The Cynical Question of the Pharisees

Theme: Who Is the Christ?
 
SCRIPTURE
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 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?” 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 the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” And they marveled at him.
 
LESSON
 
The question raised by the Pharisees and Herodians might seem legitimate enough on the surface: “Teacher, we know that  You are true, and care for no man; for You do not regard the position of men, 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? (w. 14-15) But the question cannot be understood without understanding the motives of the questioners. These were the parties we read about in Mark 3:6: “The Pharisees went out, and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Him, how to destroy Him.
 
These were men that Scripture says hated Jesus without a cause (John 15:25). There was nothing to hate in Jesus except the fact that His mere presence revealed the evil of their own lives. He showed them to be what they really were. These men might be compared to a barroom braggart who loved to tell tall stories about his war exploits, though he never left the army base. Suddenly in walks a Marine with a chest full of service medals. The first man is instantly deflated like a pricked balloon. That was the impact Jesus’ arrival had on the reputation of these religious men. People looked up to these men until Jesus came and stood behind them. Then, suddenly, they were dwarfed by Him, and their response was not grief and shame and repentance, but hatred and a desire to destroy Him. They hated Jesus for the gentleness of His strength. They hated Him for the meekness of His omnipotence. They hated Him for the love that directed His power. They hated Him simply for the perfection of His divine attributes.
 
The Pharisees made many attempts to discredit Jesus, all unsuccessful. But now their alliance with the political Herodians bears fruit in a question about taxes. An equivalent would be asking a French leader during the World War II occupation, “Should we be faithful to Hitler?” If he said yes, everybody would say, “A collaborator! An enemy of France!” and forsake him as their leader. But if he said no, someone could quietly slip over to the Gestapo and say, “Here is a man who is stirring up trouble,” and the Germans would come and deal with him. Either way, the leader would be removed from a position of influence.
 
We have noted that in Jesus’ day the Jews were also an occupied people, and emotions against Rome ran high. The Pharisees and Herodians were certain that they could place Jesus in a no–win situation. Either He would be a Jewish Messiah discredited by His support for Rome, or He would be carted off to the Romans as a traitor and a troublemaker.
 
Jesus’ answer is clear and plain: “Bring me a coin, and let me look at it ... Whose likeness and inscription is this?” (Mark 12:15-16) When they answered, “Caesar’s,” Jesus answered, “All right then, pay the tax. If you are going to carry his money in your pocket, if you are going to have him furnish police protection to keep peace and order, if he is to see to it that farmers can bring their goods to market without having bandits take them, then you’ve got to pay the tax.”
 
But there is more to Jesus’ answer than this. The rabbis of that time had a saying that wherever the king’s money is current, there the king is lord. A king had his face on the coin, and wherever those coins were circulated, it was proof that the king was in charge. Jesus was reminding His listeners that they were a subject people, and they were in that predicament because they were fulfilling Old Testament prophecies of subjugation for those who rejected God as Lord. They didn’t want to be reminded of this; in fact, in their folly they denied the obvious facts of their history and present situation. In John 8:33 the Pharisees tell Jesus that they were Abraham’s children and had never been in bondage to any man. This is one of the most laughable lies in history! They had been slaves 400 years in Egypt and had been enslaved to the Philistines twenty–four times in the days of the judges. They were slaves to the Babylonians for 70 years, and even after their return they were subject at various times to the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Greeks, and then Rome.
 
Jesus stresses their present subjugation to present a positive teaching about the lordship of God. It is a sorry fact that throughout the centuries people have used this text against God—perhaps no text in the Bible has been as distorted and misapplied as this one. For people take this text to mean that God is not in charge of Caesar’s authority, that Caesar can claim a certain part of life over which God has no claim. That interpretation is the foundation for the popular but unbiblical distinction between “sacred” and “secular.”
 
This verse does not make a split personality out of the believer, giving him two systems of ethics and two ways of life. Jesus’ point was that God controls everything. He controls Caesar, through the work of His Holy Spirit. God is in control of all of our world. The Pharisees were to be subject to a government that was in turn subject to God, and their service to that government was to be a reflection of what was ultimately pleasing to God. In Jeremiah 27:4-5, God speaks to the kings of the earth through Jeremiah. “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: This is what you shall say to your masters: ‘It is I who by My great power and My outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to Me.”’
 
Those who are in positions of power have been placed there by God. Caesar had been placed over the Jews because the Jews had rebelled against God; the Pharisees could not claim to serve God by rejecting the means by which God was disciplining them. A true desire to serve God would have revealed itself in repentance and a humble submission to God’s purposes for the nation’s life—not a continued rebellion against them. Thus Jesus thwarts the Pharisees’ and Herodians’ efforts to portray Him as a traitor in either the eyes of the people or the state. There are no separate spheres of life and no divided loyalties to the pure in heart.
 
STUDY QUESTIONS
  • What were the motives of Christ’s interrogators?
  • What is the Christian’s responsibility to culture and society? What does Christ teach us here?
  • Do we see this teaching in any of the Epistles? Where? 
  • How do the epistles teaching help understand this passage?

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