Rendering to God and Caesar: a Meditation on Matthew 22

 Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel

how they might entangle him in his talk.

And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying,

Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth,

neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.

Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou?

Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?

 

But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said,

Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?

 Shew me the tribute money.

And they brought unto him a penny.

 And he saith unto them,

Whose is this image and superscription?

 They say unto him, Caesar's.

Then saith he unto them,

Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's;

 and unto God the things that are God's.

When they had heard these words, they marveled,

and left him, and went their way.

 

The reading for this Sunday from Matthew 22, records the Pharisees’ attempt to entrap Jesus not only for His religious teaching, but to set Him up as a rebel against Roman authority.  Had they succeeded, they might have cast doubt upon Jesus among His disciples, and gained a ground to turn him over to the governor for prosecution.  Then, as today, threatening to withhold taxes from the government is a quick path to imprisonment, as politicians love little more than the power to take and use other people’s money.  Politics hasn’t changed much in several thousand years, and Jesus was not about to be trapped by the sophistry of the Pharisees.

 

In Jesus’ response to render unto Caesar what belongs to him, and unto God what belongs to Him, Jesus not only escaped the false dichotomy presented by His challengers, but also revealed a clear teaching of Scripture that there are two legitimate domains of authority in the world.  Both God and government have their proper roles in the world, though one is inferior to the other:  it is God who delegates His authority among people to establish just and virtuous communities and governments, not governments who have authority over God.  All human authority, whether in the bedrock human community of the family, or in the aggregate of human families in local, regional, or national governments, are still occupied and exercised by humans.  Thus all human governments are accountable to God for the conduct of their offices, and have no authority over God, anymore than a creature has authority over its Creator.  While human government is legitimate because it is ordained by God, it is also subordinate to the Word and will of God, which stands in unassailable and inescapable judgement over it.

 

In our own time, this principle has been challenged often.  Across the world, various governments presume to tell the churches in their lands what they may teach, how they may gather, what their worship shall include or exclude, and how they will be organized.  Particularly in communist regions, the government presumes to persecute the churches into total obedience to the political philosophy of the state, or face extermination.  Until this year, such open hostility and persecution of Christians was unknown in America, but with the rise of materialist socialism and atheistic communism combined with totalitarian politicians and a public health crisis, our churches now find themselves pressed to submit to government regulation and control.  Increasing calls to suppress Biblical teaching on human sexuality as “hate crimes,” or to attack the gathering of Christians in worship as non-essential “super-spreaders” of an infectious disease, have revealed a contempt for the separation of religious and political authority which Jesus clearly teaches.  Indeed, it shows such a contempt that it would invert the principle of divine supremacy to the supremacy of the state, leaving any notion of individual liberty based in divinely endowed rights behind.

 

Before such an onslaught of political hubris, far too many churches have acquiesced.  Having allowed the state to take from them the high holy days of Holy Week and Easter, they have pressed through the Pentecost season with many still huddling in pathetic fear and submission.  While politicians consider how to extend their totalitarian emergency powers through the end of 2020 and into 2021, Advent and Christmas will be the next holy seasons to be attacked for suppression.  And why not?  For pagan, atheist, materialist, or communist inspired tyrants, what greater victory might they perceive than crushing the will of Christians to gather for their most revered holy days?  If the churches will not insist on exercising their God-given rights and authority to obey the Word of God over the dictates of men, then the tyranny of politicians will be complete.  This is how the tyrants of the 20^th century bowed the churches of their respective lands, from Maoist China, to Stalinist Russia, to Nazi Germany, and a host of others in between.  To be sure, God retained a remnant of faithful people even under the harshest of tyrannical political regimes, but the failure of the people to stand up and insist upon the divine right of the church to function beyond the human authority of the government, brought for whole societies the deep darkness of bloody oppression and martyrdom.

 

And so, in our time and place, we have opportunity to remember once again the teaching of Jesus, that there is a distinction between the divine authority of God in the Church, and the human authority of men in political community.  As Christian citizens of a political nation, we have a duty to support and serve our government according to the laws of our land—to render unto Caesar that which properly falls to his authority and domain.  Yet as Christian people, we do not give to Caesar that which belongs to God alone, for when human authority attempts to coerce people into violation of God’s Eternal Word, we must declare with the Prophets and Apostles of old that we will obey God rather than men.  The understanding of this divine right given to all human beings is declared in our country’s founding documents as the free exercise of religion, a truth which all American citizens have inherited, and are duty bound to hand on to our posterity.

 

Where our churches and individual Christians have wrongly given to human authority that which properly belongs only to God, the Word of Jesus calls us to repentance.  And with faith and repentance, Jesus promises to all penitent hearts His grace of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  Hear the Word of the Lord, that we might boldly be both faithful Christians and dutiful citizens, properly discerning the legitimate natures of the Kingdom of God and the governments of men, giving to each their due.  Amen.