The story appears simple – authorities trying to trick Jesus – to pay taxes or not – if he says yes, one group will be mad at him. if he says no, another group will be mad at him – but if you know history and those at the time would have, it is way worse than that.
Around 6AD a guy named Judas the Galilean started a new movement – the zealots – some of Jesus disciples were associated with them. They believed that only God should be ruler in Israel, and that the kingdom of God was literally God as king, and justice now for all and that if necessary force would be used to bring this about – lots of support in the Old Testament for that line of thinking. A new tax was added around 6AD and that was the final straw for them so to speak .Judas led an armed revolt where they stormed Jerusalem and took over the temple. Then cleansed it from all foreigners and called on the people to stop paying Roman taxes and help fight them off. Their uprising was crushed and Judas was jailed and later executed.
Matthew Mark and Luke all have the Pharisees (opposed to roman rule) and heorodians (OK with Roman rule) coming to Jesus to ask him this question… just after he drove the money changers out of the temple… just after he cleansed the temple. It is a political question, are you leading a revolution or not?. If he says “no, do not pay the tax” he will be crushed by the authorities because they are interested in what is happening as well. Since all his teaching is about the Kingdom of God, if he says “yes, pay the tax” then the people will think he does not know what he is talking about and they will ignore him. So its not just upset group A or B, but an answer to the question if he gives a yes or no answer would end his mission so to speak. Talk about a loaded question!
SO what does he do? He asks for a coin… notice he does not even have one .He then asks whose image is on it … now there is not only an image on it, there is also writing . On one side it gives the emperors name and declares him as king and son of God, on the other side it declares him as high Priest. So Jesus is holding up a coin that has blasphemous proclamations on it saying this foreign dictator is the King of Israel, son of God and High Priest. And they all knew that the requirement was to swear allegiance to this dictator, to accept the tax was to agree to that. Jesus response does not translate well, but he changes the verb used in the question. In the question what was asked was to pay the tax by making an offering, the idea being almost by worshiping . In Jesus response he uses a verb that indicates to simply return to rightful owner, basically he says return to Caesar that which has his image on it (but wait there is more and here is the punchy part) and to return to God that which has God’s image on it!
Wow – what has God’s image – we do!.. we are made in God’s image…..so he does not say “yes pay the tax” and he does not say “no don’t pay the tax” – but he does say “yes participate in a revolution, one that does not serve the self centred power hungry tyrants of this world, but serves God in whose image you are made. A revolution to end all revolutions because it is led by the King of heaven and earth, who owns everything, but for your sake became poor . A King who does not demand payment from us, but offers payment of our debt himself. No wonder they walked away speechless and amazed. He said yes I am leading a revolution, I am overthrowing this world, I am ushering in the kingdom of God, but not by force and not by some political agenda, and I am not replacing one world system with another, I am uniting heaven and earth – thy kingdom come, thy will be done on heaven as it is on earth.
This is one of those passages where history and God collide in a way that no one could have made up – only God could do this – change history by entering history
Rev Allan Carson