Matthew 22:15-22 | "A Treacherous Interrogation Part 1"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Thank you, Scott, for leading us before the throne of grace.

Now that we're all warmed up this morning from singing and praying, let's talk about taxes.

It's a good subject, isn't it?

Seriously, take your Bibles with me and open them to Matthew 22 so we can talk about taxes.

But we're not going to talk about taxes merely to talk about taxes.

We're going to talk about taxes to get to Jesus.

So many things that we could wrestle with in our passage this morning in Matthew 22.

But one of them, just a side thing that you can wrestle with later, maybe talk about with someone in the fellowship time following our service, is how do you get from seemingly mundane topics and conversation with someone to speaking about Jesus?

This morning's passage is an example of how Jesus does that.

How he goes from talking about government and government overreach, even and taxation to the gospel.

Great opportunity for us to talk about that.

Matthew 22.

I'm sorry, in the early 1700s, in what is now called the French and Indian War, British armies aided their fledgling New England colonies in a fight against the French armies in Canada.

Of course, protecting their colonies across an ocean was an expensive endeavor for the British, especially since it took three months to cross the ocean with their armies to get soldiers just to the battlefield.

Now, as a result of the expenses incurred to protect those colonies, the British Parliament looked for ways to recoup the expenses.

They eventually decided to implement three new taxes.

Taxes, of course, designed to make the new colonies in North America pay their part of the war costs.

After those taxes took effect, on a clear, calm December night in 1773, three East India Company ships were anchored in the Boston Harbor, full of cargo.

You know the cargo, right?

Tea.

George Hughes recounted his personal experience of that evening.

Let me quote, I generally don't like to share long stories with you, but this is a long story that might be worth it.

He says, I immediately dressed myself in a costume equipped with a small hatchet and a club.

And after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired myself to Griffin's Wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea.

When we arrived at the wharf, they divided us into three parties for the purpose of boarding the three ships which contained the tea, all at the same time.

We were immediately ordered by our respective commanders to board the ships at the same moment, which we promptly obeyed.

The commander of the division to which I belonged, as soon as we were on board the ship, ordered me to go to the captain and demand of him the keys to the hatches and a dozen candles.

I made the demand accordingly, and the captain promptly replied and delivered the articles, but he requested of me at the same time to do no damage to the ship or the rigging.

We were then commanded by our commander to open the hatches, take out the chests of tea, and throw them overboard.

We immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks so as to thoroughly expose them to the effects of the water.

Just so you know, this is one of the two remaining tea casks that is in a museum in Boston, the other is in a museum in Washington, D.C.

He says, in about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way at the same time.

And we were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to arrest us.

The next morning, after we had cleared the ships of the tea, it was discovered that very considerable quantities of it were floating on the surface of the water.

And so, to prevent the possibility of any of it being saved for use, a number of small boats were manned by sailors and citizens who rowed them into the parts of the harbor where the tea was visible, and they beat the tea with oars and paddles so as to drench it and to render its entire destruction inevitable.

So concludes George Hughes.

Those actions, stemming from the desire to not be taxed without due representation, led to the colonial fight for independence from England.

Approximately 1,760 years before Boston Harbor, a man named Judas became fed up with a Roman census tax.

He was from Galilee in Palestine.

And like the North American colonists, Judas instigated a revolt against the taxation.

However, the Romans squashed his rebellion and killed Judas and scattered his followers.

A little over twenty years later, another provocative Galilean would draw the ire of the leaders of his people.

In providential irony, those leaders asked this Galilean, whose name was Jesus, what he thought about taxes.

Would he lead people in revolt like Judas the Galilean or like George Hughes in the Boston Harbor?

Though our circumstances are a bit different, our American sensibilities have typically been very similar to those of the Jewish people in the biblical times.

Our forefathers resisted paying a tax for which they had no representation.

And so today we desire our freedom and we cringe generally upon any new imposition upon that freedom.

