24. Caesar or God

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Men talk most about health when they are unhealthy. So too they talk most about freedom when they are in danger of losing it or when they are enslaved. At times freedom has been identified with license at one extreme, or with tyranny at the other. Since Our Lord came into a country that was enslaved and subjugated, it was to be expected that some would have a desire for no other kind of freedom than the political, or release from a conqueror’s yoke. If He were an ethical reformer that is precisely the freedom He should have given; but if He was a Savior, as indeed He was, then spiritual freedom was more important than political freedom.

On the mountaintop, Satan tried to make Him concentrate on a political career but failed. It was the political that was to serve the Divine, not the Divine the political. Later on, when the masses attempted to make Him king, He fled into the mountains. But the idea of political liberation was rampant and foremost in the popular mind. All Israel had been in the hands of the Romans ever since Pompey entered the Holy City defended by Aristobulus and carried him and thousands more off into captivity. The country, then, was a tributary of Rome. When the word “freedom” was used, it was almost always understood in the political sense of overthrowing the slavery of Caesar.

Our Lord, therefore, constantly had to deal with this problem—either because some hoped He would be a political liberator, or because whenever He spoke of freedom it was misunderstood as liberation from Rome. In three separate incidents He cleared up His position on this subject, leaving no doubts as to what He regarded as the True Freedom:

1. Political freedom from Caesar was not primary.

2. True Freedom was spiritual and meant liberation from sin.

3. To acquire this Freedom for everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, He would submit Himself voluntarily as a ransom for sin.

Two groups held contrary views concerning Caesar: the Herodians and the Pharisees. The Herodians were not a sect or a religious school, but a political party. Outwardly they were friends of Caesar and of the Roman authority; though they were not Romans, they favored the House of Herod as the occupant of the Jewish throne; this made them friends of pagan Rome and Caesar, Herod himself being the vassal of Caesar. Wishing to see Judea eventually brought under the sceptre of a prince of the Herodian line, they in the meantime submitted as fellow travelers to the pagan Roman authority.

Another party was the Pharisees, who were now at the height of their power. Being Puritans concerning the Law and Jewish traditions, they refused to acknowledge any authority to Rome; they had even attempted, according to Josephus, to put Herod to death. As nationalists, they refused to acknowledge Roman dominion and hoped that one day the Jews under their Messias-King would rule the world.

Both of these groups were enemies, not only because the Herodians sided with Caesar and were willing to pay tribute to the conqueror, while the Pharisees despised Caesar and paid tribute under protest, but also because the Herodians were not particularly interested in religion, while the Pharisees professed to be its most exemplary models.

One day after Our Lord had cured a man on the Sabbath, the Pharisees began plotting with those of Herod’s party to make away with Him. That the Pharisees should have tolerated even such a temporary alliance with the Herodians, shows the virulence of the hatred directed against Our Blessed Lord. The Gospel suggests that this new conspiracy was directed to handing Him over to the authority of the Roman Governor, or else to the people.

And so, watching for their opportunity,

They (the Pharisees) sent agents of their own,

Who pretended to be men of honest purpose,

To fasten on His words; then they would hand Him

Over to the supreme authority of the governor.

LUKE 20:20

The Herodians could not have come before Our Blessed Lord without arousing some suspicion of their base motives, nor did the Pharisees, always astute, come to Him in person. They sent some of their young scholars, as though in their guileless simplicity they were merely seeking information. The Pharisees gave Our Blessed Lord the impression that a dispute had arisen between them and the Herodians, as indeed would have been very natural. They desired to settle it by referring it to Him as the great scholar. They began by praising Him, thinking foolishly that He might be won over by a little flattery.

Master, we know well that Thou art sincere

And teachest in all sincerity the way of God;

That Thou holdest no one in awe,

Making no distinction between man and man.

MATTHEW 22:16

Then came the question, and a real trick question it was:

Is it right to pay tribute to Caesar, or not?

MATTHEW 22:18

“This tax which we Pharisees so much detest, but the legality of which these Herodians support, ought we or ought we not to pay? Which of us is right—we the Pharisees who loathe and resent it, or the Herodians who justify it?”

They expected Our Blessed Lord to answer either “Herodians” or “Pharisees.” If He answered, “No, it is not lawful to render tribute to Caesar,” then the Herodians would have delivered Him over to the Roman authorities, who in turn would order His death for conspiring to revolution. If He said, “Yes, it is lawful,” then He would displease the Pharisees, who would go before the people and say that He was not a Messias, for no Messias, or deliverer, or Savior would ever consent that the people should put their necks under the yoke of an invader. If He refused to pay the tax He was a rebel; if He agreed to pay it, He was an enemy of the people. To say “No” would make Him a traitor to Caesar; to say “Yes” would make Him antinational, antipatriotic. In either case it would seem that He was caught in a trap. The fellow travelers would condemn Him for being an enemy of the great leader, Caesar; the semireligious would damn Him for being an enemy of His country. The snare in the question was heightened by the fusion of the religious and the political elements in the ancient history of Israel; but now the two were separated. How could an absolute standard be applied to both God and Caesar?

