There are earthly things and heavenly things. The former is
visible and the latter invisible. The visible is temporal and transient and the
invisible permanent and lasting. We know that we’re living in a visible world.
But that’s not explaining everything what we know and feel. As a saying goes,
we know 10 feet deep water but don’t know less than 1 feet deep man’s heart. We
know that the earth revolves around the sun once a year, which is completely
invisible to our eyes. As the Scripture says, it is true what was made by what
is invisible (Hebrews 11:3). What is visible is the manifestation of what is
invisible. In fact, we do act explicitly according to what we pause and think
implicitly. Our Lord Jesus teaches a fundamental truth on our humanity that
we’re made in his image and in his likeness. It indicates that we’re never made
to live on our own independently without God but on him only. We have nothing
to depend on in our own self whether higher education, social standings,
material wealth, or outstanding achievements and excellent career experience. We’re
made in God and Christ Jesus the Son who is our life, way, and truth now and
forevermore.
"Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who
pretended to be sincere. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said, so
that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. So
the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is
right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance
with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” “Show me a
denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. He
saw through their duplicity and said to them, He said to them, “Then give back
to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” They were unable to trap
him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they
became silent." (Luke 20:20-26)
Our Lord Jesus is being questioned by the people who have
determined to kill him. They have been super busy watching and monitoring Jesus
to trap. It is a tax question which is the hot issue in the first century and
this age as well. The Jews are being subjected to pay taxes to Caesar though
the collection is made by the tax collectors of their own. The question is
double-edged. How does Jesus answer? Seizing this opportunity, our Lord Jesus
teaches an essentially eternal truth on our humanity that we’re made in God’s
image and in his likeness. The portrait of Caesar was inscribed on the coin. So
Jesus says to give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Tax is a heavy burden to
all regardless of time and proximity. It tells a fundamental truth on material
things like who owns it. Some may oppose if they are told that the material
possession they own is not theirs. But that is true. No man can carry a penny
over to death. As bare we come to the earth, so we leave. “Everyone comes naked
from their mother's womb, and as everyone comes, so they depart. They take
nothing from their toil that they can carry in their hands.” (Ecclesiastes
5:15) All material things belong to God. He appropriates it according to his
will and purpose. Some get much and some little. So, it is true that no one
owns anything and everyone receives from the One who gives lavishly. So, our
Lord Jesus says his disciples not to worry what to eat and clothe.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what
you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more
than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they
do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds
them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:25-26)
Also, our Lord Jesus reveals what is in their heart. The
main purpose to ask such a question to Jesus is to trap him, so that they can
charge him either against the Law of Moses or against Caesar. But within the
question, they hide their strong antagonism of paying taxes. Most of them are
rich and always want to get more, being the lovers of money. “The Pharisees,
who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, ‘You
are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your
hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.’” (Luke 16:14-15)
They want to horde money more and more, thinking that it is the insurance and
security of their lives. This is the age of materialism. People in the world
blindly believe and follow the philosophy that money can make man secure and prosperous
in every way. There is no need to say that it is not true. Just look around how
it utterly fails to prove the idea that money is our security. Materials cannot
be our protection and insurance. Only God is our eternal assurance because
we’re born of him. Jesus warns his disciples not to horde money on earth but
store up treasures in heaven. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on
earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not
destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure
is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21) What a blessed word of
truth which eternally release our burden in the midst of hard toil and sweat
while we’re learning how to handle lives throughout lifetime.
What is Caesar? He represents a government which has
authority to collect taxes. That authority is given from heaven above because all
government power is established by God (Romans 13:1). So, giving back taxes to
Caesar is submitting to the authority of the Maker. Paying taxes is the
expression of submitting oneself to the Lord God. Jesus Christ has set the
example of submitting himself to the One who is sitting on the throne in heaven.
Although he was God, he did not take equality with the Father but obeyed him
even to the point of death. “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider
equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made
himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human
likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by
becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:6-8) Why
did Jesus submit himself completely and totally to the Father even to death?
Because the Son of Man could not do anything by himself (John 5:19). Jesus is
the second Adam who was different the first Adam for he was sinless. So, Christ
is the perfect example of humanity, showing how to live as man God intended man
to be even the time began. Jesus Christ the Son of Man must have relied on the
Father and he did without a moment of failing. Man is never made in a way that
he manages his life independently without God. Rather, man is made to live in
him and also he in man. It is called the total communion with God. Man is made
to be his holy vessel and temple where the Holy One indwells forever.
That’s the reason our Lord Jesus says to give back to God
what is God’s. We’re not our own for we were bought at a price (1 Corinthians
6:19-20). Being released from the bondage of evil, we’re made alive, being
permanently the captives of the Holy God and the everlasting Father. Our Lord
Jesus shows how to live in the Father in the midst of all kinds of stress and pressure,
especially material and financial stress. Christ has overcome the world through
the faith in the Father (John 16:33). “Take heart,” says our Lord Jesus. He is
our eternal high priest who have gone through all our weaknesses and
temptations. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with
our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we
are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with
confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time
of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16)
When Jesus says so, the questioners become silent. That’s
what they are before the Creator of the universe. That’s what we are before the
Son of God! We have no word to say when he speaks the truth. So, we listen to
him as a heavenly voice spoke to the three disciples on the Mount of
Transfiguration, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.
Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5b) Keep on listening to Jesus Christ our Lord and
taking heed to every word he says. The disciples were asked by Christ Jesus
that they would leave him as well. But they replied, “Lord, to whom shall we
go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know
that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69) But following Jesus is
costly. The disciples were offended by the bluntness of the master. They were
in many troubles and would be persecuted because they followed Jesus. The world
would hate them without cause. They would be in hunger and thirst for the sake
of Christ. Indeed, they were the targets of the world, being hated and
despised. And yet what our Lord Jesus says is quite revolutionary and
extraordinary. Instead Jesus is saying that they are in pity and misery, he
tells them that they are blessed because they are God’s. Jesus says them to
rejoice when such a thing happens.
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and
falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad,
because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the
prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 6:11-12)
March 23, 2017
© 2015-2017 David
Lee Ministries – All Rights Reserved.
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