Luke 20 Commentary
We now have the chief priests and the elders in the opposite corner of the ring. This is Jerusalem. It has been a long trip to the seat of government, albeit a puppet government. Rome still exerts considerable control over the nation through the provincial governor. Pilate is the current governor. We shall meet him not too long from now.
Jesus’ ministry has attracted the attention of the chain of command at Jerusalem. They must put an end to it. Jesus is directly confronted by the authorities. This chapter proves an important point. It was absolutely important that Jesus kept quiet during His trial. The level of wisdom here is impossibly great, so awesomely great that even the opposition nods in defeat. With this kind of talk, there was never going to be a crucifixion!
Who isn’t left stuck and devoid of both words and action by Jesus’ wisdom in this chapter? But it’s just a sample!
Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. Or, “John’s baptism – was it from heaven, or of human origin?” Both responses communicate key principles about the kingdom of God. Yes, they are clever answers, the kind that would convince any jury, but they serve a different purpose here. Yes, the kind that leaves His eternal rivals, the Pharisees, impressed. Verse 39. But they are meant to draw men and women to the Creator God.
Leave money and whatever money means – power, influence, and status to Caesar. They belong to Caesar – they are of human origin. God is interested in what belongs to Him – the human soul. This is what the LORD Jesus is looking for, the lost son! The irony is that life belongs to God and the man Jesus would give it back to the owner at the cross!
The question is about taxes to Caesar but Jesus brings God because humans have sought to please Heaven using human means – the Caesar means. The reference to Caesar and God as it concerned taxes was hugely important because Jews considered taxes to Caesar a slavery symbol; an absence of the rule of God for a people that considered themselves free children of Abraham. Their allegiance was single and reserved for the one true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The opposition asked an impossible question! None of them was able to answer it. It was a question about a devout Jew’s allegiance to God and the conflicted experience of paying allegiance to Rome through slavery machinery like taxes. Christians can exist in this world freely doing the Caesar ‘thing’ while fully given to God.
If John’s baptism is of human origin, leave it and don’t bother. But if it is from Heaven, then we must be interested! Look at John’s ministry and see how it points to the King in their midst! The King in their midst whose path John paved by his ‘repentance’ sermons is the authority, the ultimate authority.
Yesterday at Jesus’ ‘coronation’ (the Triumphant Entry), the disciples quoted Psalm 118. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the LORD.” Today we have the continuation of the same theme from the same Psalm. “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” It is yet another highlight of the rejection of the King by Israel.
Whose Son Is the Messiah? Jesus refers to the apparent contradiction in scripture concerning the Messiah. Is he the son of David? The point is that the scripture remains an impossible proposition until the LORD begins to shed light on it. “David calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?” Human perception can always be misleading!
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