Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man
and that you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion.
You do not regard a person’s status
but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.
To call someone a truthful man when one didn't believe it oneself was high hypocrisy. They complimented Jesus for not regarding the opinions and status of others when public favor and status is exactly what the Pharisees and Herodians were trying to accumulate for their own factions. By these false compliments they hoped to make Jesus feel sufficiently free to say something that would get him in trouble.
Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?
Should we pay or should we not pay?
Jesus, however, really was a truthful man who was not especially concerned with their opinion. Buttering him up wasn't going to serve their purpose. Instead, he would answer them more to expose their own hypocrisy than for the sake of some legitimate intellectual inquiry.
“Why are you testing me?
Bring me a denarius to look at.”
They had ready access to these coins with the blasphemous inscriptions in praise of Caesar. They were not so pure of this supposed contamination as to be unable to find a coin to show Jesus. Already the integrity of their question began to seem questionable.
They brought one to him and he said to them,
“Whose image and inscription is this?”
They replied to him, “Caesar’s.”
The Pharisees and Herodians were sufficiently narrow in the focus as to only give the obvious and direct answer. But there was a deeper answer that they had forgotten and could not give.
So Jesus said to them,
“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
and to God what belongs to God.”
Caesar himself was made in the image of God. This fact itself contained everything they needed to know about relating to Gentile rulers. It meant that such rulers could act legitimately as rulers only when their acts were themselves in keeping with being made in the image and likeness of God. Any overstepping of that image, such as demanding worship for themselves would need to be rejected. Paying taxes was actually a duty for Christians (see Romans 13:6-7) and yet martyrs would choose painful death rather than willingly burning incense to the emperor. In this approach Christians were like, truthful, not concerned with anyones status, and putting the way of God above all social pressure. Jesus gave them not only an broadly applicable answer about living in accord with our dignity as creatures made in the image of God, he also gave an example of what this looked like in practice.
Sometimes the risk is that when the pressure is on we become more like Tobit and our virtue is revealed to be mere pretense, something of which we are only capable when times were easy.
So she retorted: “Where are your charitable deeds now?
Where are your virtuous acts?
See! Your true character is finally showing itself!
If our virtue is for show it will break down when circumstances become challenging. If, however, we live as children of God made in his image and likeness we will remember this dignity even when times are tough. We will still strive to follow Jesus even when it does not seem immediately expedient for fixing our situations. We will render to Caesar no more than what is his, and everything unto God.
An evil report he shall not fear;
his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.
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