Misrendering Jesus, Part 1

Why so many Christians misunderstand the most famous Bible passage about taxes

The most famous passage regarding taxes in the New Testament is the faceoff between Jesus, the Herodians, and the Pharisees, in which the Son of God answers a question about the legitimacy of paying a Roman tribute by saying,

"Render to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and to God that which belongs to God." And they marveled at him. - Mark 12:17, ESV

It’s a pithy turn of phrase, but what was Jesus saying?

Jesus’ logic seems straightforward: In the same way that people are made by and belong to God, the denarius is made by and belongs to Caesar. Many modern readers, armed with Bibles that feature the word "tribute" translated flatly as "taxes," instinctively understand Jesus’ words to the Jews as a pietistic renunciation of the material world. Many also understand Christ’s words as a blanket defense of up to 100% taxes, reasoning that just as God has a right to demand total allegiance of those who bear his image, Caesar has a right to all that takes his image. Jesus’ primary interest in tax policy, their reasoning goes, is that the Jews (and by extension Christians in the early church) pay any and every tax that comes down the pike. To do otherwise is to be an unspiritual, Romans-13-denying rebel because Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world.

Modern readers then move to application, instinctively interpreting this to mean that Jesus' words (in addition to its ancient meaning) require modern Christians to pay whatever taxes are levied upon them, regardless of how comprehensive. Rather than a specific way to fund and recognize the particular, legitimate, God-appointed-and-defined duties of magistrates, this and other tax-referencing passages in Scripture become chisels to carve away at the consciences and checking accounts of everyday people.

This is a textbook example of why James warned that not many should be teachers.

Jesus’ words in Mark 12:17 are not about tax policy.

This ought to be obvious. The tribute penny was worth a day’s wage. Based on an average annual salary of $45k, that would amount to $123.29 today. Even if you were to grant that Jesus central message in this passage was that paying the Roman tribute penny tax was the greatest thing since sliced bread, the idea that someone could use paying a 0.028% tax to justify paying up to a limitless percentage of one's income is a flagrant example of losing the plot on the logic of taxes and tributes. It’s the type of thing that requires a degree of “understanding” generally only afforded to those in the upper echelons of higher education or government.

What’s going on here?

There are a number of details running in both the background and foreground of this passage that provide the light we need to understand and (eventually) apply this passage well.

The Interlocuters

“And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. - Mark 12:13-

Who is the “they” referenced at the beginning of verse 13? The answer is found one chapter prior:

And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him… - Mark 11:27

The Pharisees and Herodians posed the question, but it was issued from the collective mind of the highest level of the Jewish spiritual leadership. The Pharisees were the strict, conservative religious leaders of Jesus’ day, and they hated Jesus. Why? Thousands flocked to listen to and be healed by Jesus. They spent three years watching him draw more and more people away from them and repeatedly subject them to public humiliation for their hypocrisy. They were jealous of the adoration he received from the people and threatened by the possibility that they could lose their place and nation.

The Herodians were the ruling political family who produced a series of Rome-sanctioned Jewish puppet kings. God had declared that the kings of Israel would always come from the line of David, but through their connections to Rome, they had negotiated themselves into the position of producing several “kings of the Jews.” This included King Herod, who killed thousands of Jewish children in an attempt to snuff out his newborn rival. Jesus’ words and work drove many to believe that he was the Messiah, the great Jewish king who would rescue the Jews from all of their enemies, which would have complicated the Herodian relationship with Rome. Plus, assuming Jesus ascended the throne, it would be at their expense.

The Motivation

Why were they coming to Jesus in the first place? Both groups hated Jesus and had a motive “to trap him in his talk.” To what end?

To kill him.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do?…If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”… So from that day on they made plans to put him to death. - John 11:47-48,53

The motivation behind a question matters. Neither the Pharisees nor the Herodians were going to Jesus in good faith. They had no genuine interest in the wisdom of God revealed in ‘the Law and the Prophets’ (shorthand for ‘the Old Testament’). They were trying to rid themselves of an existential threat to the life and power they had grown accustomed to exercising. This was a power play, plain and simple.

The lead-up to the question reveals more information about what’s happening in the passage.

The Setup

And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For appearances do not sway you, but truly teach the way of God…” - Mark 12:14

They call him “teacher” and commend him for calling a spade a spade and not just being a people pleaser, a sort of proto-Shapirongelium.

This wasn’t representative of a Damascan road change of heart. It was base flattery. The compliment lobbed by the Pharisees and Herodians acknowledging his character and wisdom had nothing to do with how they actually felt about him. It was a spoonful of sugar meant to disguise the poison in the question that followed.

“Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?”

To have any hope of understanding what’s going on here requires first identifying the moral foundation upon which the question is premised.

