When Jesus asked the Pharisees his question he was referring to Psalm 110:1, of course. And he was establishing a pattern for interpreting the Old Testament that his disciples picked up on enthusiastically. The disciples loved to quote this psalm. In fact, they used it so often that it became the psalm most quoted in the New Testament, and verse 1 became the verse most quoted. By my count, Psalm 110:1 is cited directly or alluded to indirectly at least twenty-seven times.
Few things are more deeply instilled into the American way of thinking than the notion of fair play. "It's my turn; you’ve had the ball long enough," children say when they argue on the playground. Everyone should pay his fair share, politicians say when they want to raise taxes. Ruth Graham, the wife of evangelist Billy Graham, wrote a book titled My Turn.
The first and second of these questions designed to trap Jesus were somewhat silly and were easily answered. The third was serious, and we would probably think it an honest question if Matthew had not added the words “One of them, an expert in the law, test him with this question” (v.35).
In his response to the first of his enemies questions Jesus provided the classic biblical teaching about the authority of civil government and the right relationship of the believer to the state. In his reply to the second question Jesus taught the authority and complete reliability of the Bible in everything it teaches. When we speak of the Bible's authority, infallibility and inerrancy, and we are ascribing these qualities to it because, as Jesus taught, the Bible is the very Word of God.
Yesterday we discussed the three non-biblical positions on the authority of God and of Caesar. Today we discover the biblical approach to these authority figures.
4. The authority of God and Caesar but with God in the dominant position. The last option is biblical Christianity: God and Caesar, but with God in the dominant position. It was the position Jesus articulated when he said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is Gods.”
