Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
The duty of an entire surrender to God
I. What those things are which we should render unto God.
1. Our time. Especially youth; and particularly the Sabbath.
2. Our substance.
3. Our children.
4. Our hearts.
5. Our whole selves.
6. The blessed fruits, and all the glory of His own grace, should: by the Christian, be rendered back to God.
II. How this is to be performed. That it may be an acceptable service we must do it-
1. If hitherto neglected, without delay.
2. Freely, and without reluctance.
3. Thankfully, and without murmuring.
4. Humbly, and without ostentation.
5. Wholly, and without reserve.
6. For perpetuity, and without drawback.
7. In the whole of this, we should have an eye to Christ. He is the medium of all communication from God, and conveyance to Him. (B. Beddome, M. A.)
Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity
This narrative-
I. In reference to what is in man.
1. Here was a profession of great piety and holiness, conjoined with very inexcusable hatred. The Pharisees were the most pretentious religionists of the day; this no proof of genuine piety. They could not refute Christ, but hated Him.
2. We observe here also a very base design. They “ took counsel how they might entangle Him in His talk.”
3. We observe here a very iniquitous co-partnership. The Pharisees and Herodians were radical enemies.
4. We observe here also a glib, obsequious, but treacherous and lying flattery: “Master, we know that Thou art true.” Their design was to throw Him off His guard.
5. Observe the devilish cunning of the plot. “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, etc.” They professed honest doubt in order to fasten Him on the horns of a dilemma.
II. With reference to what was in Christ.
1. We are here shown that Christ was a very dignified man. He was poor; but imposing majesty went along with His humble simplicity.
2. We are here shown that our Saviour had the reputation of a truthful man.
3. He was also a man of acknowledged intelligence.
4. He was, moreover, a man of honest faithfulness. But the subsequent parts of the narrative attest still higher qualities in our blessed Lord.
(1) With all the dissimulation of these men Jesus saw through the mask, and all their secret thoughts were open to Him. He “perceived their nakedness.”
(2) He found an easy way out of the net from which human trickery believed it impossible for Him to escape. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)
God and Caesar
I. The gospel ought to penetrate everything. Human life in its most widely sundered spheres must submit to its action. That being said, I affirm-
II. That religious and civil society are profoundly distinct. This will appear if we consider-
1. The nature of the dominion they exercise. The dominion of the State is that of the present life, and of purely temporal interests. It must guarantee to each citizen the free enjoyment of his rights and liberties. Its supreme ideal is justice. On this side it meets morals. There is a social morality which should not be considered as doing violence to the individual conscience, but which may claim submission from all, and sacrifice, if necessary. They are mistaken, therefore, who make of civil society a mere community of interests. It knows, and can form, the citizen; it ought not to have possession of the man. It must stop at the threshold of religious conscience.
2. Nor is it only by the sphere in which their authority is to be felt that the Church and the State differ; it is still more by the nature of the means which they employ. The arm of the State is force; the arm of the Church is the Word (2 Corinthians 10:4).
3. Differing thus, the Church and civil society should in their inevitable relations conserve, each for itself, their independence with zealous care. This independence may be compromised in two ways: by the theocracy which submits the State to the Church, and by the opposite systems, which submit the Church to the State. In the eyes of many representatives of modern democracy, a religious society should be considered as any other society would be. It is to be governed by the rule of the majority of its members. But Christianity is a revealed fact, and does not depend on the chances of majorities. The Church should not be associated with any political party; it suffers in such alliance. An analogy will illustrate my thought: Every modern nation has two fundamental institutions-the army and the school. Now, that is no wise head which does not understand that neither the one nor the other of these should be open to discussion concerning politics. An army in which the generals became judges would surrender the nation to all sorts of dangers and assaults; schools, in which masters introduced the burning questions which divide us, would become a thorough raid on the liberty of families. In demanding that our soldiers and professors shall not intermingle political debates with their duties, no one understands that they are required to abdicate their independence, their patriotism, and their dignity as citizens. Need I say that the Church is a sphere infinitely superior to the school and the army, and that it is folly to allow party passions and hatreds to penetrate it? The Church places us face to face with eternity; she does not look at questions from the standpoint of the day or the hour, but rules over time and our passing differences. The mere earthly life becomes enslaving-and when has it been more so than to-day?-the more necessary it is that, from above it, we should affirm the grand invisible realities which do not pass away. The absolute, which is only another aspect of the eternal-that is the thing which the Church should proclaim. She must see questions in their relation to God. The domain of politics, on the contrary, is relative, and often even less than that. Politics takes men as they are, and circumstances as they are. I do not ask that religion should remain silent before the immoralities of politics; quite the contrary. I wish that, in order to denounce them with the greater force, she should not descend into the political arena; for, if she is suspected of speaking, not in the name of conscience, but in the name of party, she becomes nothing more than one voice more amid the discordant clamours of the day. Let us take a celebrated example, to which it behoves us always to recur. There is not one of us who has not admired the conduct of John the Baptist at Herod’s court, and the firm courage with which he said to the blameworthy king, “It is not lawful for thee to have her.” But let John the Baptist, in place of being the prophet of conscience, become a popular judge, and all his authority crumbles: for, behind his denunciation, you discern a political end and the triumph of a party.. Well, then, I cannot cease saying to those whose honour and privilege it is to represent the Church, “Never compromise it in struggles to which it should remain a stranger. Its grandeur and its force are in being the voice of eternal right, and of justice toward all.” (E. Bersier, D. D.)