For first century Israel, the census tax was a reminder to them that they were not free.

Rome ruled.

Caesar was the emperor.

And the census tax was a reminder that Caesar was Lord.

Now some Jews considered the tax blasphemy.

God was Israel's Lord and King, not Caesar.

To make matters worse, the coin used for the census tax bore Caesar's image inscribed with the declaration that he was the son of a God.

What was a righteous person to do?

Can a righteous person participate in that taxation and still be faithful to God?

That's the question that our text for this morning asks in Matthew 22, beginning in verse 15.

If you would like to follow along, I will read it.

It says, Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle Jesus in his words.

And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that you are true, and you teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.

Tell us then what you think.

Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?

Show me the coin for the tax.

And they brought him a denarius.

And Jesus said to them, Whose likeness and inscription is this?

And they said, Caesar's.

And then he said to them, Therefore, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

And when they heard it, they marveled, and they left him and went away.

Amen.

This is the first of three consecutive, we might call them interrogations of Jesus.

Intense questions, tricky questions, designed to trap Jesus in some way.

So I'd like you to look with me here this morning at the devious plot here in this passage.

We're going to observe the devious plot first, and then we will move to the devious method, and then the devious challenge, and finally the divine response.

First, the devious plot to trap Jesus.

The first 11 chapters of the Gospel of Matthew detail Jesus' ministry, which is seemingly harmless.

He teaches people God's word, he heals diseases, he guides people along the right path and steers them away from the wrong path.

Then in chapter 12, after healing a man on the Sabbath day in a synagogue, no less, the Pharisees, we are told, went out and conspired against Jesus to destroy him.

That was chapter 12.

We're now in chapter 22.

They are still trying to destroy Jesus.

In chapter 15, the scribes and the Pharisees approached Jesus because they thought his disciples were sinning by picking some grain on the Sabbath day and eating it because they were hungry.

And in his response, Jesus pointedly declared the hypocrisy of those leaders.

He said, This people honors me with their lips.

That is, they say the right things.

They agree with the right teachings, but their heart is far from me.

He says, In vain do they worship me, teaching as the doctrine, as doctrines, the commandments of men.

That's chapter 15.

Chapter 16, the Pharisees came to test Jesus by asking for a sign.

Prove it.

Prove to us that we ought to listen to you.

And Jesus responded by calling them an evil and adulterous generation and warning his disciples to watch out for their teaching.

Now, in the last several sections of chapter 21 and 22, we've seen Jesus in the holy city during the last week of his earthly life.

He taught in the temple.

And he opposed the sinful leadership of Israel at every turn.

And then through a series of parables, Jesus demonstrated that many of the people of Israel who thought they belonged to God actually stood condemned before him because they did not believe in Jesus.

Those leaders now conspire together, still seeking to destroy him.

So this is a plot.

This is a working together to catch Jesus.

They're working to craft their message, to craft their discussion so as to just perfectly catch Jesus in a way that he cannot escape.

So they labor at identifying an area to question Jesus in hopes that they would discover some evidence to use against him.

I like the way one commentator refers to these Pharisees.

He calls them the serious.

The serious people.

The seriously religious.

They're the Pharisees who would hold up their Bible and say, this is what we believe, this is what we follow, this is what God says.

We adhere to this.

They are the serious ones.

They're serious about their religion.

They're serious about the law of Moses.

But they felt as though Jesus wasn't serious enough.

Because Jesus let his disciples pick grain on the Sabbath day.

Because Jesus healed somebody on the Sabbath.

Jesus wasn't as serious as they were.

So they devise a method to entangle him.

That devious method is a political alliance combined with verbal tactics to draw Jesus in as though he's just a normal human being who may not be aware of what's going on.

And so he gets drawn into their trap until suddenly it snatches closed.

I had to use a live trap recently to get a rabbit out of my backyard.

By the way, if you ever have to do that, they love coleslaw mix.

It works.

