Those That Bear the Image

Matthew 22:15-22

Immanuel – 2/23/25

          The implications of our passage today are absolutely staggering, not just for our lives, but for our world. On some level, Jesus’ highly educated opponents understood this; for after Jesus answers them, they marvel at Him – uneducated visitor from Galilee though He is.

          Purpose

1.      The Pharisees trap falls apart with Jesus’ answer.

2.      How Christians are to relate to God.

3.      How governments are to relate to God.

          Let’s recall that Jerusalem is bursting with Jewish pilgrims, come from all over the Roman Empire. Before He arrived, the rumor of Jesus was thick in Jerusalem’s air. When He did arrive, on Palm Sunday, it was to the sound of enormous crowds praising Him, proclaiming Jesus the Messiah. Then on Monday Jesus entered the temple, called it a den of robbers, and flipped the moneychangers’ tables.

          Now it is Tuesday, and Jesus is again in the temple. The religious leaders use this opportunity to ambush Him, to attempt to trap Him with words, to smear His reputation, and perhaps even get Him into some legal trouble. Problem is, they have no idea who they’re dealing with.

          After the religious leaders question Jesus’ authority, He exercises His authority as He levies three polemic parables against them. In these parables He tells them that their unrepentance bars them from the kingdom of God, that the kingdom will be taken away from them, and that the kingdom would be given to all who place their faith in Jesus alone.

          The coalition of chief priests and elders was so neutralized by Jesus’ teaching that they retreat. Meanwhile, Jesus stands in the temple courts still teaching the crowds. It was a small flex of His authority.

          Now, it seems, the former collation has fallen apart. Now in broken up factions they continue to seek for a way to entrap Jesus. After spending time in secret scheming, they believe they have a question that would either discredit Jesus or get Him quickly arrested. Either way was a win for them.

          Read vs 15-16a

          We are familiar with the Pharisees, the meticulous law keepers, the self-righteous police of religion. Jesus has clashed with them many times now.

But the Herodians are a mysterious group. We know almost nothing about them except that their namesake, and their presence in the temple, means they were Jews loyal to the Herodian dynasty. Herod the Great gained great favor among many Jews by completing a massive temple expansion and restoration. But Herod and his sons were also puppet kings of Rome. Thus, we can infer that the Herodians were Jewish political leaders sympathetic to Rome.

          This is an unlikely coalition. The Pharisees hated their Roman overlords. The Herodians were probably seen as collaborators. But their hatred for Jesus was enough to bridge the gap between them…perhaps.

          Notice that the Pharisees did not go directly to Jesus, but sent their disciples instead. Perhaps it was too much for them to be seen with the Herodians. Perhaps they feared that Jesus would make them look like fools. In either case, they stayed behind while they sent their disciples into the mouth of the Lion of Judah.

          But full of self-confidence, listen to the smooth words of these young bucks.

          Read vs 16b-17

          The Herodians and Pharisaic disciples say four true things about Jesus. 

1.      He is sincere, practicing what He preaches.

2.      He is trustworthy, faithfully teaching the truths of God.

3.      He’s fearless, undaunted by what people might think of Him.

4.      He is impartial, unconcerned with a person’s status or rank.

It’s remarkable how truly the enemies of Christ speak, like demons acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God. Even still, we know these temple leaders are false; for in verse 18, Jesus perceives their hatred of Him. This, of course, means their words are just empty flattery.

How many times do our temptations come to us in smooth words of flattery, like the kiss of Judas? “I’ve worked so hard. I’ve finished the job. I deserve to treat myself with a little indulgence.” “People say good things about me. I know I’m gifted. Unlike all these ordinary people, there is a high calling on my life.” Beware of smooth words, even as you speak them to yourself. There is demonic hatred and self-destruction behind such flattery.

          The flattery of the Herodians and Pharisaic disciples is meant to disarm Jesus before they spring their trap: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? A little context will help you understand why they think this is a sure trap.

