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.