they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people. The crowds like Jesus. They like the miracles that he's performed. They even kind of like the teaching. They have this hope that he is this promised Messiah, that he's going to bring some sort of deliverance, that he's going to unburden them from the oppression of Roman rule. So the crowds are quite fond of him, and the religious leaders are afraid. If we just go in full force and do what we want to do, that's going to turn the people against us, and we're going to accomplish the opposite of what we're hoping to accomplish.

So they can't just go right in and arrest him because they are afraid of the crowd. So what they have to do is present to him a sort of catch-22 scenario. They're presenting to him a question that, in their minds, no matter how he answers it, it's going to offend someone, and then they will have some allies to their cause that they are going to be able to leverage to do something to Jesus. This is presenting a logical fallacy known as a false dilemma. It's a yes-or-no question. Jesus, just answer it. You see this all the time in congressional hearings and things like that. They'll be interviewing a witness, and they're going to present them with a simple yes-or-no question. That's the only two options, right? And either one of those answers is going to get the witness in trouble or the person who is testifying before a hearing. It's a very common tactic, this presumption that there are only two valid answers. So their hope is that Jesus is going to give one of those two and get somebody upset.

This trap is an act of cowardice. It is an indication that they don't even trust the merits of their own arguments, their own reasons for opposing Jesus. They have to come up with some other means. So rather than presenting their real objections to the crowd or to the Roman officials, they resort to asking about something they really couldn't care less about: who do we pay these taxes to? They couldn't care less what Jesus thought about the legitimacy of paying taxes to Rome. They didn't know what he would say, and in their mind, either answer is going to do the trick.

So that's the trap. That's the setup. We want to get Jesus, but we can't because the crowds kind of like him. In fact, they cheered him when he entered into Jerusalem. So we've got to do something else. Let's see if we can get somebody offended about something that he says, and then, boom, we got him. That's still the tactic people use today, isn't it? Let's just get somebody offended about something, and then, boom, we got them. So this is the trap, or what they think is the trap.

But Jesus addresses it for what it is. He says this is just hypocrisy. This tactic that you're using, the approach you're using, the questions you're asking, even the way you set it up, is pure hypocrisy. What is hypocrisy? That's probably the number one charge that gets lobbed at Christians, right? "Oh, you Christians, you're just a bunch of hypocrites." One definition is the characteristic of acting in a way that is inconsistent with one's character, belief system, or speech. Another definition is the hiding of interior wickedness under the appearance of virtue. We have wickedness in our hearts, or we're doing things behind closed doors, but then we go out in public and present this rosy picture of who we are and what we believe. It is pretending to be what one is not. In fact, the New Testament understanding of "hypocrite" or "hypocrisy" comes from the Greek theater, where they would put on these masks to play different parts. So they would wear these masks in order to mask what is behind them and enter into the role of a character, imitating speech, mannerisms, and conduct.

What is so interesting about this whole scene is that it is so premeditated. This is not, we would say, organic. Verse 12: they left him and went away. Verse 13: they sent to him some Pharisees and Herodians. This whole thing is orchestrated to seem like it's just natural. "Hey, Jesus, we have a question." But on the one hand, they leave him because they are afraid of the crowds. They can't just go after Jesus. But they're not done with Jesus. So they strategize: "Oh, well, we got this great idea. Let's send these guys over there, and we're going to ask him this question. He's not going to know what hit him. He's going to give an answer, and, boom, we're going to get him because somebody's going to be mad about what he says." This is the classic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" because the Pharisees and the Herodians would be completely opposed to everything that either one of them stood for. Whatever any one of them supported, the Pharisees would have been very anti-Roman government. They would have presumably been anti-government tax, even supposedly opposed to Roman coinage, as it would have been, in their minds, a form of idolatry. It would have violated the Torah. And that's what the Pharisees were all about. It was all about being obedient to the law and to the proper interpreters of the law. These were the men that were viewed in the eyes of society as the utmost of righteousness. Jesus even heralds them as such, saying that if your righteousness does not exceed the scribes and the Pharisees, you can't enter the kingdom of God. These were viewed as the most righteous, the most devout keepers of the law that you could find.