Money morally stamped
The destination of money. How might a man moralize over a large heap of gold pieces, before they go forth from the mint to have their purity soiled by the rough usage of human hands. How many of you, he might say, are going to be the currency of selfishness, to be coined over by the chill spirit of avarice, and to have the symbol which the mint has left upon you effaced by the figure of Mammon, and the miserly mottoes that will be graved upon you when you become the instruments and objects of selfish greed? Some of them, the prophetic eye might see, were going to be spent for intemperate indulgence, to be offered on the altar of Bacchus, and so morally to be recoined with his reeling figure bloated upon it, and that awful text from his gospel, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” Others, it might be seen, were on their way to the hot prizes of the gaming-table, the innermost sanctuary of the pit, where feverish eyes should be fastened upon them, and desperate hearts stake their last treasure for them, and where they seem almost visibly to gleam with the fiery portrait of Satan, his chosen medallions, that burn every hand unlucky enough to win. Others go to purchase learning and culture, and the recorded thoughts of genius, and upon them the image and superscription of Apollo and Minerva are outlined. Some, again, will wear the forms of the Graces or the Muses, inlaid into their substance by the human tastes that make them serve as ministers. If the eye could foresee what ones would go on missions of mercy, would strengthen the interests of truth, would put wings on good ideas, would endow beneficent institutions with new power, would carry sympathy and help to the bed of some poor sufferer, kindle a fire upon the desolate hearth, spread a meal upon the table of destitution, clothe a pallid and shivering child, or give it some training of mind or heart-those, a man might say, are the Christian coins. It should seem that they ought to gleam more brightly among the heaps where they lie. The form of Christ is really stamped upon that silver and gold, and His superscription, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” enwreathes His image with immortal truth. Those are the dollars that look precious in the sight of heaven. The touch of benevolence transmutes them into eternal possessions. Who would not wish to own them? Who, when the hour of death comes, would not prefer to have spent such coin? What pleasure or profit would then look so bright, or give such comfort as the retrospect of these golden benefactors of the world! (T. Start King.)
The conscience exempt from civil rule
When certain persons attempted to persuade Stephen, King of Poland, to constrain some of his subjects, who were of a different religion, to embrace his, he said to them, “I am king of men, and not of consciences. The dominion of conscience belongs exclusively to God.”
The citizen’s twofold stewardship
Christ is not here defining two duties which stand in contrast or antithesis to each other. He is defining one duty, in its just relation to another and a higher duty out of which it grows. Recall the occasion of His words. Some one has brought to Him a penny, and asks Him whether it is lawful for a Jew to pay tribute to a Roman ruler. Says Christ in effect, “My brother, the penny itself has settled that question. It has, stamped upon it, an image or medallion which is Caesar’s likeness. It is current here because this is Caesar’s country; and you use it, whether you choose to own the fact or no, because you are Caesar’s subject. Give Caesar, therefore, his due. Pay your taxes, obey the laws, honour the civil authorities; but that you may do so, begin by paying your taxes to God. The penny bears an image; so do you. The penny is from the mint of the emperor; you are from the mint of God. The use of the penny is determined by its likeness. So, too, your use is determined by your likeness. Every faculty in you, every gift, every grace and charm and power which is most characteristic and distinctive, is the stamp of the Divine. You are God’s child. You bear His image. Render to Him your supreme and unceasing tribute; and in doing that, all other and minor questions will settle themselves. ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,’ do I say? Yes. But render them because, and in the inspiration, of that higher duty which bids you render unto God the things that are God’s!” (Bishop H. C. Potter.)
