Psalm 24:1-6 : "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully. They will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of their salvation. Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah"
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There is an ultimate temptation, targeting all human souls, and that is power. In the desert Jesus was tempted, and practically all temptations involved power. All his answers acknowledged the ultimate supremacy of God, by saying that “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth ...’ and ‘You shall not test the Lord, your God...’ and ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’
The acknowledgment in one’s heart that God is the King only is not only a moral imperative but it is a logical must, according to the 24th Psalm which just says that “The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.” It might be interesting that why the Psalm mentions explicitly the rivers. Maybe it is a bit far fetched but we know it by the help of the archaeology, that the documented human history of the last civilization we can decipher, eventually began in the river valleys of the Tiger and Euphrates, of the Nile, of the Indus and Ganges, the Yellow River and in Mezo-America.
The oldest known organized rule is the Sumerian one, where the so called List of the Sumerian Kings says that the kingship descended from heaven some mythological 240K years ago approximately, and only 8 kings had ruled in this period before the flood, though the 8 kings might mean 8 dynasties. The claim, that the kingship descended to the earthly kings from Heaven, is ancient, but it is still the same today, agreeing with Nimrod who built the Tower of Babel against the royal authority of God.
Since time immemorial human kings had demanded the authority and the powers of God. It came from Sumer, that the Kings are divine in themselves or at least the sons of the Gods, it went to Egypt and Babylon. From Babylon to Persia, from Persia to the Macedonian Greece, from Greece to Rome. Practically Athene was once famous from its ancient democracy, and Rome had been a republic once before the age of the Emperors. It came to pass when the scribes demanded answer from Jesus regarding the taxes levied by the Romans on the Jews, Jesus was asking for a Roman tax coin.
Actually there was a so called Temple tax as well, half a silver Shekel according to the Jewish law, which was paid by every adult male Jew, yearly to the Temple.
However, the Roman taxation was quite arbitrary, due to their military occupation of Judea. The Romans outsourced the tax collection to locals. Usually, they held an auction for the privilege of the tax farming. Who payed more over the table or under table, he gained the right to collect the taxes on behalf of the Romans. In exchange, the Romans let their agents to collect as much as they could extort from the people.
The tax collectors were the most hated people in Jerusalem at that time, because not only that they collaborated with the enemy, but also because whosoever was not able to pay or was vulnerable like widows and orphans, they took their land, their houses, their possessions or sold them into slavery. Like vultures when they saw the prey they demanded unaffordable tax fees and then they foreclosed everything they wanted.
Thus, the scribes asked Jesus, that ‘as Jews, are we allowed to pay taxes to the Romans, or we have one real King, God only? That was the question, and it was tricky.
If Jesus had said, that we should not pay, that would have been an overt mutiny, punishable by death. If he had said, that of course, it is just money, why not, then he would have lost his all reputation as a spiritual leader in Jerusalem. Thus, he asked for the Roman tax coin. Of course he did not have any of it on himself, but the tricksters did. They brought to him a denarius.
He asked them, “ ‘Whose is this image and inscription?’ They said to him, ‘Caesar’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard it, they marveled, and left him and went away.” Most people think that Jesus gave a permission us to wink that we should be able to feed the emperor and God with reverence in the same time.
However the case is quite the opposite. The Roman tax coin, the silver Greek denarius was in itself blasphemous. On the one side of the common tax coin had been minted the portrait of Emperor Tiberius with the inscription of Tiberius Sebastos Kaisar, which means that Tiberius, Augustus, Caesar. It is quite a remarkable line, as Augustus was the adopted son of Julius Caeser, so was Tiberius an adopted son of Emperor Augustus.
Both Julius Caesar and Augustus were deified after their deaths, and the denarius of Tiberius on the other side showed the glorified picture of Emperor Augustus with a halo, expressing that the Emperor’s image impersonifies the Sun God itself. It also had the inscription that this is “Theos, Sebastos, Kaisar”, which means that this is god, Augustus, Ceasar. Not only it claims the divinity of Augustus, ergo to Tiberius himself, but also his image was minted on the coin, which is the complete breach of the first and second commandments of the Ten Commandments. No faithful Jew should have used that blasphemous coin for anything.
Thus the answer of Jesus was aimed not only to dodge the deadly trick in the question, but also to give a real answer in the same time, which is that you have to give back this blasphemous coin to the emperor, and give God the things that belong to God.
The 24th Psalm is clear that everything belongs to God, the only owner and king of the Universe. Practically, if you give everything to God, that belongs to God, especially the wholeness of your heart, then there is not a single crumb of leftover to give it to the emperor. Kings and Emperors do not have the right to demand anything from us that belong to God.
However, everything belongs to God, thus, we have to give nothing to the kings and the emperors on Earth, who usurp the kingship of God.
Let us worship and revere God, as our only King in order to gain the gift, described in the 24th Psalm:
“ Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully. They will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of their salvation.”
May we praise the Lord, day and night,
Amen.
