If you’re reading this blog, you have likely paid taxes. You might have even paid them today, April 15, which is Tax Day in the United States. Taxes—as the old saying goes—are the only constant in life besides death, and a day like today might make us wonder what the Bible has to say about them. Thankfully for us, Jesus taught about taxes because they were a matter of debate in His time as well. So what did He have to say about them, and how do His words apply to us today?

Render to Caesar

The passage where Jesus speaks most clearly on government-imposed taxes is Matthew 22:15–22, where we read the following interaction:

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to trap him by what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are truthful and teach truthfully the way of God. You don’t care what anyone thinks nor do you show partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

Perceiving their malicious intent, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” They brought him a denarius. “Whose image and inscription is this?” he asked them.

“Caesar’s,” they said to him.

Then he said to them, “Give [NKJV: Render], then, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

As Jesus’s opponents—the Pharisees and the Herodians—approach Him in this scene, they are in the temple. But there is a lot more context and history at play in the background of their interaction than their physical location. The tax being discussed here—a “poll” tax—was a primary motivator of a full-blown revolt in c. AD 6 (about two or three decades before this interaction) by the Jews against Rome—a revolt led by a man named Judas of Galilee. And now, here is another Galilean, Jesus, teaching with authority and stirring up a ruckus amongst the Jews in regard to Rome (see “The Triumphal Entry” just before this in Matthew 21:1–11). 

The question of whether to pay taxes or not, therefore, lays a clear trap. A negative answer from Jesus would be used to denounce Him to the Roman authorities as a revolutionary who needs to be stamped out, while a positive answer would have been used to denounce Him to the Jews in Jerusalem as a Roman sympathizer. No matter how He answers, Jesus cannot win. Or can He?

Before Jesus even answers their question, He lets His opponents know what He thinks of their little trap by calling them “hypocrites” (Matthew 22:18). Why call them hypocrites? Well, first, because He was already “perceiving their malicious intent” (Matthew 22:18). But, too, because He also has evidence for their hypocrisy. He asks them to bring Him a coin used for the tax (called a denarius) and asks them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” (Matthew 22:20). The text tells us whose image the coin bore (“Caesar’s,” Matthew 22:21). But for the inscription, we can look to the aid of archaeologists who have found these coins.¹ The front read, “Tiberius Caesar Augustus son of the divine Augustus,” and the back read, “High Priest” or “God and High Priest.” Each coin therefore proclaimed Caesar as not only a god but also a high priest. One could hardly imagine a worse offense to the first and second commandments: “Do not have other gods besides me,” and “Do not make an idol [image] for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below . . .” (Exodus 20:3–4). 

Pious Jews avoided carrying these coins altogether as a result, and the Roman government even allowed the Jews to coin their own nonidolatrous copper money for use in everyday business.² Jesus apparently did not have a denarius available, but His opponents did—perhaps from their own pockets—and in the holy confines of the temple, no less! Jesus’s point is clear: What are you Pharisees and Herodians, supposedly the holiest of all, doing carrying around such blasphemous inscriptions? 

Having dismantled His opponents’ presumptuous and prideful position, He finally answers their question in the second half of Matthew 22:21, and it brilliantly dismantles the false dichotomy they had established. The first half of His response, “Give, then, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” is a direct inference and application from what has been said about the coin. 

The Greek verb Jesus uses in Matthew 22:21 (apodote, translated as “render” in the KJV and “give back” in the NIV) is pointedly different from the verb His opponents used in Matthew 22:17 (dote, translated usually as “pay”). In the tax, they are not giving Caesar something that is theirs. They are giving back something that is rightfully Caesar’s. Taxes, therefore, are not an arbitrary imposition but a due payment for the benefits afforded to them by the government. And the benefits for Jews living in Rome were vast. The Roman government provided “water, sanitation, roads, law and order, . . . police protection,” and more.³ And all they asked in return was a single denarius per year, a coin equivalent to one day’s wage.

Render to God

This seems to be an adequate enough response to such a tricky and insincere question. But Jesus goes beyond their question and gives them something more in the second half of His response. Not only should they give back to Caesar what is his, but also “to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21b). This portion of Jesus’s response dismantles the presupposition baked into His opponents’ question, that one cannot be loyal to both the government and to God. Jesus’s response indicates that it is very possible—expected, in fact—to be both a faithful follower of God and a faithful citizen.

