Jesus and Taxes, Matthew 22:15-22
This is one of those passages that talk about taxes,
political implications of economics in terms of government. There are three
central passages in the New Testament that are related to politics and
government. The Bible has a lot to say about social issues and they are not to
be restricted to what is said within the four walls of a church. That is
becoming more and more of a common interpretation by the progressive and
liberal left in this country that is inherently in opposition to the truth of
God's Word. They say you have the freedom to believe and practice whatever you
want to on Sunday morning, just don't bring it into the market place of ideas.
Christians have given up intellectual territory in
this country because they have bought into the same lie that there was a
division between the secular and that which was sanctified. Ultimately there is
only one creation; God did not create two. There is recognition, as we will see
in this passage, that there are different spheres of authority but they are not
different spheres of reality. What is ethical, spiritual and true on Sunday
morning is ethical, spiritual and true on Monday morning. But that is not what
a secular society wants us to understand, so as believers we have to learn to
think biblically about politics.
Actually the word politics comes from the Greek word
for city, POLUS. It relates to how
people in the small society that makes up a city or a certain location are to
conduct themselves ethically. So if ethics is at the root of politics then the
only place where you can get accurate ethical teaching is from God who created
ethics. Ethics that are not biblical are not ethical. They are not eternal;
they are just based on relativism.
In this passage the Pharisees try to trap Jesus. They
weren't sophisticated enough to avoid His trap but He is sophisticated enough
to avoid their trap.
The Pharisees recognize that Jesus is challenging them
and so they go off and begin to plot. So the next section, going down through
the rest of this chapter, revolves around three questions. First, they ask Him
if it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. Then they will marvel at His answer and
leave Him and go their way. They have to regroup again before they come back.
Then the Sadducees come and ask Him a rather convoluted question about a woman
who has seven husbands and whose wife she would be in the resurrection. At the
conclusion of that the multitudes are astonished at His teaching. Then He is
asked by one scribe which was the greatest commandment of the Law.
Then Jesus is going to counter them with a question
that they can't answer. He asks them whose son is the Messiah (Matthew
22:41-46). This concludes this confrontational examination of Jesus as the
Messiah by the religious leaders, and then Matthew 23 sets up the woes to the
scribes and Pharisees as Jesus pronounces a judgment upon them and upon Israel,
which will conclude with a clear statement that there is going to be judgment
on Jerusalem; it will be destroyed.
What we will see in each of the questions by the
Pharisees is that they are concerned with a critical question about politics,
about who is in authority, about what right does an empire have to tax its
citizens or some other area related to theology or ethics. In His answers Jesus
has to be cautious because if He goes one way or the other He could offend one
group or another and even exacerbate a situation that would cause them to take
Him to trial a little early. His answers are quite enlightening.
Matthew tells us that the first question is designed;
it is a setup, a trap. And we are told that the third one is also a test, and
the second one is asked in such a framework of cynicism that it goes without
saying that it is also a trap because the Sadducees are asking about what
happens in the resurrection and they don't even believe in the resurrection.
All of these are designed to put Jesus in a spot.
Matthew 22:15 NASB “Then the Pharisees
went and plotted together how they might trap Him in what He said.”
The language here is interesting because they are
setting up a secret plot. The word “plotted” reflects two different words in
the original that combine together in the best way to express it in English is
a simplified way of saying they plotted or conspired against Him. The main verb
is LAMBANO in the active indicative: that they
actively received something, and then the accusative of “plot”. So the Greek
indicates that somebody comes to them with an idea of how they can trap Jesus.
In the English is sounds like they conspired together and self-generated this
idea, but the idea in the Greek is that they received a plot. It indicates that
someone may have come to them with this idea of how they might entangle Him.
This is the idea of a conspiracy.
The word translated “entangle” is the Greek word PAGIDEUO, which means to entangle somebody, to get them wrapped up in an
argument.
A plot is defined as a secret plan to achieve some end
or purpose that is usually underhanded or illegal (Oxford English Dictionary).
What is interesting is that it is almost word for word the definition that is
given for conspiracy: “Conspiracy is a secret plan or agreement to carry an
illegal or harmful act, especially with political motivation.”
They have gone somewhere away from Jesus, somewhere in
the temple precinct where they have a room where they can gather together and
figure out some way to conspire, because Jesus has overtly challenged them and
announced publicly that they are guilty and will bring judgment upon themselves
and Israel. They understood this (Matthew 21:45, 46).