Lawful by what standard?

What was the standard by which they wanted him to articulate whether or not paying the tribute was lawful? Paying tribute to Caesar was legal according to Roman law. So that’s not the issue. Jesus was a teacher of the Old Testament. He believed that it revealed the way to God. So the question about lawfulness was asking, “Is it lawful for Jews, the people of Yahweh, to pay tribute to an earthly pagan king?”

The discourse around paying this particular tax/tribute was an especially controversial subject for the Jewish people living in Jerusalem for a number of reasons. The tribute required every adult male to pay one denarius to recognize and pay homage to Caesar as recompense simply for the honor of existing within his kingdom. Josephus writes that upon its establishment (only a few years before Jesus’ birth), a man called Judas the Galilean founded a group of violent Jewish resisters and led a tax revolt. His followers enforced his “suggestions” by burning the houses and killing the animals of Jews who registered for the Roman census in obedience to the law. Judas argued that to be subject to such a tax was nothing less than slavery to Rome.

Further exacerbating the conflict was the fact that although there were a variety of coins in circulation at that time, Caesar required the tribute to be paid with a coin that featured an especially heinous bit of Roman propaganda. On the front of the coin (pictured above) was a picture of Caesar, with an inscription that read, “TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVTVS (“Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of deified Augustus,”) and on the back was an image of a seated female figure believed to be Livia, Tiberius’ mother and the wife of the deceased Augustus with the inscription, “PONTIF MAXIM” (“high priest”), a title assumed by all of the caesars.

Why was this so offensive to the Jews? Why did it cause riots? And why was this something that the Pharisees were confident could get Jesus put to death?

The first and second words (commandments).

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” - Exodus 20:3-6

Here they were, hostages in their own homeland, and the tribute required them to exchange some of the money they received as compensation for their scarce, self-denying, others-serving labor for a graven image that explicitly featured a man making himself out to be both a god and the mediator between gods and men (the high priest). From a Jewish perspective, you couldn’t get much more offensive.

If Jesus answered in the affirmative about the legitimacy of paying tribute to Caesar, the Pharisees and Herodians could have poisoned the people against him by saying that he was a blasphemer and a Roman shill.

If he declared the tribute illegitimate, the Pharisees and Herodians would have run to Rome, told them that Jesus was inciting a tax rebellion just like Judas the Galilean, and seen him suffer the same fate.

They seemingly had him cornered.

How does Jesus escape?

He calls them hypocrites.

But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?” - Matthew 21:18

Jesus dispenses with pleasantries. The Pharisees scratched Jesus’ back (with a thinly veiled dagger) but instead of offering an empty platitude in return, Jesus replied to their false compliment in a way that underlined just how true it was.

In other words, “You’re right that I’m not a flatterer, but you are.”

What made them hypocrites? Think about what’s happening: the Pharisees were happy to solemnly feign deference to God in asking about the legitimacy of straining out a gnat-sized .028% tribute while simultaneously ushering in a camel-sized, Great Commandment-violating attempt to put an innocent man to death. Rather than use theology for its designed end (to know, love, and serve God), they sought to wield theology as a weapon to murder their Messiah. They claimed to care about doing God’s will but simultaneously acted in deliberate and complete opposition to it.

That is hypocrisy.

But he doesn’t stop there.

Immediately afterward, Jesus calls for a coin.

“Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” - Mark 12:15

This call is even funnier and more poignant when you read the passage in Greek. The direct Greek translation of the phrase “you are not swayed by appearances,” is “you do not look not look on the face.” How does Jesus respond to the Pharisees’ false (yet true!) observation that he doesn’t “look on the face”?

He calls for a coin so that he can look at its face.

He’s mocking them.

It’s both hilarious and terrifying.

This isn’t some novel, New Testament aspect of the character of God. This is the same God who mocked the prophets of Baal for their solemn self-mutilation and the same God who sits in the heavens, laughing and deriding wicked rulers who think they can fashion a world outside of His control.

They hypocritically divorced God’s word from God’s will, and Jesus responded to them in kind by divorcing their words from their will. He refuses to allow them to remain in the driver’s seat and to set the agenda.

Jesus was God-made flesh, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” - Mark 12:16

That brings us back around to where we began. Jesus asks about two components of the coin: the likeness and inscription, which we have already unpacked. The coin bore the image of Tiberius and featured a tri-part description of who he was.

Tiberius declared himself:
1. King (Caesar)
2. A high priest
3. A son of a god

But in the second half of his reply, Jesus draws a seemingly odd parallel between the logic of money and the logic of what it means to be human.

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

What is he saying?

People are God’s money.