The carrots didn't work.

The coleslaw mixed worked.

The cabbage worked.

He was in there, got his way into the trap, the trap closed, and then he found the carrots on the inside.

And he was having a fun time eating away at the carrots.

And then he realized, I can't get out.

That's what they wanted to happen to Jesus.

They want to draw Jesus in through this conversation until it's too late.

The Pharisees planned the trap themselves.

But to make it most effective, they needed an alliance.

And in this case, their partnership, Matthew tells us, was with the Herodians.

The Herodians were a group of Jewish people associated with the rule of the Herods or the family of Herods.

There were a lot of Herods.

Herod the Great and Herod Antipas and so on.

Lots of Herods.

The Herodian family, they were associated with the Herods because the Herods were given rule, direct rule over all of Palestine.

Over the Decopolis, the ten cities of the region of Palestine and what we would know today is Syria.

First, while the Romans were the ultimate authority, the Herodian family was allowed to rule directly over Palestine, including Galilee, Jesus' home area.

The Pharisees, the serious ones, would be the political opposites of the Herodians.

So the Herodians are working with the politics of the day, with the government of the day.

They're in an alliance with them.

They work closely with them.

They want them to succeed.

The Pharisees are on the opposite side of the spectrum, and they're saying, no, the government needs to be pushed out, destroyed.

The Herodians believe that working with Rome was the best way forward.

Support Herod, support Rome, pay the tax, and everything will be fine.

But this political alliance is a little more than Republicans and Democrats coming together.

Jesus was from Galilee, just as Judas the Galilean, the same Judas who fought Rome over the census tax.

So these Herodians would be very familiar with opposition to Roman taxes, and they would be very familiar with the results of refusing to pay.

They would know that Judas the Galilean was killed.

The Herodians wanted to stay on good terms with the Roman government because life was good as long as everything went well with Rome.

So they would love to hear Jesus support the tax and so support Herod and support Rome.

Take the side of the government.

What better way to trap Jesus?

If he took the Roman side, the Herodians would be happy.

And they would put in a good word for Jesus with Herod.

But the Pharisees, their political enemies, would be enraged.

Agreeing to pay the tax would set Jesus against the prevailing Jewish sentiment.

And it might provide a way for the seriously religious people to get rid of Jesus.

On the other hand, the Herodians would be upset if Jesus took the side of the serious people who didn't like Rome, who hated the taxes.

Then they would speak against Jesus to the Roman rulers, and the Roman rulers would do away with yet another Galilean who opposed taxation.

Either way, it looks as though the Pharisees have concocted the perfect plan.

Just draw Jesus into the trap, and everything will be perfect.

No escape for Jesus.

But that's not the end of the Pharisees' shenanigans.

They also use a popular method of debate to lower an opponent's defenses so that he's going to be more likely to make a statement that would be self-condemning.

Picture my live trap sitting on top of the snow in my backyard and me leading the rabbit to the trap with little bits and pieces of tasty, smelly cabbage.

You just you just put him at ease and hey, there's something I like, and you draw him in.

To Jesus.

They sent their disciples along with the Herodians.

And what do they say?

Teacher, we we know that you are true.

And why are they there?

If they know that he's true, why are they trying to trap him?

That's a lie.

They're buttering him up.

We know that you teach the way of God truthfully.

Yeah, right.

They don't believe that.

Otherwise, they would be following him.

They would be disciples of Jesus, not disciples of the Sirius or disciples of Herod.

They don't believe that.

They disagree with almost everything Jesus says.

He does teach the way of God truthfully.

They are right in that, but they disagree with what he has to say.

This is a verbal ploy to get Jesus to lower his guard against them and to walk right into their trap.

And then they say, You don't care about anyone's opinions.

It's more picturesque the way Matthew wrote it.

He says, You don't look at people's faces.

You know how you can tell people's responses, reactions to what you're saying by looking at their faces?

