As we prepare to celebrate Easter, we want to turn our focus towards the days that led up to Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. We will post a daily reading this week. Read the scripture and the study help below, take some personal notes, pray through and meditate on what you have read, and comment below so we can share with others in our River Church family.
Today’s reading is Luke 20:1–22:6 Here’s an excerpt…
Luke 20:19-26
The scribes and the chief priests atried to lay hands on Him that very hour, and they feared the people; for they understood that He spoke this parable against them. So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, in order bthat they might catch Him in some statement, so that they could deliver Him to the rule and the authority of cthe governor. They questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, we know that You speak and teach correctly, and You 1are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. “Is it lawful for us ato pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But He detected their trickery and said to them, “Show Me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Then arender to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were unable to catch Him in a saying in the presence of the people; and being amazed at His answer, they became silent.
If you have already read today’s portion of Scripture you may feel a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information contained therein. Realize that you are not alone. Packed within these chapters are several encounters between Jesus and the religious leaders of His day and a record of Jesus’ response to their questions and accusations. When you look at the content within chapter twenty it becomes apparent that these encounters revolve around the question of Jesus’ authority.
Yesterday we looked at the boldness of Jesus as He drove from the temple those who were making it a place of selfish gain. With His triumphal entry on Palm Sunday & temple cleansing on Monday, Jesus caused quite a stir in the holy city and made bold claims as to who He actually was. Sandwiched between the account of the money falling to the floor of the temple and Judas Iscariot’s later betrayal of Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, is yet another story where money is mentioned.
The fact that money is a part of these events should not surprise us because the word of God reveals truth to us in the midst of our day to day experiences. Whether we like it or not, we simply have to deal with the subject. But Jesus’ response to the religious leaders’ question about paying taxes to Caesar points to a much deeper truth than the ethical question of whether it is right or wrong to do so (see Luke 20:20-26). Look again at verses 23 to 25 of chapter 20. The Jewish authorities are trying to trap Jesus in His words so that they will have something to bring against him to the Roman officials. They are thinking that if He is so faithful to God’s kingdom and passionate about the sanctity of their nation’s faith, surely He will not endorse the paying of taxes to the Romans! Then they could denounce him as a traitor to the Romans. On the other hand, if He answered yes, He would be considered a disloyal Jew and may lose favor with the people. Yet, the master teacher takes a coin and literally “flips” it in such a way that they are trapped by their own inability to return an answer.
Jesus looks upon the coin and asks, “Whose portrait and inscription are on it?” (v.24). Their reply is that it is Caesar’s. Stop for a moment and think about what exactly was on that coin. The coin was the smallest silver coin at that time called a denarius. A denarius was worth about a day’s wage for an agricultural worker. On one side was the profile of the Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar with this inscription, “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus”. On the reverse side was the seated Pax, the Roman goddess of peace, with the inscription, “High Priest”. The implicit message written on that coin would have been a challenge to anyone in the empire claiming to have extraordinary power and authority, especially someone like Jesus, the acclaimed Son of David and Prince of Peace. Yet, Jesus’ authority was not threatened by the reality that the Jewish people were burdened by the heavy taxation of the Romans. He was fully aware that paying the tax did not mean one had to compromise his or her faith or affirm Caesar’s divinity. Jesus, the divine Creator of life, knew precisely whose image He was stamped with and exactly whose image God’s people were created in. He knew that God, above all others, has a prior claim to our complete allegiance.
“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Lk 20:25). In a nutshell Jesus is telling them to pay the tax, but to remember what belongs to God. We may wonder then, what is God’s? Our whole lives. “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1). Caesar’s rule was temporary and limited. Jesus’ reign is sovereign and eternal. The book of Hebrews has this to say about Him, “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word” (Heb 1:3). The term exact imprint relates to the process of the inscription of a coin. Just as a rubber stamp makes an exact reproduction of the words or image on it, so the Son of God is the exact representation of God’s essential being! Imagine Jesus standing there holding a coin with the inscription, “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus”.
In Monday’s reading we saw Jesus, the presence of God standing in the symbolic temple. Today, the exact imprint of God is holding a coin that can only symbolize an earthly ruler’s temporary reign. Jesus is saying that the coin should be returned to the emperor whose image it bore, but that you and I should place our entire lives into God’s hands because we are made in His image. Have you come to terms with the divinity and lordship of Jesus Christ? Scripture reveals that to see Christ is to see God (John 14:7). Are you placing your entire life into His sovereign hands and allowing Him to transform you into His image (2 Cor. 3:18)?