To this trick question so maliciously proposed, Our Divine Lord replied:

Hypocrites, why do you thus put Me to the test?

MATTHEW 22:19

Despite the fact that they began with a compliment, Our Blessed Lord could hear the hiss of the serpent. Though they boasted that He was fearless and impartial, He blinded them with the flash of the one indignant word “hyprocrites.” He then said to them:

Show Me the coinage in which the tribute is paid.

MATTHEW 22:19

Our Lord had none. So they produced a coin and put it into His hand. On one side was stamped the features of the Emperor, Tiberius Caesar, and on the other side of the coin was stamped his title Pontifex Maximus. A great hush must have come over the crowd at that moment as they saw the coin laying there in the hand of Our Blessed Lord. Not many days hence, He Who was the King of kings would have those very hands pierced by the nails under the orders of the representative of the man at whose portrait He looked. Our Lord asked them:

Whose is this likeness?

Whose name is inscribed on it?

They answered:

Caesar’s.

Then came His answer:

Why then, give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s,

And to God what is God’s.

MATTHEW 22:21, 22

Our Lord took no sides, because the basic question was not God or Caesar, but God and Caesar. That coin used in their daily marketings showed they were no longer independent from a political point of view. In that lower sphere of life, the debt to the government should be discharged. He fostered no aspirations for independence; He promised no aid in liberation. It was even their duty to acknowledge the present dominion of Caesar, imperante Tiberio. The Greek word in the Gospel for “give back” or “render” implied a moral duty such as St. Paul later on told the Romans, imperante Nerone:

Every soul must be submissive to its lawful authorities;

Authority comes from God only,

And all authorities that hold sway are to His ordinance.

ROMANS 13:1

But in order to remove the objection that service to the government exempted from service to God, He added:

And to God what is God’s.

Once again He was saying that His Kingdom was not of this world; that submission to Him is not inconsistent with submission to secular powers; that political freedom is not the only freedom. To the Pharisees who hated Caesar came the command: “Give unto Caesar” to the Herodians who had forgotten God in their love of Caesar came the basic principle: “Give unto God.” Had the people rendered to God His due, they would not now be in their present state of having to render too much to Caesar. He had come primarily to restore the rights of God. As He told them before, if they sought first the Kingdom of God and His Justice, all these things such as political freedom would be added unto them.

That coin bore the image of Caesar, but whose image did the questioners bear? Was it not the image of God Himself? It was this image He was interested in restoring. The political could remain as it was for the time being, for He would not lift a finger to change their coinage. But He would give His life to have them render unto God the things that are God’s.

THE TRUE FREEDOM

This question of freedom arose during Our Lord’s second visit to Jerusalem. He had just discoursed on truth as the condition of freedom, saying:

The truth will set you free.

JOHN 8:32

As in the order of mechanics, a man is most free to run a machine when he knows the truth about it, so spiritually a man is most free whose mind is illumined by Him Who said, “I am the Truth.”

His listeners resented what seemed to them to be an implication that they were enslaved.

We are of Abraham’s breed

Nobody ever enslaved us yet;

What dost Thou mean by saying;

You shall become free?

JOHN 8:33

This proud boast was utterly unfounded. Even at that very moment Romans were collecting taxes from them as a conquered people. Seven times, according to the Book of Judges, they were enslaved to the Canaanites. Besides, had they forgotten the seventy years in Babylon? They had been in bondage to the Philistines, to the Assyrians, and to the Chaldeans; and now within the poorest vision was the Roman garrison, and in their pockets Roman money, and in Jerusalem, Pilate the Roman.

But Our Lord ignored the political background; such bondage could be suffered. But the slavery of which He spoke was the slavery of sin. The human will cannot be assaulted from without; it can only be betrayed from within, by a free decision which, multiplied, forges the chain of habit:

Believe Me when I tell you this;

Everyone who acts sinfully is the slave of sin,

And the slave cannot make his home in the house forever.

JOHN 8:34

The very freedom which the sinner supposedly exercises in his self-indulgence is only another proof that he is ruled by the tyrant. Our Lord now contrasted a slave and a son, after He had accused His listeners of being slaves of sin. The slave does not live in the house forever. The Jubilee year was a provision against such perpetuity; a time comes when the slave must leave. But it is not so with a son; he is bound to the home with ties which time cannot destroy. Our Lord compared the slave, who did not belong perpetually to the master, to the slave-sinner, who likewise did not belong to the house of the Heavenly Father. No sinner is in his true home as long as he is in bondage to Satan. But He Who stood in the midst of them was the Son of that Heavenly Father.

