What Does It Mean To "Render Unto Caesar?"

Mk. 12:13-17

Transcript

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 opinion, for you not swayed by appearances,
but truly teach the ways 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. Jesus said to them, render to Caesar things that are
Caesar's and to God things that are God's. And they marveled at him. One of the
questions that we are consistently faced with today, and this is not necessarily
unique to us, but it's one of the questions Christians are consistently faced
with today, is how to live as followers of Christ in a secular society. There's
a lot of variations on that theme, but how do we live as followers of Jesus? In
our neighborhoods, among our friends who don't know Christ, in our workplaces,
at school. And the question that we are going to answer today is in relationship
to the government. How do I live as a Christian in relationship to the
government? That's our question this morning and we are going to answer it by
looking at Mark 12, 13-17. And one of the things that we'll see is that we have,
as Christians, earthly responsibilities and eternal loyalties. Earthly
responsibilities and eternal loyalties. So let's look at Mark 12, 13-17. This
begins with a delegation sent to trap Jesus. Verse 13 says, they sent to him
some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians to trap him in his talk. So it's
Passover week in Mark 12. We are in the middle of the events that are leading up
to Jesus' death. And once again, this is a repeated idea, Mark tells us that
Jesus' opponents try to trap him. There are two groups involved. The Pharisees
and the Herodians. They have been opposing Jesus for a long time. If you go all
the way back to Mark 3, 6, it says the Pharisees went out and immediately held
council together with the Herodians how to destroy him. So you need to
understand, these are very unlikely allies. The Pharisees are a very
conservative, strict, Jewish religious group. The Herodians are a looser
political group seeking to advance the agenda of the Herodian dynasty. So the
Herodians serve under Roman jurisdiction. They are not purely Jewish and they
are not religiously conservative. You could say that the Pharisees are the right
wingers and the Herodians are the left wingers. Generally speaking, the
Pharisees despise the Herodians. However, they have been made unlikely allies.
Or friends in this case. Strange bedfellows. Because of their common hatred of
Jesus. Sometimes you see this in politics. Two unlikely people or groups that
come together because they have some common cause. We see them and we think
that's a strange pair. But it's usually because there's something larger that
those two are fighting for. You know how during football season you'll see
people walk around with the T-shirts that say my two favorite teams are Buffalo
and whoever is playing Kansas City? That's kind of what's going on here, right?
The Pharisees and Herodians are united by common cause even though they despise
each other. And if you have been reading Mark's Gospel with us, you know that
Jesus' opponents have been peppering him with what they think are hard
questions. Almost throughout Mark's Gospel. In Mark 8 they ask Jesus to give
them a sign to prove himself. Then in Mark 10 they try to trap Jesus with a
difficult question about when divorce is and is not permissible. In Mark 11 they
confront Jesus and say who gave you the authority to do these things? And in
every case their attempts to trap Jesus have been foiled. And today you can
almost see these two groups huddling together and someone saying we have to try
something different this time. So instead of being aggressively hostile as they
have been, the Pharisees and Herodians, these two parties come together and they
come up with a different tack, a plan to flatter Jesus. They try to appeal to
his pride. Who isn't susceptible to that? Who doesn't like a little flattery or
a couple compliments? You know you've heard the expression before you can catch
more flies with honey than with vinegar? I don't know if that expression was
around in the first century, but Jesus' opponents try to come up with a way to
trap him but this time they're trying a little bit of flattery. So this war
party delegation of Pharisees and Herodians are selected and given a mission.
Verse 13 says to try to trap him in his talk. And they come and they say to him,
verse 14, they came and said to him, teacher, we know that you are true and do
not care about anyone's opinion. 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? When they were planning this out, this must have
seemed like a perfect question. The Pharisees are a Jewish group. So they want
Jesus to say yes, it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar because they think if
Jesus looks like he's in compliance with Rome, then he will lose some of his
Jewish patriotic supporters. The Herodians are connected with Roman authority.
They're hoping that Jesus will say no because if Jesus says you can't pay taxes
to Rome, then the Herodians are going to take that report to the authorities who
oversee them, get the Roman government involved and they can say that Jesus is
politically seditious. Then maybe Rome can just take care of Jesus. So
ironically, this delegation says a number of things that are true, even though
their motive in saying these things is hypocritical. They say, teacher, we know
that you're true. You don't care what other people think about you. You aren't
swayed by appearances. You truly teach the way of God. That's all true. Even
though their motivation is to flatter Jesus. And now they drop the question that
they think is the perfect trap. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
Should we pay them or should we not? Now, most of us don't like paying our
taxes. People complain about how high their taxes are all the time, whether it's
federal, state, local. I know that twice a year when I get my property tax
receipt from the town of Amherst, I'm always shocked and I say thanks to Laurel,
did you know we have a $175 library membership? Do you know how much it actually
costs us every time they take the garbage away? And of course we have it worse
in New York. I have friends in Tennessee with much bigger and more expensive
houses than we have. They can't stop laughing when I tell them how much our
property taxes are. But this is actually different than that. This is different
than just not liking to pay your taxes. The Jewish people were paying taxes to
the country who occupied them. They were not sending their money to the IRS.
