Paying Taxes to Caesar
15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
Marriage at the Resurrection
23 That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 24 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. 27 Finally, the woman died. 28 Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”
29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
The day this happens is Wednesday - two days before Jesus will be crucified. In the past couple of days He's been acknowledged by the Messiah and hailed as the conquering hero who will (they think) overthrow the Romans. But then He cleansed the temple and cursed the fig tree, overthrowing the Jewish religious system which is not quite fitting in with their messianic expectations. And on Wednesday, He's back at the temple teaching and preaching the kingdom of heaven. The religious leaders are beyond irate and demand to know by what authority He is doing all this. He refuses to answer them, instead telling them (in 3 parables) that they are under the judgement of God.
In the parable of the two sons He tells them that they are the son who claims he will obey and doesn't, so they will be kept out of the kingdom. On the other hand, the tax collectors and harlots repent and do obey, and they will enter the kingdom instead.
In the parable of the vineyard and the tenant farmers He tells them that they are the tenant farmers who kill the prophets and will kill the very Son of God, therefore the kingdom will be taken from them and given to someone worthy of it.
In the parable of the wedding feast He compares them to people who had been invited to the magnificent wedding feast honouring the Son of the King but they refused to come, so they will be shut out of the kingdom and it will be given to someone else worthy of it.
The religious leaders are furious with Jesus. They know very well exactly what He's saying and that He's talking about them (Matthew 21:45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them.) So they devise a scheme to trap Jesus and hand Him over to Rome. They send their disciples whom Jesus has not seen, along with some Herodians (who would credibly report any Roman threat), and they approach Jesus with flattery (the problem with flattery is that though it is often the truth, the motive behind it is evil) and ask Him if it was right to pay taxes to Caesar because they were certain that He would say no and they could hand Him over to the Romans.
But of course, they could not trap Jesus - He's the Son of God! He calls them out on their hypocrisy immediately, and after having them acknowledge that it was Caesar's image on the coin, He answered simply to give to Caesar what was owed to him, and to God what belonged to God.
In other words, we are to obey the laws of our government (including paying our taxes!). But we are to worship, honour and revere God alone, and He has our allegiance above any earthly power. So if our government demands something that is contrary to God's law, something that is sinful, then government has overstepped it's bounds and we are to obey God rather than men.
So, the religious leaders decide that if they couldn't discredit Him politically, they would still try to discredit Him theologically and try to make Him look like a fool in front of the people. I'm not sure how on earth they thought they would succeed at this, but they did. So they (likely) make up this bizarre story about a woman who ended up marrying 7 brothers because they all kept dying off, and who's wife would she be in the resurrection? The Sadducees didn't believer in the resurrection, but they knew Jesus did, so they thought they could make Him look like a ridiculous polygamist.
And Jesus just flat out tells them they're wrong, and that they're wrong because they don't know the scriptures and they don't know God or His power.
Angels do not marry and they do not have sex, basically becomes they don't need to procreate. There's always been the same number of angels and there always will be. Humans, on the other hand, die. If we didn't get married, have sex and have children, the human race would be wiped out very quickly indeed! So, marriage, sex and procreation is for this life only, not for heaven.
And I admit that sometimes I don't like that idea. Which is a good thing - because it means I like being married. :) But the truth is, that's only because we can only see from a human perspective. And when we are in heaven, the perfection that we experience there will be to the absolute fullest and we will not feel any sense of loss over not being married. I know that in my head, but my heart doesn't get that one. And that's ok. I still believe it to be true.
In heaven, our resurrected bodies will live forever, and in that way we will be like the angels. Our new and perfect bodies will never die, we will never need to be "replaced" and there will be no need for procreation. God absolutely has the power to make our resurrected bodies capable of doing that, and He will.
They do not understand God and His power, and they also do not understand the resurrection. They believed there was no such thing as the resurrection taught by Moses. But they didn't realize Exodus 3:6 was a statement about the resurrection. It says I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Key word - am. Not was. Am. Present tense.
God is not the God of people who are dead and longer exist. And way the language here works is it can mean two things - and in all likelihood it means both. God is the God who belongs to Abraham, and to whom Abraham belongs. He is the God who belong to you, and to whom you belong. God continues to have an intimate relationship with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob which means that they must still be alive.
MacArthur....
He is not the God of dead men. He's the God of the living, and if He said after they were all dead He was their God present tense now, and they belonged to Him and He belonged to them, then they were still some place. The unchanging, eternal, covenant keeping God who made His promises to His chosen will bring them to fulfillment and they are alive and they are alive to rise again, they are alive to enter the fulfillment of the covenant given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They are alive to inherit all that was ever promised to them.
And they were astonished, it absolutely blew their minds that Jesus had come up with an answer to the question no one else had ever been able to answer.
What a wonderful display of the amazing and infinite mind of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, and the confidence He gives us in the scripture and in the resurrection. If Jesus could lean on the Word, so can we. And if He never doubted the resurrection for a second, only days away from what He knew was to be His death - then so can we!
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 22:34-46
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