And then you have the Herodians. Herodians would have been allies and fans of Herod and his family. They would have been very pro-Roman government, pro-paying taxes. They would have been in support of all of this. So these two groups getting together is not a natural alliance. Their single harmonizing feature is that they both don't want Jesus around. They allied with each other in Mark chapter 3, and here they are again, natural enemies coming together because they both hate Jesus. The Roman coins had images on both sides of them. This denarius that was used would have had, on one side at this time, Emperor Tiberius with an inscription declaring, essentially, that he was the son of God. On the other side of the coin, it would have been of his mother, with an inscription naming her Pontifex Maximus or high priestess. So the coins were, figuratively, covered with idolatry.

So the hypocrisy of what's going on is multi-layered, as Jesus addresses it. First of all, it's hypocritical to conspire with your enemies under the banner of this sort of moral good when you are natural enemies. You oppose what each other stands for, believes, lives for, and yet you're going to set all those differences aside so we can get this one guy. That's hypocritical. It's also hypocritical that they mask their desire to entrap Jesus with a seemingly innocent question. "Jesus, we just have this one question. If you could answer it for us real quick, we'll be on our way." That's not really their intention at all. They don't care about the answer. They just care about him giving an answer so then they have an excuse to get him. It's hypocritical that, rather than attempt to arrest him for the reason they desire to arrest him and risk the crowd, they ask this question and attempt to use the crowd against him. And then it's also super hypocritical to falsely claim that they believe Jesus, quote, "truly taught the way of God." They didn't believe that at all. That's a complete lie. The whole thing is an absolute charade. And Jesus calls it for what it is: "You guys are a bunch of hypocrites."

But he doesn't just leave it at that. He comes back and gives them an answer. He gives a counter to their attempt to entrap him: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." If Jesus had just said, "Yes, pay your taxes," the Pharisees, anyone in the crowd that was pro-Torah, anti-Roman government, would have been upset. The Pharisees' law that they cared about was the law of God, the Torah, what was given to them by Moses and the interpretations of their approved leaders. So they would have accused Jesus of supporting Rome, supporting paganism, supporting idolatry, supporting all that sort of stuff. If he said, "No, don't pay your taxes to Caesar," well, then the Herodians and the other pro-Rome people in the audience would have been upset, and they would have viewed Jesus' answer as undermining the authority of Caesar and undermining his authority to enforce the laws of Rome within the Roman Empire. So, in their mind, they've cooked up a perfect scheme. How can you lose? No matter what Jesus says, somebody's going to be mad. Or so they thought.

Instead, Jesus essentially gives them the only answer that neither side could object to. He gives them both what they want and what they don't want, and they can't oppose it in any way. I love how J.C. Ryle puts it. He says, in short, he bids the proud Pharisees not to refuse their duties to Caesar and the worldly Herodians not to refuse their dues to God. But what does Jesus' answer mean? What does it mean when he says, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's"? The coin contained Caesar's inscription, Caesar's image. Jesus is saying, give him his due under the authority of his laws. The short answer for us today is that we are supposed to submit to the laws duly established under earthly governing authorities. On the flip side, the Bible is very clear that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. We are to give Him His due: worship and obedience under the authority of His dominion. Very simple, right? What problems could we have with that?

Let's look at a couple of verses in Scripture that support this. Romans chapter 13, verses 1 and 2, says this: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." So that's Paul. He says, listen, authorities that we have, earthly or otherwise, are appointed by God. We should submit to them. Peter says this in 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 13 and following: "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but live as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor." Amen. And then one more from Paul, as he's addressing Titus and giving him instructions for how he should do the ministry and work on Crete. He says, "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy towards all people."