They're saying, you don't look at people's faces, Jesus, to see what the response is.

You don't play off of the audience.

You only speak the truth.

It's not precisely true.

He cares about the Father's opinion and he cares about the truth of Scripture, accurately taught.

Because you are not swayed.

You don't care about what people are doing, and that's all just buttering them up.

It's a trick, plain and simple.

It's a ploy by the leaders of Israel to catch Jesus in some statement for which he can be condemned.

And they've got opposite sides of the political spectrum there to watch and to be present so that no matter which side he takes, he's caught.

They knew he would speak his mind.

They didn't necessarily agree with what he would say, but they were banking on the fact that Jesus would speak his mind.

And the trick involved taxes paid by the Jews, of which there were three.

There was the temple tax, you can find that in Matthew 17.

There were taxes, we might call them today like customs taxes, customs duties, sales taxes, that kind of thing.

Matthew was likely a customs tax collector.

And then there was the poll tax or the census tax paid by every adult male who was not a Roman citizen.

It amounted to a denarius a year.

This is the question.

This question here is about that yearly census tax that every adult male who was not a Roman citizen was required to pay to Rome every single year.

It's a question about the census tax that reminded Jews that Rome ruled, that they were not free.

It's a census tax that drove Judas the Galilean to give his life to not pay.

So everyone would be interested in Jesus' take on this issue.

It's a popular issue among people, and it could have had significant influence either for or against the Jews of the time.

Jesus, are you going to support the local government or are you going to support the serious?

Are you going to go with the religious?

I won't say the religious right, I'll just say the religious or the government.

What are you going to do, Jesus?

And so the devious challenge is which side would Jesus take?

Which side?

There's this plot going on behind the scenes.

An arrangement with a political alliance of people that don't get along just so they can get rid of what they think is a common enemy.

And the challenge that they present to Jesus.

Tell us.

Tell us what you think.

Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

The Herodians represent the political side of this debate.

They represent the rulers from Jesus' home, and they represent the Roman authority.

They hold political, and we might even say authorial jurisdiction over Jesus.

The Herodians would have the influence to get Jesus thrown into prison or even have him put to death for opposing Rome.

They could be witnesses against him in a case of tax evasion.

They represent the highest law of the land, and if Jesus opposes the tax, which the Jewish people would go, Jesus.

There would be no escape for him.

The disciples of the Pharisees hold the religious and cultural side of this argument.

So in many ways, it would be easy for Jesus to assume, yes, my people are not free.

We are under the rule of Rome and we want our freedom.

God opposes rulers to set themselves up as gods.

Jesus could easily take that side.

God had said not to have any image before him.

And since the Roman coins used to pay the tax bore the image of Caesar, the religiously serious considered the tax a violation of the second commandment.

Here is a Tiberian denarius.

This would be the coin that Jesus was referring to.

You can see the image of Caesar.

Front and center.

The Roman coin bore the inscription, Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.

So the religiously serious would say, Jesus, you want us to take this coin that says Tiberius is the son of God to pay the Roman tax?

You really want us to do that?

That would violate the first commandment to have no other gods before the one true God.

If Jesus would have taken the side of the religiously serious, he would have been an instant cultural hero.

But to take the religious and cultural side would have put Jesus at immediate odds with the Herodians, and he would have been killed like Judas the Galilean.

So what does Jesus do?

Maybe we should put it differently.

Are taxes inherently evil?

Should followers of God refuse to pay taxes to a corrupt government?

What if the ruler claims to be God?

Does that affect the decision?

Great questions for the fellowship time, because I'm not going to answer those questions.

How does this affect our situation?

You know, some would say that our government is not righteous.

Scott prayed that we live in a world that, in a country that presents the good as evil, and as the evil as good, it so in some ways paying our taxes may be a similar struggle as it was to pay them to Rome.

Some Christians believe that we shouldn't pay taxes, and some have paid the consequences for that.

What does Jesus do?

