Matthew 22:21

GOD’S CLAIM

‘Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.’

Matthew 22:21

These words were an answer to the Herodians and Phariseees, and their question had not been an honest one. They asked it ‘tempting Him.’

I. An adroit answer.—Our Lord’s words are put in the oracular form which Eastern wisdom loved, which seems at first glance to state a truism, to lend itself equally to opposite interpretations. It was an escape from a skilfully laid trap. ‘They marvelled and left Him, and went their way.’

II. Its purpose.—But it cannot have been related by the evangelists as an instance only of adroitness in baffling human wit and malignity. The question would be asked in after days, in some form or other, by humble souls eager for guidance in real difficulties. The answer must have been meant for them too. Should they give tribute to Cæsar or not? The world as they lived in it was in the hands of heathen rulers. How were Christians to live with such a society?

III. The two claims do not clash.—The sting of the question lies in the false views which men have taken of the meaning of our Lord’s words, as though He had meant to distinguish two provinces, two claims. So men in age after age have set the claims of temporal power against those of spiritual, Emperor against Pope, State against Church, and matters of thought and truth against orthodoxy, science against theology. The point of our Lord’s answer was to heal and reconcile. The two claims, He implied, did not exclude one another. It was possible, it was a duty, to satisfy both: ‘To Cæsar what is Cæsar’s, and to God what is God’s.’ The two did not clash, for when they met, one was but a department of the other. What is Cæsar’s really is what God has given to Cæsar, and in satisfying that claim to the very largest extent, we are satisfying, so far, that larger claim which exists on all our heart and life. Social life, civil life, has the fullest claim on us, and this must be frankly, thoroughly met and discharged. This, so far as we are ruled; but in a self-governed country every citizen is also in part a ruler, he has some voice, actual and potential, some influence in a larger sphere or a smaller, in determining the course of government. There, too, he must give to Cæsar what is Cæsar’s, and also ‘To God that which is God’s.’ The claim of God is the very ground of the legitimate claim of Cæsar.

IV. God’s claim.—Does God’s claim, then, in no way limit the rights of earthly rule, or the motives of earthly politics? Surely it does. But what is God’s claim? Not that something should be reserved for Him, but that everything should be viewed as His—our heart, our life, ourselves, our politics as well as our religion, the world as well as the Church, things temporal as well as things eternal.

—Dean Wickham.

Illustration

‘I remember a gentleman in business in London saying to me: “Well, you know, I ought to be converted. I promise directly I get £30,000 to retire and give up the world.” He got his £30,000—but God would not take his heart. After having retired for fifteen years, he could not say that he was a converted man. He wished it; but God will not be dictated to. If you will have the world, have it, but remember there is nothing else. If you will have God, you may have the world too, you may walk upon the very waves of this world’s troubles. God can make all things work together for good if you trust Him out and out.’