The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
This morning’s text is the Gospel lesson, Matthew 22:15–22. The passage contains the famous saying, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” But that’s only half of the verse. The other half is about rendering unto God what’s God’s. And that’s really the main point of Jesus’s response to those challenging Him. So our theme this morning is: render to Caesar and render to God what is due each.
For context, we’re in Jerusalem in the days leading up to the Passover. Jesus has just come into town a couple of days ago. His enemies have been trying to figure out how to trap Him, how to trip Him up, to get the crowds to turn against Him, or at the very least to have the authorities deal with Him in a more permanent fashion. Jesus’s enemies would like nothing else other than to get Him into their hands, but they have political realities to deal with on the ground. He’s immensely popular, and any attempt to arrest Him would have resulted in a riot. So they practice an early form of “gotcha” journalism — figure out a question to ask so that no matter what He answers, He’ll be in trouble with one group or the other.
Now among the enemies of Jesus was a group called the Pharisees. We hear a lot about them. Jesus had spent two years exposing their hypocrisy and challenging the religious leadership, and they hated Him for that. But they had been unable to catch Him in any kind of big slip-up. Even so, they’re going to try again. And so our text begins: “Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle Him in His words, and they sent their disciples to Him along with the Herodians.”
You’ve heard the saying, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” So does opposition to Jesus. Groups that might otherwise have nothing to do with each other, like the Herodians and the Pharisees, find themselves now in a common cause and become unlikely allies. So it is here with the Pharisees and with the Herodians. The Pharisees, like most Jews of the day, were nationalists. They believed Israel should be its own government, its own nation, not under the rule of the Romans. The Herodians, on the other hand, were political collaborators. They saw the occupation of Rome as an opportunity to gain power for themselves by befriending Rome. And so they did. The house of Herod was the local political dynasty that had made a deal with Caesar to serve as puppet kings under the Roman emperor.
So now pay attention to the political-religious dynamic at work here. As the Pharisees seek to trap Jesus by using the Herodians, they’re going to ask Jesus a question. And if He answers it one way, they’ll disappoint and anger the crowds. But they also bring with them the Herodians. They bring them along to witness Jesus’s answer, so that if He answers the other way, they — the Herodians — won’t like it, and they’ll run and report it to the Roman authorities, probably to the Roman governor, Pilate. So they set up the scenario so that heads they win and tails they win.
To gain confidence and goodwill, and to encourage Jesus to speak freely and openly, the Pharisees have their spokesman start out with some flattery. “Teacher,” he says, “we know that You are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and You do not care about anyone’s opinion, for You are not swayed by appearances.” Now, the irony here, of course, is that Jesus is true. He Himself is true, genuine, authentic. He does speak and teach the way of God truthfully — that’s exactly right. And yet Jesus does not care about any man’s opinion or his interpretation. I try to remind people of that frequently. Jesus really doesn’t care what you think the Bible says. He wants you to confess what the Bible says. He wants to be sure that you speak the words of God truthfully. He’s demonstrated that over and over again in His bold and controversial ministry over the previous two years.
There’s an irony here, and it is the fact that the Pharisees themselves are the ones who aren’t speaking the truth. They’re not true. They’re not honest. They’re dishonest, deceitful, and devious in their attempt to butter up Jesus and get Him to fall prey to the trap. But Jesus will not fall prey to it.
Which then the Pharisees asked: “Tell us, then, what You think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” In this context, it’s the perfect “gotcha” question. The answer is: it is lawful. It is right for the Jews, as God’s children who should be slaves to no one, to pay taxes to a foreign, pagan emperor who has his thumb on them. If Jesus says yes, then He’s just lost the crowd. They’ll turn against Him. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? If Jesus says no, the Herodians will hear it. They’ll mark Him as someone disloyal to the regime — a rebel against Caesar and a potential insurrectionist, their own version of January 6ers. And they will probably report to the local governor, Pontius Pilate, and regard Jesus as an enemy of the state.
In typical fashion for Jesus, He answers the question with a question of His own. He first asks them, “Why do you put Me to the test, you hypocrites?” He sees right through the phony flattery and calls them on it. He’s aware of their malice, the text tells us. Even so, He decides to use this occasion for His own purposes. So He tells them to show Him the coin for the tax. Somebody digs a coin out of his pocket and brings it to Jesus — a denarius, a Roman coin used to pay said tax.