Well, let's look at the divine response.

It is possible, Jesus says, to respect the authority of government and still give allegiance to God.

Jesus, verse 18, aware of their malice, said, Why do you put me to the test?

You hypocrites?

He knows they're trying to trick him.

All of their conspiring together has failed.

Jesus knows.

They don't know that he knows, but he knows that they don't know.

And why are you trying to trick me?

You're just hypocrites.

They're seeking to discredit Jesus in their hypocrisy.

They don't want to believe Jesus, they just want him to look bad so they can have a reason to be rid of him.

Don't forget that this is days before Good Friday.

Show me the coin.

And they brought him a denarius.

Question: Who had the coin?

Not Jesus, right?

Jesus doesn't have the coin.

He says to the group that's challenging him, show me the coin.

So one of the group sent to entangle him presents the coin.

Do you get the hypocrisy there?

One of them possesses the idolatrous coin.

What does that say about them?

That may not be that unusual.

The serious, the religiously serious would likely try to avoid having it.

Maybe just obtaining the proper coinage only when it came time to pay the tax, but the fact that someone in this group has and used the coin says something.

This is that silver denarius, generally thought to be about a day's wage for a common laborer.

Jesus asks, whose likeness and inscription is this?

Whose likeness and inscription is this, as you're holding up the coin?

Well, it's obvious, right?

Maybe not to us, but to them it was obvious.

This is a properly minted Roman coin bearing the image of Tiberius Caesar with his inscription.

They couldn't deny that the image on the coin was the emperor Tiberius, and they couldn't deny that it was his inscription, and they couldn't deny that what they possessed belonged to Jesus.

I'm sorry, belonged to Caesar.

Possessed what belonged to Caesar.

Now one might say, well, so what?

Caesar is the authority, he's the ruler, he has the right to mint his own coins, big deal.

But it is a big deal, according to Jesus.

He says the issue is really straightforward.

If you receive Caesar's money in the course of life, it's only right to expect at some point to have to give it back.

You see, in verse 17, the accusers use a word that means to pay or to give something to someone.

But in verse 21, Jesus turns that around and he uses a modified form that means to give it back.

Meaning, it never belonged to you in the first place.

It belonged to Caesar.

Therefore, since the coin belongs to Caesar, it bears his image and his inscription.

So if you use what rightly belongs to another person, it is only logical that you might be required to give it back to its rightful owner.

There's no evil in giving back what belongs to someone else.

You're simply returning what belongs to someone else.

There's no moral problem in returning Caesar's coin to Caesar for a tax.

There is sin in not returning it, for that would be theft.

Because the coin belongs to Caesar.

It's the expectation for using what belongs to someone else, the ruler, in our case, the government.

Now, one might argue, well, then if I don't want to pay taxes, I'll just stop using money.

I'll move out into the country somewhere on my farm and live off the land.

Well, you kind of have to be careful with that argument, though, because Jesus doesn't go there, for one.

Other passages, however, do address that.

They indicate that the only feasible way to do that is if there is no governing authority at all.

For Romans 13 says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there's no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

So if you're going to take that argument, you have to go to some place in the world that doesn't have a governing authority.

Elon Musk would say, go to Mars.

Romans 13, 7 says, pay to all what is owed to them.

Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Notice the owed part, telling us it's theirs.

It belongs to them, and so you give it back.

So what began here as a devious attempt to catch Jesus in a religious and political trap with no way out becomes an opportunity for Jesus to point out the real issue.

The real problem with these seriously religious folks is not their loyalty to Rome or lack of it.

It's not their paying taxes or not paying taxes, it's not the use of blasphemous coins or not using blasphemous coins.

Their real issue is their allegiance to God.

We know that the coin belonged to Caesar because of the icon on it, the image and the inscription.

Do we recognize that we belong to God because we are made in his image?

If we belong to God, what he has given to us is his.

