RENDER…UNTO CAESAR…AND UNTO GOD

This answer caused the religious leaders to marvel at the wisdom of His words. It rendered them silent and foiled their attempt to entrap Him. Once again, they had tried to set Him up for a fall; once again, He had stopped them. He had infuriated them by telling them the parable of the cornerstone and that, in truth, He was the ‘stone which the builders rejected’, and that He would become the ‘head of the corner’.

Spies were sent, feigning sincerity. They thought that they would snare this Jew in a political quandary so they could deliver Him up to the Roman authorities. They cleverly crafted their question but He knew their hearts. Was it lawful for Jews under Roman oppression to pay taxes to Caesar?

Jesus asked for a denarius, a silver coin. He had none; they provided Him with one. He asked them whose likeness and inscription was on it. When they told Him ‘Caesar’, He responded with our text for today and His answer simply astonished them.

The coin was Caesar’s. His image was on it. Therefore, it was due to him. By accepting and using his coinage they were concerned with Caesar’s interests. Sadly, they had neglected the interests of God. The creator had made man in His image, with His ‘inscription’, but sin had ruined everything. These chief priests and scribes, the leaders of the only religion God ever devised, had lost their focus entirely. It had shifted everywhere else, even to Caesar, the hated Roman oppressor, but not to God. Jesus, in one brilliant sentence, convicted these hypocrites that while they were so busy paying their debts to their fellow men, in every way they had failed to give God what was due to Him; namely, their own selves!

This passage, often quoted in everyday conversation, usually stops with ‘render ... unto Caesar’. We must never forget how our Lord Jesus ended it: ‘render ... unto God the things which be God’s’, v. 25. We are not our own. We have been bought with a great price. Therefore, writes Paul, ‘glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s’, 1 Cor. 6. 20. That means, in every aspect of our lives! May we seek to rise to that challenge today!