So, as we look at both Jesus' instruction and then the explanations from Paul and Peter, what we come up with is that our submission to human authorities, to human institutions, is supposed to serve a couple of different purposes. First of all, it's supposed to demonstrate that we understand that human authority ultimately derives from God's authority. God is the appointer of kings and nations. So by submitting to the earthly authorities, we are submitting to the authorities appointed by God. Number two, this is one that Peter really keys in on in his exhortation. He says that this amplifies our witness as Christians in the world, that by honoring governing authorities, we remove excuses to dismiss our message. Peter says that we are to honor governing authorities in verse 13 of chapter 2 for the Lord's sake. This is supposed to help our Christian witness. This is supposed to open doors for the gospel and to remove excuses to dismiss us. And a third one that we get from this is it acknowledges that we do often derive good from human authorities. They administer justice. Are they perfect? No. Is every government good and perfect? No.

So that's essentially what Jesus is getting at when he says, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." Submit to the governing authorities, live under their rule, and obey their laws. But there's still tension here, isn't there? For example, Peter says this in Acts chapter 5, this classic statement: "We must obey God rather than men." There can be times when obedience to God means you can't just blindly submit to every rule that the governing authorities command you to obey. What are we to do when there's a conflict, right, when it's impossible to both render to God the things that are God's and render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's? When those two things seem to be in opposition, right? So Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world and make disciples." So Peter and John and their disciples were in the Temple Mount, and they're preaching about Jesus. And the Sanhedrin says, "You guys can't do this. Stop doing it. If you keep doing it, we're going to arrest you. We're going to throw you in jail. We're going to beat you. We're going to do whatever. Stop preaching about Jesus." So Peter says, "Listen, we've got to obey God rather than men." Classic Sunday school Bible stories, right? Nebuchadnezzar builds a giant golden statue of himself and tells everyone in the Babylonian Empire, "You got to bow down to this statue and worship me." Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego say, "We can't do that. We can only worship the one true and living God." So they had to make a choice. Sunday school story, maybe the top of the heap, maybe right under David and Goliath: Daniel in the lion's den, right? Why is he in the lion's den? Because King Darius passed an edict that you can't pray to anyone except for me, and Daniel said, "I can't do that. I'm going to pray to my God." So there are times where we see these conflicts where it seems like, "I can't do both of these things. I can't render to Caesar. I can't obey the governing authorities and obey God's commands because they're telling me to do opposite things."

I really love and thank Matthew Henry because he says this, because I feel this pressure. He says, "Nothing is more likely to ensnare ministers than bringing them to meddle with controversies about civil rights and to settle landmarks between prince and subjects, which is fit to be done, while it is not at all fit that ministers should have the doing of it." I thank him for saying, listen, it's not always the pastor's responsibility to tell you what laws you should obey and what laws you should not, that sort of thing. This happened all the time during COVID, right? Every church had to respond in a certain way. How are they going to try and navigate the laws that literally changed on a daily basis? And everyone seemed to have an opinion about how the churches were messing this up and how they either weren't honoring Caesar or they weren't honoring the Lord. And you know, a lot of people had a lot of opinions about it. It was a really challenging time, and there didn't even seem like there was a clear right way. Some churches did it one way, and it really seemed like, boy, that's the right way over there, but then churches over here did it a different way, and it seemed like, well, that's the right way. Sometimes it's a gray issue. The Bible doesn't give us every possible instance or example of when and how you should respond when these things seem to be in conflict. It does give us all kinds of examples of people who had to make the choice to obey earthly powers or obey God.

