Christopher Bullock was a little-known early 18th-century English actor and playwright who penned a handful of works (primarily comedies) before succumbing to consumption at the age of 32. While his name and career were rather unremarkable, one line from his hastily written comedy, “The Cobbler of Preston,” has lived on to such an unlikely degree as to all but lose attribution to him.
The line?
“’Tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes.”
For as universally impactful as death and taxes are, we would expect Scripture to speak extensively and authoritatively on them—and it does. However, while Christians have written and preached countless books and sermons about death to elucidate what Christ accomplished to overcome it, far less has been written to develop a rigorously Christian understanding of taxes. This is not to suggest that taxation is worthy of as much emphasis as salvation, but the dearth of consistent modern thinking on the subject is nowhere more evident than in the discussion surrounding what many would consider the most prominent passages about taxes: the “render to Caesar” narrative found in three of the four Gospels. And while a threefold repetition is enough to thrill any theopolitan heart, even James B. Jordan’s most ardent skeptics (provided they are parents) can, upon reflection, concede that they do not repeat themselves for trivial matters.
1. Jesus’ Interlocuters
“And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk” (Mk 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” (Mk 11:27).
While apparently lower-level Pharisees and Herodians actually delivered the question, it wasn’t offhandedly posed. The question was the hard-won fruit of scheming by the ominous and unnamed “they.” The questioners themselves were simply apostles; they were sent to convey a message. The Lord said that the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart. This is true of bodies of all kinds, be they physical or deliberative. Yet the diabolical brilliance of the line of attack taken by the representative heads of Israel could not truthfully be attributed to them alone; flesh and blood hadn’t revealed it to them.
The Pharisees were the strict, conservative religious leaders of Jesus’ day, and they hated Jesus. Thousands flocked to listen to and be healed by him. They spent three years watching the upstart Galilean draw away more and more people from them and subject them to public humiliation for their hypocrisy. They were jealous of the adoration he received from them. The beloved John recounts the threat they believed Jesus posed: “If we let him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation” (Jn 11:48). The “place” (their position and status) and “nation” they occupied was born of hypocrisy and compromise, having set aside the law of God to try to establish their own.
The Herodians were the ruling political family in Israel 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 murdered many 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.
2. 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?
If the Pharisees get the response they want, they can go to the Romans. Their end is 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 (Jn 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.
3. 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’” (Mk 12:14). They seemingly offer deference to him by calling him “teacher,” commending him for calling a spade a spade and not just being a people pleaser.
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.
4. The Question
“Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” (Mk 12:14). To have any hope of understanding what’s going on here requires first identifying the moral foundation upon which the question is premised.
4.1 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 Law. He believed that it revealed the way to God. So the question about lawfulness was asking, “According to the Law and the Prophets, is it right for Jews, the people of Yahweh, to pay tribute to an earthly pagan king?”
The discourse around paying this particular 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 surrender one day’s wage in homage to Caesar as recompense for the honor of existing within his kingdom. Josephus writes that upon its establishment under Quirinius a few years after Jesus’ birth, a man called Judas the Galilean led a group of violent Jewish resisters in a tax revolt on quasi-theological grounds (Ant. 18.1.1, 6). Judas argued that to be subject to such a tax was nothing less than slavery to Rome. He effectively argued that submitting to the call to register and pay the tax was treason. 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.
The situation was further exacerbated during Jesus’ lifetime in 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, 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? It violated the first and second commandments (Ex 20:3–6):
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.
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 declaring himself to be the son of a god, an almighty king, and the mediator between gods and men. 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 would 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?
4.2 Pharisaical hypocrisy
Jesus escapes the trap of the Pharisees and Herodians by calling them hypocrites: “But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?’”(Matt 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 hypocrite, but you are.”
What made them hypocrites? The Pharisees were happy to solemnly feign deference to God in asking about the legitimacy of straining out a gnat-sized .028% tribute, but their question concealed their motive. This was a camel-sized, Great Commandment-violating attempt to put to death the truest reflection of the divine image. Rather than use theology for its designed end (to know, love, and serve God), they sought to wield it as a weapon to murder their Messiah. They claimed to care about doing God’s will but simultaneously acted in deliberate and total opposition to it. That is hypocrisy. This entire interaction with Jesus is framed as though the Pharisees are good-faith actors genuinely desiring to know and understand God’s will: whether or not it honored God to pay this tribute to Caesar. But in reality, what they actually want is to trap the innocent Son of God in his words so that they can put him to death, which represents the most blatant violation of the Great Commandment.
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Immediately afterward, he calls for a coin: “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it” (Mk 12:15).
Jesus’ 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 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.