The coinage of love and service for God and man
With many of us the stewardship of money is not our chiefest stewardship: of such a coinage we have little or nothing to put in circulation. Still, though we may not be able to circulate the currency that buys and sells, it is ours to circulate the far mightier currency that cheers and inspires and consoles. The world to-day is waiting for something besides money. It is waiting for love and thought and personal interest and painstaking. Whether, therefore, you are a capitalist or a clerk, a student or a teacher, a professional man or a woman living in the retirement of your kindred and home, take your slumbering sympathy (I will not believe that God has not implanted it within you!) and coin that into love and service for your kind. On your brow rests the stamp of Him whose coinage and currency you are. There are lost pieces of silver, aye and of gold, which also bear His image. They have long ago been missing from the Father’s treasury, and are trampled under foot of man and beast alike. But, if you can find them in the mire, if you will wash them with your tears, and burnish them back to brightness and beauty by your patient and loving touch, you will find on them the image of Him who made them, and the superscription of His immortal kingdom. Light the candle of your love, then, and sweep diligently till you find them. Think of some one, to-day, whose life is lonely, whose youth is gone, whose lot is hard and cheerless and unlovely, and try to lift them up, at least for the hour, into the atmosphere of a warmer and more beneficent brotherhood. (Bishop H. C. Potter.)
The claims of God and man
I. Notice the claims of Caesar, or civil governments. The just claims of civil governments are limited to civil exactions, in opposition to religious or sacred claims. Civil governments rightly demand-
1. Homage and subjection (Romans 13:1, etc.; 1 Peter 2:13, etc.).
2. Obedience, and tribute, or taxes. Christ did this (Matthew 17:27; Titus 3:1).
3. Thanksgiving and prayer to God on their behalf (1Ti 2:17, etc.). There are the claims of Caesar and civil governments. But civil governments may demand more than their rights; if they do so, they will be either in matters civil or ecclesiastical; if they levy unjust civil exactions, then, as citizens, they may be peacefully, yet firmly, resisted. This has been repeatedly done. By the three Hebrews, Daniel, Peter, and the apostles (Acts 4:18).
II. The claims of God. We are to render to God-
1. Religious belief and homage.
2. Religious awe and fear. “Fear before Him all the earth” (Psalms 96:4; Psalms 96:9).
3. Praise and thanksgiving.
4. Our highest love and delight.
5. Universal obedience.
Learn-
1. That the Christian religion is favourable to order and obedience, but it limits the authority of the State to civil concerns.
2. It distinctly exhibits true liberty of conscience. Should not this be dear and sacred to every good man, especially when sanctioned by the spirit of our text? (J. Burns, LL. D.)
Our duties as subjects
I. That they should honourably and fully pay all taxes which are imposed upon them. The advantages of civil government are cosily, and means must be provided by the individuals of the nation. We must not defraud the government, or a neighbour, who will have to make good our default.
II. That Christians should acquiesce in that form of government under which they live, whatever be its character and origin. A nation has the right to secure its independence of a foreign nation; a nation has the right to amend its institutions; but the duty alleged is that of individuals. “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.” This is God’s will. But if human government has its rights, God has His rights. As human governments depend on the authority of God, they must be subordinate to it. His rights are supreme, and the rights of the human government terminate where the rights of God begin. The contrast in “the things which are Caesar’s.”
1. It is the right of God to demand our worship.
2. General obedience to His laws.
3. That we should maintain that truth which He has revealed, by which He is glorified, and the world is to be blessed. How small a portion all this is of what we owe to God. Admire this feature of the law of Christ, which secures the order of states. Let us he good subjects. (B. W. Noel, M. A.)
Caesar’s dues
I. We owe them honour inward, by a reverent conceit.
II. And outward, by an honourable testimony of the virtues in them, and the good we receive by them. And sure I am this we owe, “Not to speak evil of them that are in authority,” and if there were some infirmity, not to blaze, but to conceal and cover it, for that the Apostle maketh a part of honour (1 Corinthians 12:28).
III. We owe them our prayers, and daily devout remembrances; “for all,” saith St. Paul, “but, by special prerogative, for princes.”
IV. “We owe them the service of our bodies, which if we refuse to come in person to do, the angel of the Lord will curse us, as he did Meroz (Judges 5:23). (Bishop Andrewes.)
Rights of Caesar and rights of God
I. Some particular rights and privileges belong to Caesars, or sovereign princes:
1. Honour to their persons.
2. Obedience to their laws.
3. Tribute.
II. Some peculiar rights and prerogatives belong to God only.
1. All religious worship.
2. Due reverence and regard to all sacred things, such as
(a) ministers;
(b) God’s house;
(c)the Lord’s Day;
(d) Tenth part of our substance.
III. The duty of all Christians with reference to both, and that is, to render the respective rights and dues to each. (Matthew Hole.)