This might seem obvious to us from our modern position. You likely live in a country that has freedom of religion codified into its foundational documents, allowing you to practice this dual loyalty without penalty. And we have had millennia to work out and apply texts like Romans 13:1–7 and 1 Peter 2:13–17, which command us to “submit to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1)—Scriptures that seem to explicitly state the upshot of Jesus’s teaching here. But in Jesus’s context—first-century Jerusalem under Roman rule—His assertion was not so obvious. This is why His opponents’ response is not rebuttal but amazement (Matthew 22:22). He has completely evaded their trap by breaking their assumptions.

Is there a time when such dual loyalty is impossible? Absolutely. There may very well be times that our leaders ask us to give to them things we should only give to God, and we are to prioritize our loyalty to God in such a situation. Consider the martyrs of the early church, who confidently declared, “Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord!” and lost their lives for it. In the words of commentator J. C. Ryle, “If Caesar coins a new Gospel, he is not to be obeyed.”⁴

Note, however, that Jesus’s teaching here was not responding to a situation in which Caesar was claiming something that was not his to claim. It was well within his rights as leader to impose taxes. The Jews were not declaring “Caesar is lord” by simply returning to Caesar the (idolatrous) money that was rightfully his. This passage does not help us settle the debate of whether or not the Caesars of our day have “coined a new Gospel.” Therefore, I merely point to what Jesus taught in His context: It is possible to be loyal to both God and government. The same is true for us today.

What Do You Render to God?

But there is more to Jesus’s final assertion to give back to God what is His. The implication is simple: If you should give back a few coins to the idolatrous Emperor of Rome, then shouldn’t you then give far more—everything, in fact—back to the one true God? This is, indeed, the greater lesson to take from this passage. 

The Apostle Paul helpfully reminds us in 1 Corinthians 6:19b–20 that “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God with your body.”  Paul’s application in that passage relates to sexual ethics, but the implications of his assertion go far beyond our sexuality. We were dead in our sins, but then Jesus gave us life when He lived, died, and resurrected on our behalf (Ephesians 2:1–5). The only right response to such a marvelous gift is to give our whole lives back to Him. Jesus’s words in Matthew 22:21 therefore command us to consider the more important obligation of what we are rendering to God. Taxes show respect to the government you live under, but how do you show respect to the God you live under?

The denarius, many Jews believed, broke the first and second commandments, but how might we break the third commandment with our very lives?: “Do not misuse the name of the LORD your God . . .” (Exodus 20:7). This commandment certainly includes our speech, but it reaches far beyond that as well. If you are a Christian, your whole life represents Christ and His name. Our money bears the name of our country, but our whole lives bear the name of God. How do you steward that name? Do you misuse it by holding onto things that are rightfully God’s? This might have to do with money, but consider even things beyond your wallet: How do you steward the other resources given to you by God, like your time, your body, your home, or even your career? 

The beautiful truth to remember is that we do not obey God and bear His name on our own. God empowers us by His Holy Spirit to bear fruit that is markedly His but is visible in our lives (John 15:5, Galatians 5:22–23). Furthermore, God can do far more with the things we give back to Him than we could ever imagine. So this Tax Day, don’t worry about the money you are merely giving back to the government. Consider, instead, what God is asking you to give back to Him. Pray and ask Him to reveal what you might be withholding from Him, to empower you to give it back to Him, and to give you delight in what He does with it. As James 1:17 reminds us, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (or governments!). May we therefore show due gratitude and honor to the Giver of those perfect gifts by using them in service to Him.

Notes

1. O’Donnel, Matthew, 637–638.

2. France, The Gospel of Matthew, 830.

3. O’Donnel, Matthew, 638.

4. O’Donnel, Matthew, 640.

5. Ryle, Matthew, 207.

Author bio:

Paul Zetterberg is a Staff Editor at The Daily Grace Co.® and holds an MDiv from Truett Seminary. He is passionate about helping others understand Scripture and experience the transforming power of the gospel. In his free time, he enjoys reading, playing video games, traveling, and spending time with his wife, Jessica.

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