Untitled Sermon (2)
spies question Christ on taxes
Watch for the spies
20:20. The leaders stepped back. They hired spies to do their dirty work. The spies appeared innocent and pure, but their purpose was not innocent. They wanted to twist Jesus’ words so the Roman government would sentence him to death. Surely Roman authority could deal with the authority of a lone individual such as Jesus. They used a two-kingdom question to bring Roman authority against Jesus’ authority and to determine who ruled.
20:21. Flattery provided their entry to Jesus. He did not lie. He taught the truth. He ate with Pharisees and sinners, showing no partiality to anyone. He taught the way of God and showed people how to walk in God’s will. With ironic flattery these spies acted like they had spied on Jesus and could describe him accurately. They did not mean to give an accurate description, but they did so, thus investing him with an authority they could not claim—the authority of truth.
20:22. Having politely set Jesus up, they asked the “innocent” question. Was it legal for a Jewish citizen to pay taxes to a pagan Roman government? Now they had set Jesus up with an either/or, yes/no answer. As with the either/or problem he posed in verse 4, neither answer was safe. To say the Law of Moses permitted taxes to Rome would be to alienate heavily taxed people who saw Rome as the intrusive enemy. To say the Law of Moses forbade taxes to Romans would be to commit treason in the eyes of the Roman government and to face the death penalty.
20:23–24. Jesus could not be fooled. He picked right up on their deceit. He turned the question back on them: Look at the coin and tell me whose picture is on it. The spies reached for their moneybags and pulled out a silver denarius minted by the Roman government and used to pay the wages of a day laborer. On it was a picture of Tiberius Caesar and the inscription, “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.” The Jewish spies implicated themselves and the leaders who sent them. They dealt in Roman coin. They were involved in Roman commerce and business. They had thus to some degree capitulated to the enemy.
Still, they gladly showed the coin to Jesus. Now he had to answer. No, he had further instructions for the spies. Look at the coin, Jesus told them. Tell me whose picture is on it. Who has the right to determine what is written on the coin? Simple, straightforward answer: Caesar.
20:25. Jesus had a simple retort. Give Caesar what he controls, and give God what he controls. Caesar’s image is on coins. Let Caesar have coins. God’s image is on people. Let people be devoted to God. This would include all people, for Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Certainly people are more important to God than things, so Jesus placed devotion to God on a higher plane than devotion to Caesar without indicting himself as opposed to either God or government (see Rom. 13).
20:26. There were no more questions. Jesus could not be trapped. He amazed the spies, the leaders, and the people. Again, Jesus demonstrated his power and authority as he silenced the representatives of Jewish authority and taught about Roman and religious authority.
Laws Concerning Levirate Marriage
5 “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. 6 And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.
D. Resurrection Glory: Silencing the Opposition (20:27–40)
SUPPORTING IDEA: Resurrection is possible and will soon be exemplified by Jesus, the Son of the living God, who is God of the living, not of the dead.
20:27. New opponents take center stage: the Sadducees. They appear nowhere else in Luke’s Gospel. One trait separated the Sadducees from all other Jewish groups: They denied the resurrection because they could not find it in the five books of Moses, the only books they accepted as Scripture. Other groups turned easily to Daniel 12; Isaiah 26:19; Job 19:26; and Psalm 16:9, 11 to prove resurrection in Hebrew Scripture. Seeing their approach, Jesus must have known what to expect.
20:28. First, the Sadducees quoted the Law of Moses, specifically Deuteronomy 25:5 (cf. Ruth 4:1–12). They centered on the practice called levirate marriage in which a brother was obligated to marry his brother’s widow and raise children for the deceased.
20:29–32. The priestly Sadducees took the practice of levirate marriage to absurd lengths, through seven husbands. The result: seven dead men; one dead woman; no children.
20:33. Now the clincher to stump Jesus: Whose wife would she be in this resurrection everyone talked about? The question assumed that people live in monogamous marriage relationships in the resurrection and shows how impossible this would be for a situation like they described.
20:34–36. Jesus attacked their assumptions. First, not everyone participates in the resurrection. This is the continuation of his teaching on the kingdom of God, his teaching about the punishment awaiting people like the rich man who ignored Lazarus, and his assault on the religious leaders who would be surprised at the last judgment. Second, life in the next world is not like life in this world. People do not practice marriage relationships after death. Third, since the major focus of marriage is to rear children and fill the earth as in Genesis 1, this will not be necessary for the afterlife, since no one dies there. In this respect, and only in this respect, do people become like angels. They have put on immortality, whereas angels are created immortal. Here again, Jesus attacked the Sadducees, for they did not believe angels existed. Thus Jesus defanged the Sadducees, taking all the venom from their argument. In so doing he implied the reality of resurrection and set the stage for his own personal proof of the resurrection.
20:37–38. Jesus finished his argument by going back to the Sadducees’ own authority, the Law of Moses, specifically Exodus 3:6. Moses referred to God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Moses’ time, the three patriarchs were long dead. Using typical methods of interpretation of his day, Jesus drew the theological conclusion that God does not have a relationship with dead people but with living people. The implication was that if he could be the God of the patriarchs, the patriarchs must be alive. Obviously, their earthly life was long past, so the life must be one after death, a resurrection life. Only God has power over life, so the resurrected life is a life with God and under his control.
20:39–40. Earlier, the scribes had joined the Pharisees in leading the opposition to Jesus (see 5:21, 30; 6:7; 9:22; 11:53; 15:2; 19:47; 20:1, 19). Now some of their group complimented Jesus. Does this indicate a break in the ranks? At least Jesus had finally silenced his opponents. They had learned they could not trap Jesus. He was too smart and clever for them. They must accept his authority without determining its source.