This is the last week of Jesus' time on the earth but
it is not the beginning of this plot. We are told in Matthew chapter twelve
when Jesus cast out a demon and they claimed that He did it according to the
power of Satan that from that point on they began to conspire more overtly to
kill Him. That was at least six to ten months earlier.
We learn the identity of these groups who come to
Jesus. The Pharisees who have received this plot send to Him their disciples
with the Herodians. Why did they send their disciples? I think they sent their
disciples because they have more prestige on the line and Jesus has already
hammered them a couple of times. So this way the Pharisees can save a little
face but they want to send their own students to be part of this Q and A.
Then there is another group they are associated with:
the Herodians. This is an odd collection here because there are probably no two
groups that are more disparate, more at odds with each other the Pharisees and
the Herodians. I think it is important because of what they are trying to do
that both groups are there to witness what Jesus is going to say. They are
going to set a trap for Him and He is either going to go one way, which would be
in favor of the Herodians, and the Pharisees have Him, or He is going to go the
other way, and that would be in favor of the Pharisees and the Herodians would
have Him.
Who are the Herodians? Under normal circumstances they
were polar opposites of the Pharisees but what we are seeing is they do have a
common enemy. The Herodians were Jewish leaders who were supporters of the
Herods and the Herodian dynasty. The Herods were deeply in debt and involved
with the Romans, very much in favor of the Roman government, Roman taxation,
and everything that the Romans were doing. They were secular and pro-Roman.
They were more of a political party than a religious group.
They are mentioned only three times in the Gospels. In
Mark 3:6 we are told: “The Pharisees went out and immediately {began}
conspiring with the Herodians against Him, {as to} how they might destroy Him.”
That is in Mark chapter three, very early in the
Gospel of Mark, and we are seeing this joint conspiracy going on here in the
last week of Christ's life. If we look at the context of Mark chapter three we
see that Mark loads this conflict up somewhat earlier in his narrative than
Matthew did, but this is the same incident where the Pharisees are confronted
by Jesus. Jesus has cast out a demon and they accuse Him of casting the demon
out by the power of Satan. Matthew 12 and Mark three are the same incident.
This is the turning point.
This brings up an interesting situation and an
interesting scenario. Today we see something similar. Remember the saying that
politics makes strange bedfellows. If you have been alert to what has been
going on in the culture as a whole since 9/11, immediately after there were a
lot of positive things that were beginning to be said at a public level across
the country in relation to how Jihad and violence was an outgrowth of basic,
core Islamic theology. It lasted for maybe a year.
It didn't take long before progressives began to water
that down a little bit. Even President George W. Bush made the statement,
almost immediately after 9/11, that Islam was a religion of peace. Starting
with that fallacious fantasy that Islam is a religion of peace we began to see
the narrative change, until somewhere around seven or eight years ago we began
to think that nothing was really going on that was the result of Islamic
terrorism.
We have a president who was brought up in an Islamic
background and he never has anything negative to say about Islam, and He and
many on the left, the progressives, refuse to say anything about Islam and
connect it to terrorism. That is even recognized by most of the conservative
press but, of course, MSNBC, NBC,
ABC, SBS, CNN and all of the progressive news
organizations that are in the tank for the Democrats refuse to use that
language at all.
In fact, what we are seeing is that those people tend
to be more antagonistic to Christians. They are more concerned sometimes that
there is going to be some sort of right wing Christian terrorism than Islamic
terrorism.
Just last week it was reported that a newspaper in
Tennessee refused to print an add in their classified adds for a Christian
bookstore that was closing down. The store was just saying they were going out
of business and that all the books and everything that they had had to go. The
name of the establishment was “[something] Christian Bookstore”. When the time
came around when the add was supposed to appear it wasn't there. So they called
the paper and were told they couldn't print the add because there was an
offensive word in there. Really? What was the offensive word? They were told
the offensive word was “Christian”. (They couldn't print an add that had such a
horrible offensive word in it!)
The owners of the Christian bookstore decided to tell
the story on Facebook. Starting the next day the newspaper began to get flooded
with phone calls, so they were calling the people back and apologizing and
saying: “Oh, it was a technical error”.
Typically progressive! Let's violate the Constitution;
then let's lie about it. That is the modus operandi.