They were paying out of their pockets to their worst enemies, the Romans. And as
much as you or I might resent paying our taxes or think they're higher than they
need to be or complain about governmental waste, imagine if we were giving that
money to the Russian government or the Chinese. The Israelites were paying taxes
to the country who occupied them. They hate paying their taxes, even more than
you or I might. So the Pharisees are trying to get Jesus on the ropes with this
one. Because he just entered Jerusalem and the crowds hailed him and said,
blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. They believe that there's
this Messiah coming. So is he the promised one who will save them from Rome or
is he actually compromised? And when they say, is it lawful, they mean, is it
according to God's law, is it God's will to pay taxes to Caesar? They wanted to
trap him. In Luke's Gospel, there's a parallel account of this passage. It's
even more detailed about the motivations of the religious leaders. Luke 20 says,
so they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be sincere that they might
catch him in something he said so as to deliver him unto the authority and
jurisdiction of the governor. That's their intent. The governor is a
representative of Caesar. So anything that Jesus said that discouraged people
from paying taxes would have been, would have gotten quick action from him. So
bear with me for just a little bit of history here. When Herod the Great had
died in 4 BC, so like 35 years earlier, the Romans had divided his kingdom into
three parts. Each one was ruled by one of Herod's sons. The Herods were of
Jewish descent, so it was religiously okay to pay them taxes. However, one of
Herod's sons was so unpopular that the Jewish people were threatening to revolt.
To prevent the revolt, the Roman government removed one of the Herods, whose
name was Herod Arceles, and made Judea a province that was directly governed by
Rome. So instead of paying taxes to Herod, the people of Judea were paying taxes
directly to Rome. When Jesus was in Galilee, where he grew up, people paid their
taxes to Jewish representatives. But now that he's in Judea, where he is right
now, this is a very hot issue. Because tax money is going directly to Rome. So
there were patriotic Jewish people who said it was treason for a God-fearing
Israelite to be paying his taxes to Caesar. We're living in God's land, we're
fearing God, we're paying our taxes to Caesar. That's why the question is so
controversial. So here's how Jesus responds. Verse 15 says, knowing their
hypocrisy, he said to them, Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let
me look at it. The denarius is a common coin, it had the value of about one
day's labor for an average person, and on the denarius was the image of Caesar
Augustus. So Jesus asks the Pharisees and Herodians to pull out a coin for him,
and present it to him, and look at it. They brought one and he said to them,
whose likeness and inscription is this? And they said to him, Caesar's. And
Jesus said to him, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the
things that are God's. And they marveled at him. They marveled in that moment
because Jesus had answered perfectly. And people continue to marvel today
because what Jesus said in that one sentence is one of the most profound
statements that's ever been made about the relationship of the Christian to the
state. So we're going to try and understand the significance of what Jesus has
said. I'm going to make three brief points, and each one are going to speak to
our original question. How do I live as a Christian in relationship to the
government? The first thing that we need to see is that civil government is
ordained by God. And that word render, render to Caesar, render to God, it
carries the idea of giving back to someone what they rightfully deserve. So in
the world that God has created, there are some things that belong to Caesar.
That means civil government has a role and a realm. In his earthly ministry,
Jesus is not about the work of establishing an earthly political kingdom. That
was not his mission. So he can tell people, even his fellow countrymen, people
who are living under a sinful government, people who are occupied, living in
unfavorable circumstances, he can tell them, render to Caesar the things that
are Caesar's. That would mean, among other things, pay your taxes, obey the law.
So we read this and we think, well, okay, what are the things of Caesar other
than taxes? That's not being addressed specifically by Jesus other than the
issue of taxation. But the question is taken up by the apostle Paul in his
letter to the Romans. So Paul talks to the church about the relationship of the
believer to the state in the late 50s AD while the emperor Nero is ruling Rome.