And now Jesus asks them another question, a question about the coin they themselves have just provided. He asks them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” That is, whose image, whose portrait do you see on the coin? And whose name is inscribed on it? It sounds like a pretty simple, straightforward question. And so the Pharisees reply quickly. They say, “Caesar’s.”
What the Pharisees don’t realize is that now Jesus has caught them in their own trap. Because what He says next is so brilliant — it is wisdom that can’t be refuted. He will answer their original question about paying taxes, but He’ll do it in a way that neither the nationalists nor the Herodians could dispute. And He turns the eyes of the crowd, the eyes of the Herodians, the eyes of the Pharisees, back upon themselves — a question about themselves and their relationship to both Jesus and to God the Father.
Here’s Jesus’s answer: “Therefore, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” That gets at both our relationship to Caesar and the Christian’s relationship to God in one fell swoop.
First, to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. This is really the minor point, because their question never really was a sincere question. It was a setup designed to trap Jesus. But Jesus does address briefly the matter of our responsibility toward civil governments. Whoever the Caesar is over you at any particular time and place in history — well, Caesars need taxes to run whatever form of government happens to be in place. The government may be doing a good job — but unlikely — or a bad job — likely — with your taxes. They may be collecting too much or they may be collecting too little. But the point remains: nations need governments. Governments need taxes. Taxes need to be collected. It’s what they do. Caesar needs and demands his denarii. That’s the nature of life in this world. So is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? We do render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.
But as I said, this is a minor point that Jesus is making. He has something more to say that goes beyond taxes and beyond Caesar. And that is that we are to render to God the things that are God’s. This is the most important thing Jesus has to say in the Gospel text this morning, and it applies to everyone, including us — the Pharisees, the Herodians, the Sadducees, the priests, the Levites — all: render to God the things that are God’s. And that is everything; it has everything to do with how we receive or reject the Man who is giving the answer, namely Jesus the Nazarene.
Think back to that Roman denarius with the likeness and inscription of Caesar on it. If that coin had the image and the name of the emperor on it — and it did — then that meant you recognized it as such, and you received it and used it for operating in that kingdom. The coin bore the image of the current Roman emperor, and the inscription gave his name and title: Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus. The Roman emperor claimed to be divine — the son of the divine Augustus.
Now, here is Jesus standing right in front of them — in front of us — telling us these things. You have observed His person and His ministry for three years now. You’ve heard Jesus’s words. You’ve seen Jesus’s deeds — words of heavenly wisdom, deeds of divine power and mercy. So now the question comes to you: Whose image and inscription does Jesus the Nazarene bear? The answer: He bears the image of God. Jesus’s words and His works attest most clearly that He is indeed the Son of the living God, the only one there is.
Then why, O Pharisees, do you not receive this Jesus as your Messiah, your King, your deliverer sent from heaven? He is, after all, our rightful payment to our God and King. For He has redeemed all of us lost and condemned sinners — not with silver or gold, but with His holy and precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death. That is the right way to render to God the things that are God’s: by believing in the One that He sent. The image and the inscription are there in His doctrine, in His works, in His miracles, for you to see. That image and that inscription testify to who Jesus is — the Christ of God. Therefore, look to Jesus, your Savior. See in Him the image of the Almighty God and King, the God of all compassion, power, and mercy. So great is His love for us that He was willing to be rejected by His enemies and be crucified for us also under Pontius Pilate. There on that cross, the inscription read, “This is Jesus, King of the Jews.” But really the inscription could have read, “This is Jesus, King, who was willing to suffer shame and death for your salvation.”
Yes, Jesus renders to God the things that only He could render to God: payment of all our debts of sin — a tax that we could never pay. But Jesus, the holy Son of God, does pay it, declaring by His death, “It is finished” — which is to say, “It is paid in full.” That the debt is paid is shown when Jesus rises from the dead on the third day, offering life and peace, eternal salvation, as a free gift. So today see the image of God resting on Jesus. Render to God the things that are God’s: faith, trust, and love in the Savior He sent — Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.
On my heart imprint Your image,
Blessed Jesus, King of grace,
That life’s riches, cares, and pleasures
Never may Your work erase;
Let the clear inscription be:
Jesus, crucified for me,
Is my life, my hope’s foundation,
And my glory and salvation!
Now look at the image that He’s imprinted on you. His very righteousness is now your righteousness. His life is now your life. His resurrection is now your resurrection. That’s the image of our God. Amen.