Questions and Rebuttals
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Questions and Rebuttals
Questions and Rebuttals
Last week we talked about how Jesus is picking a fight with the Jewish leadership. He is picking a fight that He knows will lead to His death.
And the leadership is back to their old tricks, trying to trip Jesus up this week.
Matthew 22:15
Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and 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?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.
Here we get to a question we all are interested in. Ravi Zacharias has said that this is the one question that he wish Jesus would have answered differently. I think we can agree with that.
But the question is not one primarily about money. It’s not primarily about the tax. This is a question about loyalty. And it’s meant to trap Jesus into running afoul of either the Romans or the Jews.
If Jesus were to say don’t pay the tax, His teaching would put Him at odds with the Romans, and they would be able to get the Roman authorities to charge and punish Him.
But if Jesus were to say yes, pay the tax, it would run afoul of the current of discontent in Jewish society, and seem to put the Earthly Government over God’s law.
You see the tax was not just a tax. It was a constant reminder that the Jewish people were under Roman occupation and were not a free people.
Notice how they phrase the question. “Is it lawful”. They are trying to pit the law of God against the Law of Rome.
And Jesus isn’t having it.
The word translated as render here in the ESV is actually a word that means to repay.
The Jews were a part of the Roman empire. They used Roman roads, they took advantage of the Roman aqueducts, were protected by Roman soldiers.
Jesus says repay Caesar what is due to Caesar.
I think we have to stop here and talk about what this means for us as well. We live in a democratic republic, which means that we have a say in how the country is run in a way that a Roman citizen did not.
But what I see far too often today is this idea that if it doesn’t make sense to me, or I don’t think it should be that way, I don’t have to abide by it. If I don’t like a rule, I don’t have to follow it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, if we take this attitude and posture toward government, we declare that we don’t believe that government is ordained and ordered by God Himself.
English Standard Version Chapter 13
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. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 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.
One last thing I want to say here before we move on to the next challenge.
That last verse says to give respect to whom respect is owed, and honor to whom honor is owed.
And the temptation is to justify our ungodly attitudes by convincing ourselves that people we don’t support are not owed the respect and honor that we know we should show.
We live in a time where we see an attitude of divisiveness and hate toward those we don’t agree with. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the spirit of the age, not the spirit of God.
In an age where it is popular to yell out “That’s not my president!”, the word of God calls us to show respect and honor to those that God has put into leadership over us.
This doesn’t mean we don’t disagree. Doesn’t mean we don’t speak into the culture what the Word says. Doesn’t mean we don’t do our civic duty to vote as our conscience dictates. It means that we do all of that, and trust God with the results.
God is sovereign over each and every election. Not just the elections where the one you voted for won.
I did not vote for the current president. Neither did I vote for the one before him. Both were my presidents. Whoever wins next year will be my president.
God will hold those authorities accountable for their leadership.
But notice the last part of Christ’s statement. What does it mean to render unto God that which is God’s? What does it mean to repay God?
Here we see the limit of a Christian’s submission to the kingdom of man. We owe the government what is due to them, namely taxes and respect, but they do not get what is God’s. They do not get our worship.
When government would cause us to sin, we do not comply. When Government would order us to cease the preaching of the Gospel, we do not comply.
Church History is rife with examples of believers who were burned at the stake, beheaded, stoned and subjected to all kinds of torture because they refused to deny Christ.
We stand with our brothers and sisters in China, in North Korea, in Iran and in Afghanistan who refuse to give in to a government that persecutes them because of their faith.
There is never a time where when there is a question about who is higher, the nation or our God, that it is given a single second of thought.
Our unwavering devotion, our unwavering allegiance is to the Lord and His word alone.
The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”
But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.
Matthew 22:23-
So here we see the challenge from the Sadducees. And the obligatory baptist joke is that they didn’t believe in the resurrection, so they were sad-you-see? You’re welcome for that.
But that’s an important thing to remember. These people don’t believe in the afterlife at all. So this entire scenario of husbands and wife is completely and utterly insincere.
In debate lingo, this is an ad absurdum argument. That means that you take the opponents arguement, you take it out to the most illogical extreme that you can, and present it back to them like it is their position and charge them to defend it.
