Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle [ Jesus] in his talk. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying . . . “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. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness 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.” — Matt. 22:15-21
Excerpts from the book:
Page 329 - I said in the previous chapter that Jesus demands absolute allegiance to himself and his ownership and authority. All other allegiances are warranted and limited and shaped by this supreme allegiance to Jesus as the King of kings. We have seen how they are warranted. Now we turn to see how they are limited and shaped.
Page 329 - All our earthly allegiances are limited by what God’s supreme authority accomplished through Jesus (see John 5:27; Matt. 28:18).
Page 330 - Rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s does not include rendering obedience to Caesar’s demand that we not render supreme allegiance to God. God’s supreme authority limits the authority of Caesar and the allegiance we owe to him.
Page 330 - All our earthly allegiances are not only warranted and limited by the supreme authority of God but are also shaped by that authority. In other words, even the duty we properly render to Caesar is rendered differently because Caesar is not absolute.
Page 330 - We view all our serving of Caesar as serving his owner and Lord, Jesus. There is, therefore, no whiff of worship toward Caesar. He is stripped of his claim to divinity in the very act of submitting to his laws. Even our submission is therefore seditious toward rulers with pretensions of deity.
Page 331 - Jesus illustrates this shaping of submission by the supremacy of God’s authority in Matthew 17:24-27.
Page 331 - The principle is this: There are at times reasons to submit to an authority that arise not from the intrinsic right of the authority, but from a principle of freedom and what would be for the greater good. So, applying this to Caesar, the principle would go like this: God owns Caesar. God has absolute authority over Caesar. This all-authoritative God is our Father. We are his children. Therefore, the demands of Caesar to fund his government are not absolutely binding on us. Our Father owns the government. We are free. In fact, the whole earth is ours as heirs of our Father, and we will one day inherit it completely (Matt. 5:5).
Page 332 - How Jesus’ Authority Shapes Our Disobedience to Caesar: That shaping effect of Jesus’ supreme authority extends even to the way we disobey Caesar. That is, even our disobedience, when it must be, is not indifferent to the proper authority of Caesar. Even our disobedience will be shaped by Jesus’ supremacy over, and endorsement of, the perverted authority of Caesar.
Page 332 - Jesus modeled and demanded some civil disobedience. And it is his life and teaching and authority that shape what that disobedience looks like.
Page 332 - We have already devoted whole chapters to Jesus’ demands for servanthood (Demand #17) and love of our enemies (Demands #28, 29, 32, 33, 34) and care of our neighbors (Demand #21). These and other demands will profoundly shape the way Jesus’ followers engage in civil disobedience.
Page 332 - Shaping Civil Disobedience by the Demands of Jesus: Matthew 5:38-48 contains strong words about non-resistance and active love for your enemy (see Demand #30). What we saw, and now see again, is that non-resistance and active love are not always the same.
Page 333 - All of those demands call for compliance to one who mistreats you or asks you for something. This looks like the opposite of resistance. But then, in the flow of Jesus’ sermon, comes something a little different in verses 43-48, namely, more active love rather than non-resistance.
Page 333 - Here a different note is struck. The emphasis falls on seeking the good of the enemy. Love your enemy. Pray for your enemy—presumably that he would be saved and find hope and life in Jesus. Do good to your enemy the way God does with rain and sunshine.
Page 333 - Now this raises the question of whether the non-resistance and compliance of verses 38-42 is always the best way to love others and do them good as prescribed in verses 43-48. One focuses on passivity—don’t retaliate, be willing to suffer unjustly. The other focuses on activity—seek to do good for your enemy. Is passivity always the best way to do good?
Page 334 - ....how do you love two people if one is the criminal and the other is the victim....? Is love passive when it is not only your cheek that is being smacked but someone else’s—and repeatedly? Or what about the command to give to the one who asks? Is it love to give your coat to a person who will use it to strangle an infant? And how do you go the extra mile (lovingly!) with a person who is taking you along to support his bloodshed? Do you go the extra mile with a person who is making you an active accomplice to his evil? The point of these questions is this: In these verses Jesus is giving us a description of love that cuts to the depth of our selfishness and fear. If selfishness and fear keep us from giving and going the extra mile, then we need to be broken by these words.........
Page 334 - The Greatest Battle Is to Be Brokenhearted in Our Resistance: What guidelines are there, then, for how a follower of Jesus will perform civil disobedience? The words of Jesus rule out all vindictiveness.....................expediency of personal safety.......cuts away our love for possessions..........love for convenience. That’s the point of Matthew :38-42. Don’t act merely out of concern for your own private benefit, your clothes, your convenience, your possessions, your safety.
Page 335 - ..........The greatest battle we face is not overcoming unjust laws, but becoming this kind of people.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Demand #43: Render To Caesar The Things That Are Caesars's And To God The Things That Are God's
Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle [ Jesus] in his talk. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying . . . “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. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness 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.” — Matt. 22:15-21
Excerpts from the book:
Page 324 - I don’t think Jesus dodged the question. I think he answered it in a way that forces us to think; and in the end the answer demands radical allegiance to God’s supreme authority over all things. The first command, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” gets its meaning from the second one, “Render to God the things that are God’s.” It’s the juxtaposition of these two commands that gives the first one its proper scope.