Jesus’ tactic here isn’t some novel, New Testament change to how God interacts with mankind. 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 refused to allow them to remain in the driver’s seat and to set the agenda. He understood that this exchange was a pit designed to catch him, and “thwarts the schemes of the crafty, so that their hands find no success. He catches the wise in their craftiness, and sweeps away the plans of the cunning” (Job 5:12-13). Jesus was God-made-flesh, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
4.3 Likeness and inscription
“And he said to them, ‘Whose likeness and inscription is this?’ They said to him, ‘Caesar’s’”(Mk 12:16). That exchange brings us back around to where we began. Jesus asks about two components of the coin: the likeness and inscription. The coin bore the image of Tiberius and featured a tri-part description of who he was. Tiberius declared himself:
- King (Caesar)
- A high priest
- A son of a god
In 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.”
Jesus is saying that 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 also king and a high priest.
In Genesis 1, God describes people in exactly these terms. 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.
Second, God tells humanity that they should “subdue” and “exercise dominion” over all of the other created creatures. In A House For My Name, 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. The Lord intends people to uniquely establish his will and his word in his world as the divine unit of account by which every act and intention are measured.
Finally, in Genesis 2:15, God tells Adam and Eve to “guard” and “keep” the Garden. Leithart goes on to point out in A House For My Name that the Hebrew words translated “guard” and “keep” are used throughout the Law and the Prophets to describe the work of the priests. He intends for people to mediate between God and the world. They are the mediating currency he will use to pay for and build a house for His name.
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:
- The Herodians (representatives of the corrupt king of Israel), and
- The Pharisees (representatives of the corrupt priestly line),
- 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? The Scriptural witness from beginning to end testifies that God desires humanity to render themselves completely (heart, soul, mind, and strength) to him and to his purposes. This is the glory that every subsequent sin falls short of. Through their willingness to put to death a man they knew to be innocent, the Pharisees revealed a consequentialist bent. While God has desired outcomes both for the world and for individual people, he isn’t content with pragmatic shortcuts; without faith, it is impossible to please him (Heb 11:6). Why was that necessary for them to hear?
4.4 Rendering Jesus unto Caesar
The Pharisees and Herodians had lost the plot. Regardless of what their mouths professed, their lives preached a different gospel. They were simultaneously false sons of the real God and real sons of false gods. Sons honor, obey, 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 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 keep more of what bore Caesar’s image (money, power, and prestige) and surrender to Caesar that which bore God’s image.
They wanted Caesar to render Jesus unto death. They were afraid that if they didn’t, Caesar would take away their nation and render them over to death. Much like Herod at the time of Christ’s birth and the proto-Herod (Pharoah) at Moses’, their fear drove them to murder.
At bottom, the Jewish political and religious establishment feared death above all else, and consequently, they became servants, ministers, and sons of death. They ought to have heeded the Scripture that they undoubtedly knew well: “Do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Is 8:12–13).
5. Conclusion
Contrary to the intuition of many interpreters of these passages, our Lord’s primary objective was not to relay tax policy for time immemorial. While there is obviously a place for application based on biblical narratives, well meaning modern readers often move to it far to quickly, to their own hermeneutical harm. Jesus’ admonition to render unto Caesar what bears his image and likeness and to render to God what bears his image and likeness has multiple layers.
First, in one sense, he was telling them to pay the tribute because it represented a minuscule sum. 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 in Matthew 17:24–27.
It was also trivial morally relative to the would-be quandary that Jesus knew that they were feigning to wrestle with. Which offended God more: paying a fraction of a percent tax to Caesar or putting an innocent man to death? The answer should have been obvious, and Jesus’ cagey response represents a refusal to give a straight answer to their dishonestly posed question.
Jesus’ words were primarily aimed at helping the Pharisees recognize that they weren’t qualified to ask those questions. Their great need as blind guides and covenantal bearers of the divine image was to give themselves to God and his purposes rather than to Caesar and the success of his kingdom. In fearing both Caesar and the loss of their position, power, and nation at his hands, the Pharisees revealed themselves to be worshipping and serving a creature “rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.” Jesus, the true and better man of Issachar, knew exactly what they desperately needed to hear, and faithfully relayed that wisdom from his generous Father, the fount of every good and perfect gift.
Instead of a coin bearing a blasphemous inscription about his divinity, right to rule, and ability to intercede between gods and men, Jesus is the true money of heaven. He’s the only begotten Son of God, faithfully reflecting his Father’s heart, image and likeness. He’s the king of kings and lord of lords, and the great high priest of the eternal line of Melchizedek. He lived for thirty three years unimpressed by and unimpressed upon by the world. He sought his Father’s kingdom in his way and in his timing, sacrificing his own life to protect and purchase a people for God, making many rich.
The Jewish leaders had completely lost the plot, and Jesus graciously 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.
So while the “render to Caesar” passages do have implications for how to think about taxes and tributes, a contextual reading of the text demonstrates that Jesus was much more concerned with the cosmic economics of glory.
Jordan Bush is the director of TGFB Initiatives for Brilliance Labs, which equips Christian leaders to discover and deploy upstream solutions to hard and neglected ministry problems.
He has coauthored three books including Thank God For Bitcoin: The Creation Corruption, and Redemption of Money, and The Orange Umbrella.
He is a husband, a father of five, and formerly served as a church-planting missionary and pastor in Montevideo, Uruguay.