Therefore, you owe him complete and utter allegiance, and that includes total obedience, submission to his lordship, and giving whatever is due to him.

Yes, Jesus says, pay your taxes.

God has ordained the government.

By paying your taxes, you're giving back what belongs to the government, and you're also obeying God.

You are stealing if you don't give back to what belongs to another.

The underlying question is, are we stealing from our God?

Now I said at the beginning that this really isn't about taxes, is it?

This isn't really about taxes.

This is about Jesus.

Taxes are the issue that enable us to get to Jesus.

So here you go.

You've already been provided a great opportunity in the next few months to lead someone to Jesus by talking about taxes.

Lowell's not going to get anything done in his office.

Let's bring it back to Jesus.

Who is Jesus?

Who is Jesus?

Because that's really the key issue here, is it not?

They are all wrapped up about Jesus.

They want to be rid of him, and so they're conspiring with political enemies to get rid of Jesus.

And they will succeed.

Why do they hate Jesus?

They hate Jesus for the same reason that they hate Caesar.

Because he claims to be the Son of God.

Consider Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and he's transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Speaking of Jesus, he is the image of the invisible God.

Greek word that Paul uses there is icon.

Caesar proclaimed to be the icon of God.

The son of God.

And the religiously serious said, no way.

Not no.

Sorry, can't take that.

As a result, we can't even give that.

We can't even handle that and give it back to God, for that would be blasphemous.

And Jesus comes along and says, Caesar isn't the son of God.

Augustus wasn't God.

Tiberius isn't the son of God.

I am the son of God.

In fact, I am the icon.

I am the image of the invisible God.

So the issue here in Matthew 22 is not really about taxes.

It is about whether or not we recognize who Jesus is, that he is the image of the invisible God, and he calls us to come to him to be like him and to give him our all.

Caesar employed the census tax to remind everyone that he is Lord.

Caesar wanted everyone to know every time they purchased something in the market, every time they paid a tax, that he's the one who provides everything they need and he's the one who gives them everything, including the money to buy things.

And so you have to give the money back to him and be reminded Caesar is Lord.

Caesar is the icon of God because he is the Son of God, and Jesus says, No.

No, that's not it at all.

If you get all wrapped up, if you get all wrapped up about that, you get all wrapped up about having to pay taxes, and you miss who Jesus is, then you've missed the point.

For Jesus, Jesus is the true Lord and King.

See, the religiously serious were so wrapped up about secondary things that they could, they could, they could easily discern Caesar's icon.

They could easily discern Caesar's inscription.

But when the word of God took on flesh and dwelt among them, they could not see it.

Taxes and money remind us the government expects to be recognized and honored, and we can see that.

But do we have eyes to see that Jesus is the true Son of God who deserves to be believed, to be followed, and to be honored with all that we are and all that we have?

Because He's the one who truly supplies all we need.

He's the one who has said, I'm making you new into the image of God.

And what God has begun in you, he will surely complete.

Have we missed that?

Because there's a whole world that's missing it.

There's a world that's missing it because they don't know anything but believing in Caesar.

Even in churches, we have the religiously serious who get wrapped up about secondary things and miss that Jesus is the image of the living God.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus.

Forgive our sin.

Forgive our sin as we come before you, knowing that various times in various ways we all have been distracted by things that either don't matter at all for eternity, we'll be burned up, or that are that are secondary, and so we get our our thoughts and our focus off of what really is important, what really matters, and we miss the truth.

Lord, by just the patterns of life that we have, we become discerning about the things of the world.

Open our hearts and our minds and our eyes to become discerning about truth.

The truth of Jesus.

Enable us to live that out.

Even in life, to be able to recognize ways that we can take things as mundane as taxes and use them to point to you.

Lord, enable us to make much of you in all areas of life, so that we might use every every avenue of life, buying and selling, purchasing and paying taxes and all of these things to point to you.

Enable us, in other words, to be your image so that we might reflect you.

Use us to make much of you, the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.