But here’s the thing. In an ad absurdum argument, you aren’t actually dealing with the opponents argument at all. You are dealing with something of your own making. And we see that here with Jesus.
So they give this convoluted scenario, where each husband dies without producing an heir, and the brothers rise up to fulfill the Levirate marriage practice that was prescribed in Deuteronomy.
But here we see the condensing of the actual practice. Levirate marriage was designed so that, according to , that the name of the dead brother would not be blotted out from Israel. And the actual practice was for the widow to marry someone in the family of her deceased husband, and name the first son after the deceased husband.
So first, they have condensed the reality of the statute into something simpler.
But second, none of that is the point at all. If they were asking about the custom of levirate marriage, they would be asking about how the brother’s names will continue in Israel. They ask who’s wife she will be. A completely unrelated question to the practice.
And again, Jesus isn’t having any of it. He cuts through their ridiculous scenario, and tells them flat out, you are wrong.
The entire premise of their question is wrong. So Jesus does not answer it. He attacks their presupposition.
First, they assume that if there was an afterlife, that it would be identical to this one. Jesus shoots that down and says “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage”. So if you are married here today, you won’t be married to your spouse in eternity. And no, that is not a place for an amen or a thank God. Just keep that to yourself. And pray for forgiveness.
But second, Jesus definitively argues for an afterlife and points to the words of Scripture to prove it.
A quick word here is that the Sadduccees also believed that only the first 5 books of the Old Testament were authoritative.
And Jesus quotes directly From .
If we remember, by the time comes along, Abraham, Issac and Jacob are all dead. Moses is the one God is speaking to in Exodus.
And yet, God speaks in the present tense.
He doesn’t say I was the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, and I will be yours as well. If death was the end, and there was no resurrection and no eternal life, that exactly how God would have had to say it.
But He didn’t. He says, I am.
He is still the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. He is still the God of Peter, James and John. He is the God of Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon and Billy Graham. And if you are a believer, He is the God of you too.
The same God who walked with them walks with you.
And the Sadducees are astonished. The men who have spent their lives arguing against the resurrection of the dead have nothing to say.
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:34-
So we saw that the Pharisees earlier came to Jesus and tried to trap him by pitting the law of God against the law of Rome.
Now, they come with a different strategy. They want to pit the law of God against itself.
But it’s important that we know that this isn’t a new question. This isn’t something they think up to ask Jesus. This was a question that Jewish leaders had been asking themselves for a long time. Some of the answers that had been given were
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.
Jesus quotes from
He answers the question.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
He answers with the Shema.
and
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Leviticus
And He ties those two things together. We have talked about this at length many times. You cannot separate the vertical relationship with God from your horizontal relationship with people.
John Calvin wrote,
since every man is devoted to himself, there will never be true charity towards neighbors, unless where the love of God reigns; On the other hand, it is impossible for the love of God to reign without producing brotherly kindness among men.
Due to the fall, we are inherently sinful. Inherently selfish. Our natural gaze is inward, not outward.
But as believers, that inward gaze is combated by the Holy Spirit. As we are conformed to the image of Christ, as we grow in our love and understanding of who God is, that inward gaze is overcome.
The love of God will move us in our love for people. We will begin to see them as the Lord sees them.
Matthew 22:41
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,
“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet” ’?
If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
We cannot have this discussion without mentioning the tragedy that happened yesterday.
A young man walked into a shopping area in Texas, opened fire and killed 20 people and wounded 26 more.
I have no interest in talking about the man himself. I have no interest in making him famous. I have no interest in taking time to try and figure out his motive for such a heinous act. All of that will come out in time.
But we live in a nation where these seem to happen all the time. We live in a nation where we are divided and trained that it is “those people” who are ruining the country.
People who disagree with us are bad. People who don’t look like us are bad. People who don’t speak our language are bad.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this morning I want to remind you that any ideology that encourages you to treat or think of anyone as less than fully human, created in the image of God is not one that is compatible with Christ.
You cannot love God and hate people.
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
I also want to remind you this morning that it is only by the grace of God that it wasn’t you pulling that trigger yesterday.
And lastly, I want to remind you that Greater is He who is within you, than he that is in the world. That the war is not ours to fight, it was won 2,000 years ago on a hill called Calvary.
You want to make a difference? Love God and Love your neighbor. Everything else hangs on those two things.