We are living in an environment that is more and more
hostile to Christianity, and it comes from the progressive left.
Two or three weeks ago I was talking to a
businesswoman, an acquaintance of mine, and she was telling me that about a
year ago—just over a year ago was the Supreme Court decision that validated
same-sex marriage—just after that, she was at Top Gun Range practicing her hand
gun skills. She noticed that not only was she the only woman lined up in all of
the bays and lanes for shooting but also she was the only white woman. Everyone
else was a young 20-25-year-old Muslim male. (That ought to get your antenna
wiggling just a little bit!) But she was listening to their conversations. She
came back and said: “They hate homosexuals more than they hate Jews or
Christians.” Then she said: “I told all my liberal friends what I saw and they
don't believe me. They don't want to believe me, it doesn't fit the progressive
narrative; they just want to turn a blind eye to it”.
What we see is that the progressives seem to be
coddling up to the Muslims more and more, despite the fact that all of the
liberal values that progressives hold to dearly—women's rights, the right to
abortion, homosexual marriage, LGBT rights, and
all of the liberal rights that we hold dear in a liberal democracy--are hated
by Muslims.
If you are a Muslim you are committed by your faith to
sharia law. You cannot say, “I pledge allegiance to the Constitution” because
the Constitution is in conflict with sharia law. It's one or the other.
Legitimately, no practicing Muslim can be a US citizen. It is a violation of the Constitution because they hold to a
law system that is in direct violation of the Constitution.
But you see, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The
enemy of progressives are evangelical Bible-believing Christians because we
hold to an eternal, infinite value system that is directly at odds with the
fundamental beliefs and worldview that lies behind progressivism.
The history of progressivism goes back into the
nineteenth century and into the writings of Karl Marx, and it is basically a
Marxist-Leninist philosophy.
This is what is going on, and remember that in the
broader scope of conflict human history is part of the overall cosmic conflict
between Satan and the fallen angels and the angels of God. So in this world as
Satan is seeking to dominate the world's system and to destroy any system that
allows for the freedom of Bible teaching and the freedom of the proclamation of
the gospel is something that he is going to be against. Progressivism and
Marxism are just one of numerous ideologies that is a brainchild of Lucifer,
the fallen angel known as Satan. And because the enemy of Satan are Christians,
the enemy of those who hold to his “theologies”--Islam, Shintoism, any other
form of transcendental New Age religion, or Marxism—are at odds with
Christianity.
What we have is one world system, Islam, getting in
bed with another world system, political progressivism, in order to attack
Christianity.
We have the same thing here in Matthew. We have the
political arm, the Herodians, who want to get in bed with the religious
Pharisees; and even though one is conservative and one is not one thing they
have in common is they both see Jesus as the problem, and they want to trap Him
and destroy Him.
In one other example of the use of Herodians in
the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8:15, Jesus, talking to His disciples, said: NASB
“Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” In
Matthew 16:6, talking about the same situation as He is talking to His
disciples, said: NASB “Watch out and beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and Sadducees.”
You might ask what the difference is; it seems to be a
contradiction. Matthew focuses more on religious parties that are in opposition
to Jesus; Mark focuses more on political opposition to Jesus, and brings that
out. The Herodians were more of a political party than a religious party. Some
have suggested that the reason there is the difference between the two verses
is that many of the Sadducees were Boethusians. The two were indistinguishable
theologically. That means they didn't really believe in anything beyond the
Pentateuch, they didn't believe in the existence of angels or in resurrection
from the dead.
The Sadducees were the religious liberals; the
Pharisees were the religious conservatives. The Sadducees, though, were pretty
much composed of two political groups that held to the same theology. The
Boethusians supported the house of Herod. Those were primarily the Herodians.
They wanted Herod Antipas and Philip to stay in power. They were pro-Rome and
pro-Roman power where as the other Sadducees supported the Hasmonean dynasty;
these were the priestly family that had come into power during the
inter-Testamental period with the revolt of the Maccabees against the Greek
ruler. That would be the basic difference.
The Pharisees (the religious conservatives) were
looking for some sort of cataclysmic political messianic kingdom to come in and
throw off Roman rule. So the Herodians and the Boethusians are looking to
preserve Roman rule through the Herodians.
