Originally published 02 May 2024 via Deep Dive Bible Adventures.

It’s one of the shortest stories in the Holy Bible, but it’s full of power.

It’s also one of the stories that are in all four of the Gospel accounts. (The first three Gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — are known as the “synoptic” Gospels, from a compound Greek word that means “one eye” or “same eye”.) The synoptic Gospels are written almost as if the three writers were standing near each other while taking notes. But, the Gospel of John is written from a much more mystical viewpoint. (That is why it is totally wrong to tell a potential convert to “grab a Bible and start reading the Gospel of John”. The poor person’s head would be spinning. But, the Gospel of Matthew reads almost like a newspaper.)

With that short preparation, let’s take a “deep dive” into the story.

One of the recurring phrases that I use in writing about the Holy Bible is “the flannelboard Jesus”. If you are looking tor that wimpy version, then you won’t find Him here — nor anywhere in the Holy Bible! Jesus is the bravest man that ever lived. (For more about that, click here.)

Note the circled portion of the Scripture passage above. The question, “Whose Image,” was the proverbial “right hook punch” that effectively “broke the nose” of the Pharisees. How?? First, consider who the Pharisees were. They were the lifelong students of the Law of Moses. The most basic bedrock portion of the Law is that part called the Ten Commandments. And, one of the most powerful laws in the Ten Commandments is the law against a “graven image”.

So, while the Pharisees thought that they were going to trick and trap Jesus with their question about the Law, the reality is that Jesus used some lightning-fast “verbal Judo” to throw the question back into the Pharisees’ face by pointing out that they were using a graven image in an effort to trap the Son of God. I can picture the looks on their faces. Oops!

So, we already see that no “flannelboard Jesus” was involved in this incident. But, was there more? Oh, yes!

That first punch was only the “stun move”, which was used as a “setup” for the real smackdown. Keep reading.

The graven image of Caesar (a man that was regarded by Romans as a god) was also a symbol of worldly government authority. Think about that. The country’s top students and teachers of God’s Law were trying to use a symbol of worldly government authority in a vain effort to assert their authority over the authority of the Son of God. It was the proverbial “bringing a knife to a gunfight”.

Wrist-lock and throw-down

Now that Jesus has “locked in”, publicly (by having called them “hypocrites”, and then by using the graven image), that the teachers of the Law were using something that is against God’s Law in an attempt to assert authority over the Son of God, it was time for the smackdown. Jesus used the example that they selected — a day’s wage for tax — to show the gathered crowd how far from God’s Law these hypocrites really were. And, they would not be able to escape the verbal wrist-lock.

Jesus told the Pharisees to, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” The fulcrum of this command is the word “and”. Hmmmmm….

The Pharisees had hoped to label Jesus as some sort of “anti-government extremist” (sound familiar…??). But, Jesus turned their attack on its head. Instead of publicly humiliating Jesus as a revolutionary against Caesar (and, thus, making Him subject to arrest by the Roman soldiers for a charge of treason), they entrapped themselves into showing the public that they regarded Rome’s authority over God’s authority. God required everyone to pay the “tithe” (the ten-percent tax for the operation of the Temple and for support of poor people). The Pharisees had implied an either/or question: pay the Temple tithe, or pay the Roman tax? Jesus used one little word, “and”, to tell them to pay both.

By asking the question in that manner, the Pharisees implied that it was only one or the other. But, by answering the way that He did, Jesus turned the situation into a “both/and? scenario. Because they had thrown the first punch, they could not later back away from their actions. The Pharisees were now publicly humiliated for regarding the Roman tax as somehow a higher priority than God’s Law to pay the title.

In His grace, Jesus let them walk away. But, they did so with “egg dripping from their face” and a proverbial “black eye”.