Paul says in Romans 13 to the Romans, let every person, this is Romans 13, 1-8,
let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there's no
authority except from God and those that exist have been given, have been
instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God
has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a
terror to good conduct but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in
authority? Then do what is good. And you will receive his approval for he is
God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid for he does not bear
the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out
God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to
avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this, you
also pay taxes. For the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very
thing. Pay to all what is owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to
whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is
owed. Own no one anything except to love one each other for the one who loves
another has fulfilled the law. Civil government is a good gift from God. It's
ordained by God. And without it, we wouldn't be able to live together without
chaos. So you may not, I may not love our tax rates. And we may not admire the
work of all of our elected officials. But it is a good thing that we have water
systems, sewage systems, garbage collectors and police officers. The civil
government keeps us from anarchy. If you think about perhaps the darkest time in
Israel's history, the time of the judges, it was a time when they had no
leadership whatsoever. And everyone did what was right in their own eyes. That's
called anarchy. Now if someone today takes me, takes what belongs to me, steals
from me or destroys my property, I do not have to become a vigilante and take
justice into my own hands. I can report that to the governing authorities who
now have the responsibility to deal with evil behavior. And that is a blessing.
That's a good thing. God uses the power of the state to carry out his wrath on
wrongdoing. Now you may think about that and say, okay, we absolutely could talk
about the moral relativism in our country and in a moral sense, many people
today do exactly what's right in their own eyes. Without any view or belief in
absolute truth. And we can talk about governmentally how far this country has
moved from its original ideals. Or we can critique governmental leaders and in
some cases work to remove them. But at the same time, all that being the case,
we also need to see that Jesus ordained the authority of the civil government
and told us to render to Caesar what is Caesar's. And Paul upholds that by
telling us to obey and honor the governing authorities. So as Christians, we do
need to recognize that civil government is ordained by God. Secondly, we also
need to recognize we have responsibilities to the government. There are
blessings that come under the authority of the civil government. You've probably
heard before, most people that have any exposure to church have heard before
about the insanity of Nero and the persecution of the church and all the evil
that Christians face in the first century. That's all real. There were also
benefits that first century Christians experienced by being under the Roman
government. One commentator wrote, it's beyond question that the Roman
government brought to the ancient world a sense of security it had never had
before. It's not talking about freedom from religious oppression, which early
Christians experienced. It does mean things like the roads were cleared of
bandits and robbers and the seas were cleared of pirates. Jesus' life and
ministry and the work of the apostles and the spread of the gospel that
revolutionized the world and launched the early church happened during the
period of time, you probably read about it in school, the Pax Romana, the peace
of Rome. It was a time of comparative peace and tranquility in the ancient
world. And as citizens today, we live under the authority of the civil
government. We enjoy the privileges that we receive, but we have
responsibilities to the state. We have earthly allegiance or responsibility to
the state. So we ought to ask ourselves and discuss with one another, are we
actually giving to Caesar what we owe? According to Romans 13, that means
obedience, law keeping, being subject to the governing authorities. That means,
among other things, honestly paying your taxes. It means being citizens of
integrity. It means showing our leaders locally, statewide, nationally, respect
and honor. And it means our standard posture toward those leaders is one of
respect and honor. And that's not really dependent on whether we agree with them
morally, politically, or find their lives admirable. So many people, this is not
a new conversation, but many people today will talk and bemoan the loss of,
let's say, dignity among our national leaders. The office of the president or
the senate and some people, to back that point up, they may talk about wild
stuff that President Trump has said on Twitter and rallies. Or they may use a
different example from the past and talk about President Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky. And that is true. There is probably a loss of dignity in the office of
the president that's happened over time. Just as importantly, and maybe even
just as sadly, there has been a decline in the respect with which we talk about
our civil authorities. And as Christians, in our speech, we ought to be
prayerful and we ought to be respectful toward those who are in governmental
authority. One of the privileges that I have as a preacher when I prepare the
text is hopefully during the week the word preaches to me. And this was a point
of conviction for me this week, how often I have spoken disrespectfully about
politicians or governmental authorities. It has nothing to do with political
party, level of agreement, whether the person that we think is competent or
admirable or whether we voted for them. Look at what the apostle Paul wrote to
the church in 1 Timothy. The apostle Paul says this, 1 Timothy 2, 1-2. He says,
first of all, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and
thanksgivings be made for all people. For kings and all who are in high
positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in
every way. This is good and it's pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who
desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. You
see the connection there? Paul is saying that Christians ought to be making all
types of prayer for all types of people, particularly those in high positions.
That is pleasing to God and God desires that people be saved, that all people be
saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Quietness, peacefulness,
godliness, dignity are connected with the proclamation of the gospel. This is
what we're called to render to our civil authorities. Obedience, law keeping,
respect, honor and prayer. So civil government is a gift, it's ordained by God
and in the light of that gift we have responsibilities as members of the state.