          The tax they speak of is the poll tax. It was not a tax that provided any civic benefit. The Romans made all their subjugated peoples pay the poll tax simply to assert their imperial dominance and control. The Jews so resented this poll tax that a revolt rose against the Romans in 6 AD. It was the beginning of the Zealot movement, the same movement that simmers in the background of Matthew’s Gospel.

In 66 AD, this same zealot movement erupted into all-out war with Rome. The war ended in 70 AD when the vast military might of Rome marched on Jerusalem, burned it to the ground, and tore the temple down stone by stone.

          Thus, if Jesus taught that the Jews should pay the poll tax, every patriotic Jew would immediately turn against Him. They could very well run Him out of the temple and out of the city. But, if He taught that the poll tax should not be paid, even to the delight of the Jews, the Romans would sweep in and arrest Jesus as an enemy of the state – and the Romans crucified their enemies of state.

          Indeed, the only thing undergirding the religious leaders’ flattery was abject hatred. But Jesus knew exactly what was happening; and He knew exactly how to handle it.

          Read vs 18-19

          When Jesus asks for a denarius, He is doing something more than simply finding a visual aid. The denarius had an inscription upon it that the Jew understood to be blasphemous. The Roman emperor at the time as Tiberius, and it bore his image. On the front, the coin read, “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.” On the back, “High Priest.” It called Tiberius the son of a god and the high priest. No wonder the Jews so resented a denarius as a poll tax.

          The Romans, aware of Jewish sensitives, allowed the Jews to mint their own copper coins and pay the poll tax with them. So, not only were their words oozing with hypocrisy, but for any Jew to produce such an idolatrous coin – and in the temple none-the-less – was a sure sign of the temple leaders’ hypocrisy.

          Holding the blasphemous silver denarius aloft, Jesus destroys their trap.

          Read vs 20-22

          Render Unto God

The Jews marveled at Jesus’ answer because of the way in which they conceived of the world: there was the Jewish world and the Gentile world. The Jews were meant to be a people set apart, different, unstained by the pagan, Gentile world. Thus, you cannot be subject to God and subject to Gentile authorities. But this was a misunderstanding of God’s design. Indeed, it was precisely from this type of misunderstanding that the zealots gained so much traction with the wider Jewish population – to their own destruction.

          But Jesus does something astounding for the day: He unites the kingdoms of men with the kingdom of God, with the kingdom of men subject to the kingdom of God. In so doing, Jesus was returning their thinking to God’s original design. Oh, how Jesus’ words are worth marveling at!

          Follow the logic of it. The denarius bore the image of Caesar. Thus, if Caesar demands his denarius, give to him his denarius. It is the price of living as subjects to his rule. And Jesus infers that it is God’s will that taxes be paid to Caesar.

          As Paul writes about this too,

          Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God… 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.        

                                                                             -Romans 13:1,6-7

          Taxes are owed to the government, for the government is instituted by God to allow order, justice, and peace to flourish on the land. So give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.

          But, Jesus follows with, “Give to God the things that are God’s.” This statement begs the question: What are the things that belong to God? Do not all things belong to God?

          The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.                                                               -Psalm 24:1

          Everything on earth belongs to God, even its kingdoms. Caesar is subject to God. The taxes collected by Caesar are God’s. All of it belongs to God and therefore every government must render its taxes unto the will of the King of kings.

Like King David wrote:

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.

                                                                   -Psalm 2:10-12

          Again, every government must render itself, and its taxes, unto God.

          Before we continue to think about things on a societal level, lets zoom in to a personal level. The denarius bears the image of Caesar, so it must be rendered according to the will of Caesar. If he demands it, each person must give it to him.

          You and I also bear an image: the Imago Dei, the image of God. His likeness is imprinted upon every one of our hearts. When Jesus says, “Render unto God the things that are God’s,” it has authoritative meaning for every individual human being on earth: Your life belongs to God. You are not to live at the command of your own will. God has not given you the right to self-govern. You are summoned to live according to the will of the King of kings!