That sounds strange, but remember the components of the coin:

The image of the son of a god who was king and priest.

Is there anywhere in Scripture where God describes people in these terms?

Yes.

In the very beginning.

In Genesis 1, God's first words about humanity are, “Let us make mankind in our image and likeness.” Who else makes humans in their own image and likeness? Parents with their children.

After creating them, God tells his children to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” God wanted His money to be a universal, one world currency.

The second thing that God says to humanity is that they should “subdue” and “exercise dominion” over all of the other created creatures. Peter Leithart points out that the Hebrew words translated subdue and exercise dominion are used throughout the old Testament to describe the work of kings.

In Genesis 2:15, God tells Adam and Eve to “guard” and “keep” the Garden. Leithart again points out that the Hebrew words translated “guard” and “keep” are used throughout the Law and the Prophets to describe the work of the priests.

From the beginning, God created mankind to bear his image as His sons, to steward his kingly authority, and to serve as priestly mediators to ensure that the earthly kingdom bears heavenly resemblance.

But Adam and Eve failed. They heeded the voice of another father and sought to bring his will to pass, serving as his vice-regents and priests. And their children did likewise, down through Jesus’ day.

Remember who Jesus was talking with:

1. The Herodians (representatives of the corrupt king of Israel), and
2. The Pharisees (representatives of the corrupt priestly line),
3. Who both thought of themselves as God’s children

When Jesus advocated giving to God what belonged to him, what did he have in mind?

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to
this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern
what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” - Romans 12:1-2

Why was that necessary for them to hear?

They had lost the plot.

Regardless of what their mouths professed, their lives preached a different gospel.

In reality, they were simultaneously false sons of the real God and real sons of false gods. Sons honor, do the will of, and live to please their fathers. The Pharisees and Herodians honored God with their lips but their hearts were far from Him. The Herodians and Pharisees were intent on putting an innocent man to Death. This was enough to expose and reveal the identity of their true father.

With that said, these were deeply religious men: they piously served multiple false gods that required sacrifice. All gods require tribute. The right to take a human life belongs to God/the gods. To whom did they want to offer Jesus?

Caesar.

They wanted to render Jesus unto Caesar.

They wanted to keep more of what bore Caesar’s image (money, power, and prestige), and surrender to Caesar that which bore God’s image.

Why? To what end?

They were afraid that if they didn’t, Caesar would take away their nation and render them over to Death. Much like Pharaoh before them, their fear drove them to murder.

They wanted Caesar to render Jesus unto Death.

At bottom, the Jewish political and religious establishment feared Death above all else, and consequently became servants, ministers, and sons of Death.

Jesus’ admonition to render unto Caesar what bears his image and likeness and render to God what bears His image and likeness has multiple layers.

In one sense, he was telling them to pay the tax because it represented a minuscule amount of money. It wasn’t worth the trouble to rebel against Rome based on the amount of money in question. This is the same approach that Jesus takes in dealing with the temple tax. But giving absolute time-and-context-agnostic monetary tax policy was not his primary objective. Jesus was primarily arguing that the Pharisees needed to give both themselves and Him to God, because they bore God’s image, not Caesar’s.

Why could Jesus speak authoritatively on the subject?

1. He is the rightful Davidic King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
2. He is the Great High Priest of the eternal line of Melchezidek
3. He is the only begotten Son of God

He perfectly bears and reflects His Father’s image and likeness, unconformed to and unimpressed upon by the world. He flawlessly sought His Father’s kingdom and only did the things that glorified Him, which uniquely qualified him to purchase a people for God, making many rich.

The “render to Caesar” passages whisper about earthly tax policy, but scream about the cosmic economics of glory.

They had completely lost the plot, and Jesus articulated their greatest need. They didn’t need to worry about whether or not to give a microscopic portion of their wealth to Caesar. They needed to render their murderous hearts, souls, minds, and strength to God. They should have been far more concerned about the lifetime of spiritual taxes they were withholding from God.

It’s not that the Bible doesn’t provide a framework for how to think about taxes. It does, in numerous places, and context matters, just like in the passage above. Much of the difficulty that modern Christians have in thinking and knowing how to wisely and faithfully navigate issues like these is that there are many Biblical, historical, and philosophical roadblocks and biases, including basic ignorance stemming from the fact that very few churches, schools, and universities talk about what money is and why it matters. For all the great work that Christians have done in the last century to unpack how to faithfully steward money, precious little work has been done to unpack and understand what money is and how it affects any Biblical conversation about money, taxes, and the role of government.

We’ve lost the plot.

In part two of this series, we will try to remove some of those roadblocks by letting the light of Scripture, history, and reason shine into the darkened, dusty recesses of our hermeneutical process, culture, and instincts.