Page 325 - Jesus wisely left the scope of these two ownerships and authorities for the listener to answer. Whether this is a compromise with Rome will depend on how a person understands the scope and nature of God’s ownership and authority in relation to Caesar’s scope of ownership and authority. That is what he forces us to think about. The starting point for this thinking is the unmistakable assumption of the second command, “Render to God the things that are God’s.” That assumption is: Everything is God’s. If a person does not hear that in Jesus’ command, he would say, “Hearing they do not hear. They have ears, but they do not hear.” In other words, the allimportant fact is unspoken and obvious to all who are willing to hear
the obvious. By being unspoken, it accomplishes more than getting Jesus out of a trap; it leads to an answer to the question that is far deeper and more far-reaching than what his adversaries were asking.
The fact that God owns everything and has all authority in the universe puts the first command under the second: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” becomes a subcategory of “Render to God the things that are God’s.” All is God’s. Therefore what is Caesar’s is God’s.
Page 326 - Even though the power of Caesar stood behind the crucifixion of Jesus, Jesus is the supreme Lord over Caesar. Jesus knows this. He is consciously abstaining during his earthly life from exercising the right and power to subdue his enemies. He is choosing to lay down his life. “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John
10:17-18). Therefore, when he had risen from the dead he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). That means that he is above all of Caesar’s authority.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” means, therefore: In all your rendering to Caesar, render to Jesus the full honor of the absolute authority that he has over Caesar.
It was fitting during Jesus’ earthly ministry that he not draw excessive attention to his universal ownership and authority. He was here to suffer and die. He knew that the day would come when he would rule openly over the nations.
Page 327 - Therefore, Jesus is demanding absolute allegiance to himself and his ownership and authority. All other allegiances are relativized by this supreme allegiance. All other allegiances are warranted and limited and shaped by this first allegiance..............They are warranted because the subordinate authorities in the world, like Caesar, are owing to God’s authority. Jesus said to Pilate, who seemed to have authority over Jesus at his trial, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11).
Page 327 - But pride and rebellion is what sends everyone to hell who doesn’t have a Savior. Therefore, the subordinate authorities of the world are warranted by God’s will in two senses. On the one hand, he wills that we recognize that these authorities are indeed subordinate and that we glorify him as the only supreme sovereign. On the other hand, he wills that we recognize these authorities as God-ordained and that we not proudly kick against what he has put in place.
(for a free download of this book, see the link at http://whatdoesjesusdemandfromtheworld.blogspot.com/
Excerpts from the book:
Page 324 - I don’t think Jesus dodged the question. I think he answered it in a way that forces us to think; and in the end the answer demands radical allegiance to God’s supreme authority over all things. The first command, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” gets its meaning from the second one, “Render to God the things that are God’s.” It’s the juxtaposition of these two commands that gives the first one its proper scope.
Page 325 - Jesus wisely left the scope of these two ownerships and authorities for the listener to answer. Whether this is a compromise with Rome will depend on how a person understands the scope and nature of God’s ownership and authority in relation to Caesar’s scope of ownership and authority. That is what he forces us to think about. The starting point for this thinking is the unmistakable assumption of the second command, “Render to God the things that are God’s.” That assumption is: Everything is God’s. If a person does not hear that in Jesus’ command, he would say, “Hearing they do not hear. They have ears, but they do not hear.” In other words, the allimportant fact is unspoken and obvious to all who are willing to hear
the obvious. By being unspoken, it accomplishes more than getting Jesus out of a trap; it leads to an answer to the question that is far deeper and more far-reaching than what his adversaries were asking.
The fact that God owns everything and has all authority in the universe puts the first command under the second: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” becomes a subcategory of “Render to God the things that are God’s.” All is God’s. Therefore what is Caesar’s is God’s.
Page 326 - Even though the power of Caesar stood behind the crucifixion of Jesus, Jesus is the supreme Lord over Caesar. Jesus knows this. He is consciously abstaining during his earthly life from exercising the right and power to subdue his enemies. He is choosing to lay down his life. “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John
10:17-18). Therefore, when he had risen from the dead he said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). That means that he is above all of Caesar’s authority.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” means, therefore: In all your rendering to Caesar, render to Jesus the full honor of the absolute authority that he has over Caesar.
It was fitting during Jesus’ earthly ministry that he not draw excessive attention to his universal ownership and authority. He was here to suffer and die. He knew that the day would come when he would rule openly over the nations.
Page 327 - Therefore, Jesus is demanding absolute allegiance to himself and his ownership and authority. All other allegiances are relativized by this supreme allegiance. All other allegiances are warranted and limited and shaped by this first allegiance..............They are warranted because the subordinate authorities in the world, like Caesar, are owing to God’s authority. Jesus said to Pilate, who seemed to have authority over Jesus at his trial, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11).
Page 327 - But pride and rebellion is what sends everyone to hell who doesn’t have a Savior. Therefore, the subordinate authorities of the world are warranted by God’s will in two senses. On the one hand, he wills that we recognize that these authorities are indeed subordinate and that we glorify him as the only supreme sovereign. On the other hand, he wills that we recognize these authorities as God-ordained and that we not proudly kick against what he has put in place.
(for a free download of this book, see the link at http://whatdoesjesusdemandfromtheworld.blogspot.com/
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