          And for those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, this is all the more true for you!

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.                                                                 -1 Corinthians 6:19-20

          “Glorify God in your body” has virtually the same meaning as “render unto God the things that are God’s.” Let’s think of this another way.

Your time is not your time. It is the King’s. Do you spend your time honoring Him, or do you spend your time indulging yourself?

Your money is not your money. It is the King’s. Before you spend money, do you ask, “Can I afford this?” Or, do you ask, “Would the Lord be pleased by this?”

Your home is not your home. It belongs to God. Do you use it to show others the grace and hospitality of our King?

Your children are not your children. They are the King’s. Have you trained them up to release them into His service?

Render unto God the things that are God’s, you who bear His image!

And as Jesus has said, we who bear the image of God are summoned to also render taxes unto Caesar – or whatever government we so happen to live under. As Paul writes, we are to do this in a respectable and honorable manner. Thus, we render unto God our God-given civic duty when we render taxes unto Caesar. We honor God by paying our taxes.

          The statement I have just made – which is my conviction – could also be used by corrupt rulers to unjustly abuse its populace. Paul wrote that we are to pay the government what is owed to them. But what happens when the government demands more than what is owed to them?

          Brothers and sisters, let us think carefully here. Taxation is coercion; meaning, taxation is the act of the government taking your money by coercive force. It is coercive force because if your do not pay your taxes, the government will impose harsh punishments upon you.

          But there is another name for taking money from people by coercive force: theft. Taxation and theft are both taking money from people by coercive force. But in today’s passage we hear Jesus clearly making an allowance for taxation while we know, elsewhere, He repudiates theft.

But reconciling this in the real world is no easy task. You need look no further than the founding of our own country and the cry, “Taxation without representation.” Some loyalists saw it as lawful taxation. Most agreed that King George III was using taxation to steal from his citizens. Over this and other issues they fought a war to be free of governmental abuses, like arbitrary taxation. You see, the line between theft and taxation can become blurry, yet we who bear the Imago Dei need to be able to see clearly.

          3 Questions on Taxation

With these things in mind, it becomes quite difficult to conform ourselves, and our societies, to Jesus’ words. As your pastor, it is my duty to help shepherd you through this. So taking a note from Douglas Wilson’s book, “Empires of Dirt,” we Christians are forced to ask ourselves three questions about taxation.       

1.      Is there such a thing as lawful, God-honoring taxation?

2.      Is it possible for a government to use taxation to steal from its citizens?

3.      If some taxation is theft, and some is not, then how do we tell the difference?

Let’s take these questions one at a time.

First question: Is there such a thing as lawful, God-honoring taxation? Of course. Jesus makes an allowance for it. We already heard Paul support governmental taxation. And in Numbers 3, God instituted a governmental tax to support the Levitical system. Yes, there is such a thing as lawful, God-honoring taxation. Its purpose is to pool resources for the good of the citizens.

          Second question: Is it possible for a government to use taxation to steal from its citizens? Of course. First, let’s establish that governments can steal.

          In 1 Kings 21, King Ahab wants to buy Naboth’s vineyard. Naboth will not sell. Queen Jezebel uses the government to kill Naboth, take his vineyard, and give it to Ahab. God severely condemns the king for two offenses: murder and theft.

Now, let me ask, if Naboth did not want to sell his vineyard, but Ahab took it by eminent domain or land reform, would that not be stealing? If Ahab raised property taxes to push Naboth out of the vineyard, would that not be stealing? It would. Governments can steal and there are examples of it in the Bible.

          Sometimes, taxation simply becomes a form of legalized theft.

By justice a king builds up the land, but he who exacts gifts tears it down.   

-Proverbs 29:4

Other translations say, “he who taxes heavily tears down the land.”

          Kings tear down the land with heavy taxation because they are stealing from their citizens. Notice how the proverb juxtaposes heavy taxation with justice. It is therefore unjust for a government to exact a heavy tax burden.