To make His home in the house forever, is for the Son.

JOHN 8:35

He, the Son, came among them who were slaves of sin to set them, not politically but spiritually, free. This deliverance would restore the slaves of sin to the Father’s house. No slave need abide forever under the tyranny of sin, because there is One Who will ransom him from evil. There will be deliverance from one house to another. That they might know Who it was Who would effect this redemption, He said:

Why then, if it is the Son Who makes you free men,

You will have freedom in earnest.

JOHN 8:36

The Son is no other than the speaker, Christ Himself, and He can free men from sin, precisely because He is from the Father. The deliverer Himself must be free; if He were in any way enslaved by sin, He could not liberate. The doors of the prison of evil can be unlocked only from the outside and by One Who Himself is not a prisoner.

There was nothing new in this proclamation that He came to emancipate from sin and give to His followers the “glorious liberty of the children of God.” His first public utterance in His native town was the message of salvation.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me;

And sent Me out…

To bid the prisoners go free…and

To set the oppressed at liberty.

LUKE 4:18

When He said this, they attempted to kill Him by throwing Him over a cliff; this audience was no more receptive than the audience of Nazareth. The contrast He made between the slaves of sin and the Son of God was too much for them. They knew very well that His words about freedom could not possibly apply to their emancipation from Roman power. There was no mistaking either that for Him the only true freedom was freedom from sin. But still they would not accept Him, and He gave them the reason.

And if you do not believe Me,

It is precisely because I am speaking the truth.

Can any of you convict Me of sin?

If not, why is it that you do not believe Me

When I tell you the truth?

The man who belongs to God listens to God’s words;

It is because you do not belong to God

That you will not listen to Me.

JOHN 8:45–45

Generally a man is believed when he speaks the truth; now it is the truth which causes disbelief. Truth can be hated when it reveals falsity within. Though they rejected Him, He challenged them to point to one blot on His sinless Character. Even Judas after the betrayal would call Him “innocent.” He taught His disciples to pray “forgive us our trespasses,” but He never prayed thus; rather did He forgive the trespasses of others. If sin be slavery, then sinlessness is perfect freedom. Freedom is not in its essence release from a foreign yoke; it is really a release from the captivity of sin. He was not a Teacher discoursing about liberty; He was a liberator—and from a greater thraldom than Rome. “The Son makes you free men.” But it will cost something, as He explained in His next discussion about freedom.

THE PRICE OF TRUE FREEDOM

The time of the visitation to Galilee was about over; Our Blessed Lord avoided public attention as much as possible, and gave Himself up to impressing upon His disciples the lesson of the Cross, which they did not understand until after Pentecost. Immediately upon arriving in Capharnaum, the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter, either out of hostile curiosity about the tax, or else in order to have an accusation against Peter’s Master, saying to him:

Does not your Master pay the temple pence?

MATTHEW 17:23

The temple tax was originally levied against each person as a ransom for his soul, in the sense of an acknowledgment that his life had been forfeited by sin. Exodus levied it against every male twenty years of age in order to pay for the temple service. The tax was a half shekel and amounted to about thirty cents in American money.

The question about Our Lord paying the temple tax was not a simple one. He had said that He was the Temple of God, and had exercised His Divine rights over the material temple by purging it of buyers and sellers. Would He Who said that He was a Temple of God because Divinity was dwelling in His human nature now pay the temple tribute? To pay the temple tax after His clear affirmation at the Feast of the Tabernacles that He was the Son of God would have given rise to some serious misunderstandings. The point at issue was not the poverty of the Master; it was whether or not He Who is the living Temple of God would subordinate Himself to the symbol and sign of Himself.

In answer to the question of the temple tax collector, Peter replied that Our Lord did pay the tax. Peter had not consulted with Our Lord as to whether or not He had paid the tax. After answering, he went into the house. Before Peter had a chance to speak, Our Lord addressed him, showing that He was well acquainted with the conversation which took place outside. All things were naked and open to His eyes; concealment was impossible.

Simon, tell us what thou thinkest;

On whom do earthly kings impose customs and taxes,

On their own sons, or on strangers?

MATTHEW 17:24

He knew that Peter gave an affirmative answer to the tax collectors. The question implied that Peter had lost sight, for the moment, of the dignity of his Master, Who was the Son in His own house, the Temple, and not a servant in another’s house. It was somewhat the same idea that Our Blessed Lord had emphasized when talking to the Pharisees. He told them that they were servants, not just of a political power but servants of sin, and He was interested only in relieving them from that slavery of sin. When Peter answered:

On strangers…

Jesus said to Him

Why then, the children go free.