We need to see civil government is a gift from God. We need to see that we have
earthly responsibilities to the government. But third, we also need to say, see,
there are limits on the power of the state. So God's created two institutions,
the church and the state. Those institutions have very separate
responsibilities. They're not meant to overlap. It becomes deeply problematic if
they do. So to build off that, the church does not bear the sword, the civil
authorities do. And as such, they are God's ministers to punish wrongdoing. The
church is not meant to wage war or be the executioner of wrath on the evildoer.
The state conversely does not exercise spiritual oversight. The state is not
meant to preach and teach. The state does not baptize. The state does not
administer the Lord's Supper. So Mark 12 and then Romans 13 have both been used
by some to talk about a phrase we've all heard before, the separation of the
church and state. It is true. God's established two separate realms. It's also
true, like, historically our Constitution says, Congress will make no law
concerning the establishment of religion. However, that concept of the
separation of church and state gets used today, popularly, to say that religious
expression has no place in public life and the state exists independently and
cannot be addressed by the church. Well, God has created two institutions, the
church and the state. That does not mean that the state can do whatever it wants
in an unimpeded way and that the church is some sort of irrelevant island for
those that are interested in that sort of thing. The state is not supreme and
the church can speak as a conscience to the nation. The state does not have the
right to dictate religious doctrine or tell people what they should believe or
how they should worship. The state can never bind the conscience, can never
interpret scripture, can never tell us how to worship and can never prevent us
from obeying God's law. And if and when that does happen, we have great biblical
examples, Daniel, Esther, Elijah, the apostles, that tell us there are times
when we're called to disobey the state. So we have a temporal and earthly
loyalty to the state, but we have a higher permanent, eternal loyalty to God and
his words. And when those things come in conflict, we know where our loyalty
lies. There are times when the law of God and the law of the land collide and
when that happens, when it becomes obvious, then our path is clear. So in the
book of Acts, to give you an example of this, Peter and John are told in Acts 4
that they need to stop preaching. They're told this by the authorities. So they
called them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus. This is Acts 4,
18-20. Peter and John answered them, whether it's right in the sight of God to
listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of
what we have seen and heard. In the book of Daniel, we read about Daniel's three
friends who are serving a pagan king and figuring out how to function as exiles
in a strange land. Then they're told that they must bow down to an idol or face
death. Daniel 3, 16-18 tells us, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and
said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this
matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the
burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if
not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the
golden image that you have set up. When the law of God and the law of man
collide, our loyalties need to be with God. The God-given limits to the state
also mean that the church should not attempt to use the power of the government
to enforce adherence to religion. So we can work and vote within the framework
of the government for conditions that we believe will lead towards a more just
and righteous society. And maybe even for conditions that we think will be more
propitious for the proclamation of the gospel. But we are not called to pursue
the mission of God or make disciples through the power of the state. And in
their desire, you can look at this now or you can look at this historically, in
their desire for political power, Christians tend to forget that when the state
and the church get too closely aligned, it's not the state that compromises. Let
me wrap up by saying this. When Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and the Herodians,
he made them look at that coin and he asked them whose image was on it. The
image of Caesar was stamped on that coin. As we think about our responsibilities
as Christians living under the civil authorities, there's also a question for us
as we look at this text. Whose image do we bear? Whose image are we stamped
with? Genesis 1 tells us we're made in the image of God, made to know him, to
love him, to reflect him, to carry out his work on earth, to relate to him. He
is the one that we are fundamentally loyal to. Yes, we have earthly allegiances,
but we have ultimate loyalty to God and to his word. In 2 Corinthians 1, 21, 22,
Paul says, it's God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us
and who has also put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a
guarantee. That word anointed means set apart for a purpose. Put his seal on us
is the idea of a mark of ownership. If you're in Christ, if you've trusted in
Christ, if you've trusted in what Jesus has done for you, God's put his seal on
you. Every one of us are made in God's image, chosen, set apart. His mark of
ownership is on you. You belong to him, been given his Holy Spirit. So as
Christians, we render to the civil authorities what we ought to, respect,
obedience, honor, prayer. Those are our earthly responsibilities, but our
eternal loyalty is toward God who created us and whose image we bear. Let's
pray. Father, we thank you for your word and we pray that we would be good
hearers, that in the realms that you have put us, Lord, that we would be people
of respect, honor, integrity, obedience, and prayer. And Lord, you know all
things and you know difficulties and challenges that we may face, perhaps
nationally or perhaps just personally, ethically, in terms of our relationship
to authorities and the law of your word and the law of men. So Lord, whether
those are micro-temptations that we may face in our work or in our neighborhood,
or whether those are big, national issues that we may face down the road, Lord,
we pray that we would be people of integrity and that our loyalty, our eternal
loyalty, our overriding loyalty would be to you. So strengthen us, Lord, that we
might honor you, that we might be people who faithfully bear your image. In
Jesus' name, amen.