Matthew 22:16 NASB And they sent their
disciples to Him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You
are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and defer to no one; for You
are not partial to any.”
Now I want to say this is a way that drips with irony
and sarcasm, because they don't believe this; they are just trying to set Jesus
up with flattery. They are going to flatter Him by calling Him “Teacher” as if
somehow they believe He is a teacher. “We know that you are truthful”. No, they
don't; they don't believe He is true at all, they think He is an enemy of the
state. “... and teach the way of God in truth”. Yeah, right! They are not
interested in the truth. Theirs is the typical approach to try to use flattery
to turn someone and get his or her ego involved. But that doesn't work with
Jesus. “You are not partial to any”. In other words, “You don't care about
people's opinions, you are impartial; you don't regard the person or the face
of man”. They are buttering Him up in order to set the trap and are baiting the
trap.
Matthew 22:17 NASB “Tell us then, what do
You think? Is it lawful to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?”
Here is the trap. The Pharisees resented having to pay
taxes to Caesar. They are the nationalists. They weren't as radical as the
Zealots who just wanted to foment a revolution and fight Rome. The Pharisees won't
go quite that far but they're nationalists, they don't want a dime of their
money going to support Rome. If Jesus says it is not lawful, then that is in
favor of the Pharisees, but that would put Jesus in a trap because that would
put Him in disfavor with the Romans and He would be in trouble.
The Herodians, on the other hand, because they support
Herod's family and are supporters of the status quo and the Romans, and if
Jesus says it is lawful they are going to be happy. But that is going to anger
the conservatives, the nationalists, the Zealots and the Pharisees, and those
who are suffering onerous taxation from the Romans.
Some think that we live in an onerous taxation system
in this country, and compared to what it was 50 or 60 years ago it is onerous.
But it was much worse under the Roman Empire. In fact, the further away you
were from Rome the heavier the taxes. In outlying areas like Judea they were
bearing the heaviest taxes. And there was not only the temple tax, which was
required by the Mosaic Law, but there was a poll tax and a number of other
taxes.
The word for paying taxes in v. 17 is the word DIDOMI, to give. In verse 21 when Jesus answers He doesn't use the same
language; He uses the word APODIDOMI,
which means to give back—This is his, give it back to him. So He doesn't walk
into their trap, He doesn't let them set the vocabulary, He is very thoughtful
about His particular answer.
The Romans had two basic taxes, a property tax or a
poll tax, which was called the tributum capitas or head tax. Since Judea was an imperial province
after 6AD all of the taxes were paid directly into
the imperial treasury. This was something that really irritated the Pharisees.
They also had water tax, meat taxes, and salt taxes, and house taxes. If it moved
it was taxed and if it didn't it was taxed.
Matthew 22:18 NASB “But Jesus perceived
their malice, and said, 'Why are you testing Me, you hypocrites?'” The word
hypocrite is a term that comes out of drama. It is putting on a mask when you
come out in a play. The mask covers up who you really are when you are trying
to project another identity. That is the idea. They are trying to act like they
are genuine when talking to Jesus, but they are not.
Matthew 22:19 NASB “Show Me the coin {used}
for the poll-tax.” And they brought Him a denarius. [20] And He said to them,
“Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
On one side of the denarius it has “Tiberius Caesar
Augustus Son Of The Divine Augustus”. So on one side it is claiming that Caesar
is God. On the other side it says: “Pontif Maxim [Highest Priest]”.
Jesus looks at that, and right away He is alluding to
a basic problem that they have, i.e. it violates the second commandment to make
an image of anything. That is why the Pharisees won't pay it. It is paid with a
coin that has a blasphemous image on it.
But Jesus says: “Whose image is it?” Matthew 22:21 NASB
They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” Then He said to them, “Then render [APODIDOMI] to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are
God’s.”
He is making a clear case that there is a sphere of
authority in the secular government that has certain rights and privileges, and
you are under that authority and therefore you pay for the cost, i.e. the price
for doing business and living in the empire. Even if it is onerous He says to
pay the tax.
The other point He is making here is that Caesar is
not God. He thinks he is God, but he is not God. The coin claims that that he
is God, but he is not God. So render unto God that which is His. There is a
higher authority and that is the service of God.
Matthew 22:22 NASB “And hearing {this,}
they were amazed, and leaving Him, they went away.” He foils this first trap,
sidesteps it, and gets ready for the next one.