MATTHEW 17:25

A king does not impose a tax on his own family to maintain the palace in which he lives. Then, since He is God, should He pay the ransom tax—He Who is giving His life as ransom? Since He is the Temple of God, then should He pay a tax for a sacrifice, since He is both the Temple and the Sacrifice? He thus put Himself outside the circle of sinful men. The freedom He gives is spiritual, not political.

After having affirmed that as the King of Heaven He was immune from earthly tributes, He turned to Peter and said:

But we will not hurt their consciences;

Go down to the sea, and cast thy hook;

Take out the first fish thou drawest up,

And when thou hast opened its mouth

Thou wilt find a silver coin there;

With this make payment to them for Me and for thyself.

MATTHEW 17:25

The king’s son is free. But He Who is the Son of God became the Son of Man sharing the poverty, trials, the labors, and the homelessness of men. Later on, He would subject Himself to arrest, the crown of thorns, and to the Cross. Presently, as the Son of Man, He would not stand on His dignity as the Son of God, nor claim immunity from servile obligations, but would voluntarily concede to a tax in order to avoid scandal. It is not a mark of greatness always to affirm one’s right, but often to suffer an indignity. There might be scandal if He showed contempt for the temple. As He submitted Himself to John’s baptism to fulfill all righteousness; as His mother offered doves, though she needed no purification from His birth; so He would submit Himself to the tax to sanctify the human bonds He wore.

In His answer He closely associated Peter with Himself. Never once in speaking of His Heavenly Father did He ever say of mankind and Himself “Our Father.” It might seem at first sight that He did so in the prayer “Our Father,” thus implying that man and He were the same kind of sons of the Heavenly Father. But actually the Apostles asked Him how to pray, and He told them to pray “Our Father.” Our Lord always made the distinction between “Our Father” and “My Father.” He is the natural Son of God; men were the adopted sons of God. In like manner, He never associated any human being with Himself except Peter, as He does here when He says, “We will not hurt their consciences.” He who had been called the rock, he who would be called the shepherd, and he who was given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven was here associated more closely with Christ than any other human being.

Although He was free from the tax, He prepared to pay it; though free from sin too, He took on its penalties; though free from the necessity of death, He accepted it; though free from the Cross, He embraced it. As the tax collectors did not force money from Him, so neither would the Roman soldiers nor the Sanhedrin fasten Him to the Cross without His own will. There would no longer be a plague, for He would pay the ransom price.

Peter paid the tax, but Our Lord paid it with him. Both shared in the submission. Hence, Our Lord said, “Make payment to them for Me and for thyself.” He does not say “for us,” because there was the infinite difference between the Person of God and the person of Peter. Our Lord would pay the debt for ransom from sin, though exempt. Peter would pay it, because he was liable. Our Lord would pay it because of humility; Peter would pay it because of duty.

The manner in which the tax was paid might have been a lesson to Peter that, even while submitting Himself to the temple authorities, He was nevertheless showing Himself the Lord of all creation. The Apostles were once before astounded that the winds and the seas obeyed Him; now what was in the sea obeyed. Just as death and glory were always connected in every statement of His, so now the humiliation of paying the tax was associated with His kingly supremacy over nature and the fish of the sea. The tax money was supplied by a miracle of both omniscience and lordship over creation, in which the fish Peter caught was found to contain a stater, or the exact tax necessary for Himself and for Peter. The two strands of humiliation and majesty are thus woven together as they were in every word of His concerning His Cross and His glory. Never one without the other. At the very beginning, the helplessness of a Babe in a stable was compensated for by the song of the angels and the movement of a star guiding Wise Men to His feet. So now, as the Son of God He was exempt from ecclesiastical law, yet He paid the tax; later on, though exempt from political law, He would tell Pilate that his authority as a judge came from Him, yet He would accept a false judgment.

For centuries, ever since those forty years in the desert, every son of Abraham had been paying ransom for his soul which needed redemption. No more ransom money will be needed, for the Sinless One will take on sin. He told His listeners, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” So now, He gave back to the earthly temple the things that are the earthly temple’s. Exemptions from these duties do not necessarily make men free. The first freedom, which is immunity from evil, will be purchased by One Who made Himself a slave. As St. Paul put it:

His nature is, from the first, Divine,

And yet He did not see, in the rank of Godhead,

A prize to be coveted; He dispossessed Himself,

And took the nature of a slave,

Fashioned in the likeness of men,

And presenting Himself to us in human form;

And then He lowered His own dignity, accepted an obedience

Which brought Him to death, death on a cross.

That is why God has raised Him to such a height,

Given Him that name which is greater than any other name;

So that everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth

Must bend the knee before the name of Jesus,

And every tongue must confess Jesus Christ as the Lord,

Dwelling in the glory of God the Father.

PHILIPPIANS 2:6–11

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