Back in Matthew 17, Jesus had Peter pay a tax to avoid trouble with the Jewish governing body. If you remember, the principle was that a governing body claimed a tax was owed, while Jesus said it was not really owed. But let’s think about this in reverse: If a government were to take by force what was not really owed to them; what would you call that? Stealing. Theft by taxation.

          The answer to the second question is yes, a government can use taxation to steal from its citizens.

Now we come to the third question; and this is the most important one for us to consider. If some taxation is theft, and some is not, then how do we tell the difference?

If we Christians determine that a government can steal, then we are obligated to articulate where the dividing line between God-honoring taxation and theft is located.

When we see waste, consistently blown budgets, missing money, and redistribution of wealth, these should be obvious signs to us that taxation has gone wrong – that is has drifted into theft by taxation. I’m grateful that our current government is pushing back against some of this, though we are a long way from God-honoring taxation.

          If those are signs of theft by taxation, then what is on the other side of that line? What is God-honoring taxation?

          We find some help from the prophet Samuel. Israel had demanded a king, to become like the nations around them, God – through Samuel – warned them of what a king would do to them. I’ll read the passage in full.

“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”   -1 Samuel 8:11-18

          Notice the repetition: he will take from you. The nature of having an earthly king, or a government, is that they will take from you. I’ve highlighted two areas that talk about the king taking the people’s wealth. This is an early way of talking about taxation: a tenth of their produce and a tenth of their flocks.

          Samuel is not laying out an optional scenario with a king. He is issuing a warning. And taking a tenth from the populace is being equated heavy taxation. The very kind of heavy taxation that we heard the Proverbs warn against.

          Let me drive that point further home. In a number of places God asks for a 10% tithe. The tithe is not a tax. It is not taken by coercion. The tithe was a voluntary act of worship. None-the-less, 10% is the amount that God is honored by. So ask yourself, if God asks for 10%, shall the government take from its people more than God requires? And if it does, does the government set itself up as a rival to God?

Our government begins its taxation at 10% of income - for the poorest Americans. The tax brackets go all the way up to 37%. And that’s just the income tax. This doesn’t include sales tax, property tax, death taxes, toll taxes, capital gains taxes, payroll taxes, gift taxes, and on and on. In the end, we pay far above 10%, and it’s impossible to know exactly how much we pay the government in taxes.

Wouldn’t we love to go back to 10%? The fears of the Israelites would be a delight to us.

So let’s apply all of this Biblical wisdom so we can distinguish between God-honoring taxation from theft. My suggestion is that lawful taxation is a flat tax under 10%. I say flat tax, because taxation through untold convoluted forms prevents the people from knowing how much they are actually taxed. And whatever taxation the government imposes, the flow of money needs to be transparent. Anything other than this is governmental theft.

A flat tax under 10%, followed by a transparent stream of spending might seem like an impossibility, but I am not concerned with what man thinks is impossible. It might also seem impossible to render all of your life unto God. But we serve King Jesus, and He said,

“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

                                                                   -Matthew 19:26

We are the image bearers. And just as we must concern ourselves with how to render our lives unto God, so we must concern ourselves with how to gather into a governed society, and that whole society is rendered unto God. Only then can Jesus’ statement come together in consummate fulness, where we render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars, and we render unto God the things that are God’s. And if we image bearers are not concerned with reconciling these things into one, overarching, glorious kingdom of God, then who else will?

After Jesus had finished answering the Herodians and disciples of the Pharisees, they marveled at Him, and they left in disbelief.

They were right to marvel at Jesus. His answer is astonishing, destroying their self-righteousness and bringing truth to bear on every facet of human life – personal and societal. Truly, Jesus is a marvel. And how grateful we should be for a King that exacts nothing by coercive force, but gives and gives and gives, even His own life, even to His enemies.

Let us not walk away in unbelief, thinking all of this is impossible. Even now His kingdom is in our midst, and through our gospel proclamation it is growing!

Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.                                                        -Revelation 15:3-4