What I think the Bible is clear about, though, is that when we are faced with the choice, and it is impossible to obey the government without disobeying God, you have to always choose to obey God. That has to always be the default. He is the ultimate authority. He is the sovereign. He is the ruler over all creation. So we have to always default to that because He is God and because of the gospel, because of what God the Father has done for us through His Son Jesus Christ, redeeming us from our sins, sending Christ into the world to be our perfect sacrifice so that through His life, death, and resurrection, we not only have our sins atoned for, but we are made righteous in His eyes because of the blood of Christ. We sang a lot about the blood of Christ this morning. I love how Paul says it in 1 Corinthians chapter 6: "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body."

So when these two things are counter to each other, and you say, "Oh man, it's impossible for me to do both of these at the same time," and you have to make a choice to do one or the other, the choice for the Christian is always going to be, or should always be, obey God. But if we're being honest, and I hope we are, that's not really our problem. That's our catching on fire. That's our stop, drop, and roll. If we're being honest, there are very few instances in our lives, at least living in America, where we have to make that choice. I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen, not saying that those occurrences won't ever increase in the future, but it is pretty easy to honor Caesar and honor God living in America.

Our biggest problem is not honoring God just on any given day of the week. Just as we are living out our lives, there's no conflict. We don't have to make a choice between obeying the laws of the land and obeying the laws of God. We just don't like the laws of God. We want to live for ourselves. We become Caesar in our lives. It's hard. We often don't want to give to God the things that are His. We don't want to give Him worship. We don't want to submit to His commands. We don't want to live for Him and for Him alone. We just want to do what we feel like doing. We want to do what makes us happy. We want to do what we think is going to make us fulfilled and satisfied and comfortable. We struggle to live in obedience even when there isn't a conflict between God's commands and earthly rules.

I am convinced of this, though: the more we strive to obey God just in the day-to-day, in the mundane, in the boring, the 9-to-5, the Monday through Friday and the weekends, you know, just the milieu of life, the more you live to honor Him in that, the easier it will be for you when you do have to make those hard choices to say, "I'm going to stand up and obey God even though it means going against a law or a command." It will be much easier for you to give God the things that are God's when Caesar says, "No, give me those things too," and wants to claim those for himself, if you're doing it day in and day out when there's no pressure.

Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, says this: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." This passage in Hebrews gives us a great example that when we look to Jesus, when we see what He endured, specifically on the cross, for the joy set before Him—that is, the joy of redeeming sinners, the joy of obeying the Father, the joy of ushering in the new covenant blessings that come through His sacrifice—He endures this with joy.

When we come to Mark 12, these silly attempts to entrap Him are part of that endurance, the things that He endures for the joy of saving sinners. These are all precursors to the cross. There is no doubt in Jesus' mind that He is going to go to the cross, that He is going to be executed, that the religious leaders, even the Roman rulers, are going to get what they want. They are going to nail Him to the cross, and He is going to die. But He understands that that's not going to be the end of it. There will be the resurrection, that He has told His disciples again and again and again: "I'm going to die, but three days later, I will rise from the dead."

So what we see in Mark 12:13-17 definitely has tons of very practical, personal application when we think about rendering to Caesar what is his versus rendering to God what is His. But in this whole circumstance, what's happening is Jesus is enduring these attempts to entrap Him with humility and yet being very decisive in His answers, knowing that He is on this faithful march to the cross to pay the penalty for sinners. It's a powerful reminder to us of the lengths to which He went in order to redeem us from our sins.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank You for the lessons we learn in this brief episode in the life of Your Son, Jesus Christ. He is just days away from His crucifixion. He knows it. This is part of the plan. The timing is just as much a part of the plan as the actual execution of it, as the actual crucifixion is. He's being very careful. He's being very determined and intentional as He faces these different challenges. This is just one of several attempts to entrap Him that happen within a very short period of time. We thank You for His answer, that it shows that there is an answer to it that is right and good, and it also shows that He is being careful and yet humble as He deals with these silly questions. May we be thankful for His sacrifice for our sins. May we be thankful for all that He endured as He, with joy, looked to what it would accomplish for us. May we, too, seek to honor Him in the way that we live, being obedient to You.