To Encourage You

Mark 12:13-17 “And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk.  And they came and said to him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?’ But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, ‘Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.’  And they brought one. And he said to them, ‘Whose likeness and inscription is this?’ They said to him, ‘Caesar’s.’  Jesus said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they marveled at him.”

The Pharisees were treacherous in all of their dealings with Christ. Often, they came to Him trying to trap Him with their insincere questions.  What fools they were to try to outsmart the Omniscient One.  One example of their foolishness is found in the passage above. Here they tried to flatter Him with these words “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.”  Of course, they didn’t really believe this.  They hated Him for claiming to speak the truth and for the way He exposed their sin.  Feigning to want to really know God’s ways on an issue, they asked Him, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”  They hated the Roman system of taxation as much as anybody, but with this trap they were trying to get Jesus to publicly denounce that system, to His own peril.  

Jesus’ wise reply to their hypocrisy was marvelous, as even they had to admit.  Jesus asked them to look at the inscription on their money.  It was Caesar’s figure that appeared on it.  So, Jesus informs them, if it’s Caesar’s likeness, it must belong to him, so it’s no surprise that Caesar should want some of it back.  But beyond this, he said that they should “render to God the things that are Gods.” Why did He say that? What was His point?  

Where their thoughts should have gone, and likely did, were these words in the very beginning of the Old Testament that they claimed to know so well: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). In other words, just as Caesar’s image is on your money, and you should render to Caesar what is his, so because God’s image is on you, then you should render yourself to God.  You owe it to Him to give your life to Him. He made you in His own image, and He made you for Himself.  What a rebuke this was to the hypocritical Pharisees who were so given to their own self-centeredness that they would try to entrap and rid the earth of the very God Who had created them. 

Paul would later expound this same idea with these words: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).  

So, what about you and what about me? Do we realize that we are indeed made in the very image of God, and because we bear His image, we are His and His alone?  We are not our own. We aren’t to do as we please without regard to the very One Who has stamped His own image on us.  In our heart of hearts we know this, for He has written His law on our hearts and our consciences bear witness to this fact (Romans 2:15).  

There is coming a time when what we did with that knowledge will come to light, for God will judge the secrets of our hearts (Romans 2:16), hearts that were made by Him and for Him. Nevertheless, we have all been given the opportunity to actually render those hearts to Him willingly, or not.