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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
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.
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.
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.
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