Then [Jesus] said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Matthew 22:21 (ESV)
By 1977, the UK’s Labour Government had raised the highest level of income tax, on unearned income, to 98 percent. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, was making good his promise to squeeze the rich “until the pips squeak.” Christians may likewise question the validity of taxes set at an exorbitant level. However, the believer who out of obedience to Christ dutifully pays even a punitive tax bill set by an unjust government, is pleasing in God’s sight.
The Pharisees wanted to trap Jesus by asking a “heads I win, tails you lose” question about taxation: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Matthew 22:17). If Jesus answered “No,” they could condemn Him as seditious—an enemy of Rome, and liable to death. If He answered “Yes,” they could condemn Him as a traitor, robbing God of monies that were properly His own.
To a first-century Jewish mind, Caesar was an illegitimate ruler. Worse, the coins bore on one side the blasphemous inscription, “Tiberias Caesar, son of the divine Augustus,” and on the other, “pontifex maximus,” which a Jew would have understood as “High Priest.”[i] Thus, they rejected the notion of paying tribute to this pagan emperor. Jesus’ answer challenged this assumption. Since even secular authority comes from God, paying taxes to him was more than lawful; it was obligatory (Matthew 22:21).
Christians should submit to the rule of their government. This includes willingness to pay taxes, even if the tax burden is unjust, or the government is godless. Believers will not necessarily agree with a government’s fiscal policy, but this does not excuse them from paying honestly, out of obedience to Christ’s commandment. God will judge rulers who set sinful levels of tax; the individual citizen is responsible for giving government its due. This does not mean, however, that the system cannot be changed from within through sanctioned governmental structures. Jesus wants tax reformers, not revolutionaries.
Once described by admirers as “a pillar in the church and the community,” insurance and investment broker Philip Harmon, an American Quaker, was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiracy and tax evasion in July of 1998. His arrest, which came as a result of years of defrauding the government and fellow Christians of millions of dollars, scandalized the very name of Christ Harmon claimed as his own. The scandal was widely reported, and gave critics of Christianity yet another example of hypocrisy. God’s people must never put the gospel to shame by failing to give Christ the honor due His name—or Caesar his.
[i] D. A. Carson, Matthew, Mark, Luke, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 18 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 459.
Also see: What Jesus taught about Taxes: Part I and II [by the Tax Guardian on You Tube].
@ “If He answered “Yes,” they could condemn Him as a traitor, robbing God of monies that were properly His own.”
With all due respect, you have misunderstood Jesus, and woefully. misinterpreted his teaching on taxes and human government, wherein a man or men usurp God’s prerogative as mankind’s only legitimate lawmaker and ruler. Recall God’s words to Samuel”
6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, 7 and the Lord
said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say
to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from
being king over them. 8 Just as they have done to me,[a] from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. 9 Now
then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and
show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”–1 Samuel 8:6-9
Your words quoted above have no basis in the Gospels. It happens to be a fable concocted out of whole cloth–not by you but by Christian exegetes long ago, but after the Christian Church had joined the Roman Empire and had begun sharing in the lucre from Roman taxes. This fairy tale serves the purpose of explaining why Jesus, if he believed Caesar’s brutally enforced taxes were legitimate and should be paid8, why he didn’t say so, instead of giving his brilliant but seemingly ambiguous answer. If you had read Luke’s version of the same incident you would know that Jesus’ enemies’ trick question had one purpose and one purpose only: to get him to state his well-known objection to extortion by taxation. Here is Luke’s version, which states unequivocally what the sole purpose of the tax question was:
20 So they
watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap
him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and
authority of the governor.–Luke 20:20
So you see, it was not a “heads I win, tails you lose” question. Its only purpose was to induce Jesus to condemn Caesar’s tax as his enemies knew he would. Pilate was the governor, and his primary duty was to ensure the collection of Rome’s taxes in Judea. If Jesus condemned taxation openly, his enemies were prepared to drag him before Pilate and accuse him of sedition for opposing Rome’s “lawful” taxes. Jesus’ brilliant, SEEMINGLY AMBIGUOUS response, so befuddled those duplicitous spies that they walked away scratching their heads. What on earth did his answer mean, they surely thought. However, when the spies reported what had hjappened to their handlers, the priests knew exactly what Jesus meant. So they sent their thugs to take Jesus by force and drag him before Pilate to tell him what Jesus had said. Read the Gospel of Luke:
1 Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus[a] before Pilate. 2 They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor…–Luke 23:1-2
What then did Jesus mean when he said, “Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give God what belongs to God.”
Unless you are so deceitful that you would put your own words in Jesus’ mouth, there is no need for an interpretation. As all three versions of the incident demonstrate (Matthew 22, Mark 12, Luke 20), Jesus knew immediately what the lying spies were up to and he called them hypocrites. Knowing their intent, rest assured Jesus chose his words with care. He said what he meant and he meant what he said–as he always did. Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, no more, no less, and, obviously, nothing you have that doesn’t belong to that thief, Caesar, who thinks he is the son of a god. Furthermore, if you would know what belongs to God and Caesar respectively, you should rely on Scripture–as Jesus invariably did. And Scripture states at least six times, as it does in Psalm 24, verse 1: “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,” which leaves nothing for poor old Caesar, and nothing is exactly what Jesus would have his disciples give to thieving rulers.
There is much more for you to learn on this subject. You can begin here: https://jesusontaxes.liberty.me/ and here: http://jesus-versus-taxes.com/
You want to know what Jesus taught about taxes: see by You Tube video: What Jesus taught about taxes: Part I and Part II — Walter F. Picca – The Tax Guardian