Whose Image Is This?

Matthew 22:15-22

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle [Jesus] 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.

In one of the classic tests of Jesus by the Pharisees, Jesus’ opponents raise a controversial subject in first century Judea: taxation. This occurrence is different than the other examples of religious leaders testing Jesus in the gospels, because the Pharisees here are conspiring with the Herodians. These two groups were enemies with each other. The Pharisees were traditionalists; they wanted to restore the old religious order and the self-rule of a Jewish monarchy. The Herodians were political interlopers, and some were false Jews; Herod was an Edomite by descent whose father had conspired to place Israel under Roman rule, and who had benefited from the power struggle. Yet here, both groups have a common concern in the rise of Jesus’ popularity, and they conspire together to entrap Him. So in verse 17 they ask Him,

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.

It’s interesting to note that the Herodians and the Pharisees would have each answered this question each differently. The Herodians, being client rulers given authority by the Romans, received their livelihood and power by collecting taxes from the Jews. Obviously, they would say it is proper to pay taxes to Caeser. But the Pharisees resented Roman rule, and moreover, saw taxation as idolatrous: the Romans were taking tribute that was owed to God, not to Caeser. This is especially true when you considered how the old law required tithes and sabbath years from the people. Not only were the Jews already required to give ten percent of what they earned to the Levites, but they were also required by the Law to take a Sabbath year once every seven years and abstain from cultivating their fields. Yearly Roman taxation made honoring this part of the Mosaic Law impossible for ordinary people. And so the Pharisees, though they probably paid taxes under threat of violence from the Romans, would have said it is right to not pay them.

And so the entrapment is that there are only two answers to this question: to pay taxes, or not to pay. And either answer will cause a public issue for Jesus. If Jesus says it is right not to pay taxes, He can be branded a renegade and potentially be arrested by the Roman authorities. If Jesus says it is obligatory to pay taxes, then the oppressed Jewish people may turn on Jesus. And both the Pharisees and the Herodians, even though they don’t agree with one another, will be there to testify to Jesus’ public declaration.

Now the text gives us enough information to know exactly what coin was handed to Jesus. It was a denarius, and it was the denarius depicting the man who was Caeser at the time, who would have been Tiberius. So this is the coin in question. It’s very similar to our coins today, as we have largely modeled our modern coins after Roman currency. The front of the coin bears the face of an important man, and the reverse bears some other design. But in America today, we only honor men on coins after they have died. In Rome, these men were honored as supreme in their own day, and moreover, declared to be Gods on earth.

In the case of this coin, the reverse is probably meant to be Justitia, the Roman goddess of justice, or Pax, the goddess of peace. This reverse says “Pontif Maxim”—chief priest. The front bears an image of Tiberius and says, “Tiberius Caeser, son of the divine Augustus”, Augustus being Tiberius’ adopted father. You can understand why the Pharisees would have perceived the taxation using these coins to be idolatrous in and of itself.

But Jesus perceives what their intents are, and He responds this way.

And Jesus said to them, “Whose image 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.

Jesus’ question is not a copout: while it avoids the binary nature of the answers offered to Him, it also gives a clear answer, and simultaneously challenges the hypocrisy of both types of people who asked the question. For the Herodians, Jesus doesn’t challenge their collection of taxes; but He calls out their disobedience to God and the wickedness of their lives. And for the Pharisees, Jesus calls them out for obsessing over material things when they claim to be focused on what is holy. And for the common people, Jesus makes clear that life has both a material and a spiritual reality: and a person must walk in wisdom to give both their proper place in life. The things that belong to the material world: money, labor, food: it is only right and natural that we “are a part of the system”, so to speak, for we live in the material world and must survive in it. But the things that belong to the spiritual world: morality, relationships, worship, and our life choices: this are things that were given by God, and it is to God that we must return them.

I want to evaluate this passage from two perspectives. The first perspective is the one that you will usually hear taught on: how we respond to our government. I’ve often heard the Christian perspective on government taught like this: We are to obey our government until it conflicts with the law of God. I have two problems with teaching it that way. The first is, that the Bible doesn’t say it. The second is, that thinking about it that way leads us to consider human authority first, and God’s authority second. It causes us to spend most of our time thinking about man’s rules; and only when we suddenly realize that something might be out of line with God’s law, do we then think about God’s perspective.

I think that Matthew 22 should lead us to think about it this way. We should view everything in life in two categories: What belongs to the material world, and what belongs to God. The things that are created by man: money, traditions, cultural expectations: these are things which God does not care about. And so God says, do not obsess over them. Give them back to man. But the things which belong to God, everything you do and everything you are: give these things back to God.

Now, our response to human authority is an important discussion to have. I think it’s a biblical application. But I actually doubt that this is what Jesus wanted to teach in that moment. I don’t think Jesus’ primary intent was to teach on the separation of church and state, or to teach us how to approach governmental submission. Passages like Romans 13 are more geared towards that application. Here, I think Jesus was getting at something more personal. Think about this story again. Jesus says, “Show me a denarius. Whose image is on it?” And the people reply, “Caeser’s”.

Now think about what is implicit in that discussion. I think Jesus chose the word “image” and not “face” or “person” for a specific reason. There is a bible verse that every single one of us should be thinking of when we hear the word “image”.

When God creates all the heavens and the earth, Genesis 1:27-28 says this:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them.

Put these two passages together, and imagine Jesus asking this. “Show me a human being. Whose image is on it?” And the people would have to respond, “God’s.” And Jesus would say, “Then render unto God what is God’s.” That’s the implicit counterpart to the image on the coin, and that idea is what we should fixate on in this passage. Not only everything that we have, but everything that we are, belongs to God. And so, we should be rendering our entire life and everything we do, both public and private, to return it all back to God.

Such a perspective highlights the hypocrisy in what the Pharisees in particular were asking. They claimed to be the heralds of God’s law, and here they were making an issue of something as stupid as money! These were the same people, who 20 years earlier, had instigated a rebellion because Herod had put a Roman eagle on the gate of the temple. They called it idolatry. And yet here they were, all too happy to exchange and earn and hoard these idolatrous coins that bore the image of Tiberius’ supposed divinity on it, too greedy to return it to Caeser. And Jesus says: let it go. It belongs to Caeser anyways. God doesn’t care about money. He cares about your life, and He cares about your soul. Take care of that first.

And so, what about you? Has your mind been on the things of Caeser, or the things of God? Have you been like the Pharisees, claiming to be people of God, yet obsessing over taxes and Roman Eagles and all the things of the material world? None of these things are wrong to engage with. None of them are wrong to have opinions on. But what is wrong is to give these things a higher priority in our life than the things we owe to God. Look inwardly to yourself. What do you need to render to God this week? If you do that, everything else will follow. In the words of Jesus, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.”