Give Back to God What Is God’s (Luke 20:20-26)

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.

 

What Authority Are You Under? (Luke 19:45-20:19)

When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.” (Luke 19:45-48)

What is authority? We humans do not like any form of authority imposed at all. Resistance, opposition, and even bloody fight have frequently been occurring if one practices authority over the other. In the first century, there had been manifested an unceasing and deadly conflict and clash between our Lord Jesus and the religious establishment. Although Jesus is the authentic owner of Israel, the religious leaders of the nation vehemently opposes and rejects his authority and teachings. They are trying to kill him from the beginning but now they want to take into action immediately when Jesus has cleansed the temple. In fact, Jesus is the Son of God and the Creator of all things through whom nothing was not made that has been made. Why do they not submit to the master of the universe? Because they do want to practice their authority over others, thinking a mere carpenter Jesus is threatening and challenging their authority and stronghold religiously and traditionally built and established over the years of all sorts of struggle. They are in great misunderstandings and sheer darkness and blindness caused by their evil pride and wicked desires. How does our Lord Jesus handle their challenge to his glorious authority? How does our Lord Jesus teach us regarding authority? There is only one source of all authority. All power and authority is from God himself. This is revealed by the Lord Jesus when he was interrogated by Pontius Pilate. “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” (John 19:11)

“One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?” He replied, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me: John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin?” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.” So they answered, “We don’t know where it was from.” Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” (Luke 20:1-8)

Luke carefully lists out all the religious establishment including the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders. They come to confront Jesus when he is teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news. What a blessed voice it might have been to the people! The Creator of all things is speaking the truth, unraveling the mysteries of God the Father who called a man Abraham and gave him a promise that through his offspring all nations would be blessed (Genesis 22:18). This ancient and old promise has finally been fulfilled by the faithfulness and passion of God that the Promised Son has come to the earth in the likeness of man. What Jesus has been doing in the land during his earthly ministry over three and a half years of period is to teach the kingdom, to heal the sick, to drive out demons, to open the blind, to raise the dead, to feed the hungry, and to comfort the poor in spirit. Our Lord Jesus has been teaching the kingdom in public like in open fields, synagogues, and the temple courts. “I have spoken openly to the world, I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.” (John 18:20-21) All things he has spoken could be heard and compared with the Scriptures whether true or not.

Despite of numerous evidence and demonstration made and presented to the nation, the establishment come forth and challenge Jesus, saying “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things? Who gave you this authority?” They are utterly upset and brewing the murderous threat when the Lord Jesus has driven out all the animals from the temple court, overturning the tables of money changers. They have not been interested at all in his words and miracles but in his background like the speculating birth story. One thing is sure that Jesus has never attended any rabbinical school. To their eyes, Jesus is not the insider or of their own but the unknown outsider and yet attracts vigorously the eyes and minds of the people. It has been bothering them from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and even to the core. See how hateful and vicious are their words. They are angry, resentful, murderous, harmful, intimidating, and threatening none other than the Lord of glory and honor and power. In their minds, they have already stoned him to death. This is exactly what our Lord Jesus has warned to the listeners of the message of good news. If they do not listen nor take heed to it, they will walk in darkness. “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.” (John 12:35-36) More than enough evidence and miraculous demonstrations have been throwing out before their own eyes and ears. Showers of blessed words of God and the effects of being touched and welcomed and obeyed have visibly been manifested in the midst throughout the times of the Son of Man in the earth.

How does our Lord Jesus respond to their groundless challenge? Jesus picks one question for the challengers and asks for an answer. “Tell me: John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin?” Jesus is not asking of John but John’s baptism. Why baptism? What is it? Although there has been a ceremonial cleansing by water, John’s baptism is a new way of cleansing introduced to the nation Israel. It is the language of representing the death and resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ and the saints who has died, been buried and raised from the dead with Christ. Apostle Paul says the people of Israel were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea (1 Corinthians 10:2). They were in the safest passage to the land of liberation because they relied on the death of the Son Jesus Christ. Likewise, we all have been baptized into Christ. “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:26-27) This is the way of salvation in God and of reconciliation with him. Through the Son’s death, man enters into the most holy sanctuary of God because the blood sacrifice of Christ has cleared the barrier of hostility. As long as we rely on him who paid a price, we can access to the mostly holy place, the throne of grace by faith since the blood of Christ removed the temple curtain which had blocked to enter the holy of holies except once a year by the high priest. These Jews do not answer either because they are not believing in Christ but following the evil one. Our Lord Jesus does not tell them either by what authority he is doing these things. In fact, he has already told them that his authority comes from the Father, saying “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19) Jesus adds a parable to shine more truth on what is inside in their minds and hearts.

“He went on to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out. “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’ “But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!” Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “‘The stone the builders rejected  has become the cornerstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.” (Luke 20:9-19)

Jesus tells a parable which reveals how much the nation Israel has been rebelling and opposing against God until they are eventually poised to kill the Son of God. They have been rejecting the true king because they want to be the king, sitting his throne. It has been told by the Lord God to Samuel, “And the Lord told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you.’” (1 Samuel 8:7-8) God has been so patient and tolerant for his people who are running far away from his loving kindness and grace and chasing and following after the meaningless and heartless idols. This is the exact picture of humanity fallen and lost in Adam. They are gasped at the hearing of the parable of Jesus Christ, saying “God forbid!” Impossibility and improbability of such a thing happening are in their minds. Very reasonable and logical are their understanding of the parable! But then Jesus Christ looks directly at them and asks, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “‘The stone the builders rejected  has become the cornerstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

Just as it is written and told, our Lord Jesus Christ was rejected and despised by his own people and bled and died on a cross. “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:3-6) Instead of punishing us, God punished his Son in our place. Instead of judging us, God judged his Son in our place. Instead of being angry at us, God was angry at his Son in our place. Instead of crushing us, God crushed his Son in our place. Instead of rejecting and despising us, God rejected and despised his Son in our place. Why did God do so to his own Son? So that, no one can excuse that God does not love them. So that, God made the Son the corner stone that who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces and anyone on whom it falls will be crushed. “Is there any questions on the authority of the Son?” Is it not what the Lord God is saying to man? Who can dare to challenge the cornerstone and be spared? We have such a confidence to stand before God through the faith in the Son Jesus Christ. “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 4:11) He is immovable and invincible and unshakable no matter what challenges, obstacles, stresses and pressures come. He is the cornerstone! He is our Lord and Savior now and forevermore! He is our Defender and Advocate now and forevermore! Amen.

March 21, 2017

© 2015-2017 David Lee Ministries – All Rights Reserved.