Brief Thoughts on the Lay of the Land

It’s been obvious to all but the most panicked and fearful that the foolishness of the last couple of years has worn itself out. Even apologists for the government’s authoritarian actions earlier in the shamdemic are critiquing the validity of mandates in an omicron environment while still sanctimoniously congratulating themselves on having supported the control health measures, and ‘loved their neighbour’ through their support of state coercion of citizens to be vaccinated. They rest in the self-righteous knowledge that they have helped save New Zealand.

Except that they haven’t. Sure people weren’t dying of covid when we were all locked in our homes for weeks on end and refusing to let people visit our island nation. But what’s happened since the arrival of omicron? Their god the state through its Messiah figure Ardern promised salvation from covid damnation through the sacraments of masks and vaccination. But like all false gods, this one has failed miserably, much to the mirth of the true God (Psalm 2). Only the truly naive and self-deceived can believe that this has all been worth it. Rampant inflation is one of many signs that God is not mocked. Idolatry always ends badly.

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Caesar Is Lord?

One of the oddest things is how many evangelical Christians have refused to say the vaccination mandates are unjust. Even now as the narrative is collapsing, they refuse to show public support for those protesting the mandates. This seems to me to demonstrate that their functional Lord is Caesar and not Christ.

Shepherds – how is your flock doing?

The failure of the New Zealand church through the pandemic ought to be clear to all except the most blinded by now. I suspect that when we eventually get back to normal, the church won’t look like it did in 2020. Many individual churches have been weighed and found wanting. The rot that was already in some of the timber but painted over with nice glossy paint so that the average Christian didn’t notice it has been exposed for just about all to see. It turns out paint over dry rot counts for nothing when someone comes along and squeezes that timber hard. So what has happened to the flock?

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The Resistance – Repentance – Part 1B

Continued from yesterday

Acknowledge Corporate Sin

In our churches, we need leaders who will help us see the big corporate sins of our age. We’ve often softened our congregations up on the easy topics that leave us feeling justified. It’s easy to rail against greed – especially when we think it is something that only rich people have. And rich people are people who earn at least $25,000 more than me. It’s easy to turn our applications into calls for more people to give up time in their ‘secular’ callings to spend more time helping out in the church institution. These soft and convenient applications have become staple.

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Render to Caesar What is Caesar’s

In yesterday’s article, we highlighted the general weakness of the church in its thinking on government. It is so weak, that when I use the word government, many Christian readers will automatically assume that I am talking about state government. Some will be unaware of any other God-ordained governments. This is because we live in an era where the state government has increased in power and usurped the power of other legitimate and God-ordained spheres of government causing these to atrophy.

In my experience, when one talks to Christians who have imbibed the statist culture about the immorality of the state’s involvement in education, healthcare and welfare or of the evil of redistributionist taxes, one does not have to wait long before one is told that Christians ought to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. What is most frustrating about these conversations is that what is Caesar’s is automatically assumed to be the status quo. It seems Caesar can never overreach his authority.

The Context

So today we will briefly look at this passage. Jesus was nearing the end of his earthly ministry, and he had aroused the envy-ridden ire of the religious leaders. Jesus had just not-so-subtly condemned them for their unwillingness to submit to him and celebrate him as the son of God in a parable that ended in their destruction and the destruction of their city, a not so subtle reference to Jerusalem. In response, the Pharisees set about fulfilling the prophecy by plotting to entangle Jesus. They wanted to get rid of him. However, Jesus had not only made enemies of the religious leaders, but also the political leaders. Herod was not so fond of him either.

This led, as it has throughout history, to the odd alliance of secular power with religious leadership. Some of the disciples of the Pharisees and some Herodians joined together in an attempt to trap Jesus. The Pharisees hated the idea of Jews paying taxes to some foreign overlord. The Herodians, like Herod, were cosied up to the Romans and wanted the status quo to remain. So this unusual alliance comes to Jesus with flattering words. The attempted trap was a question. “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” The trap was laid and ready to be sprung. They thought they had Jesus. They knew his claim – to be the son of the king. They had witnessed the Messianic triumphal entry. They had rebuked him for not suppressing the kingly ascriptions of the crowd and children who entered the temple precincts with him. They knew the Scriptures. The Messiah would rule the nations and dash his enemies to pieces. But they did not believe Jesus was the Messiah.

So their trap was an attempt to force Jesus to make explicit what had been implicit up until this time or suffer the wrath of the people. If Jesus was truly the Messiah, they expected he would own it by saying everything belongs to me, and therefore Caesar does not have the right to take money from the Jews, my people. This would make him an enemy to Caesar who would brook no opposition to his claims to deity and rule. That would mean death. If on the other hand he wavered and claimed Caesar had the authority to tax the Jews, he would lose the popularity that so provoked them.

Jesus Reply and Its Meaning

So this is the context of Jesus’ reply. It was a trap. Jesus knew his time was very near, but it was not yet. He must die when the times were fulfilled. He had to be the Passover lamb. So Jesus asks for a coin to be brought to him. He asks whose inscription is on the coin. Of course, it is the image of Caesar. Then Jesus says, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God, what is God’s.” The response of those who heard this was to marvel. Jesus had not been trapped and answered in an amazing way. Our problem is we don’t see how amazing his answer was. It was not an answer that ruled in favour of the Herodians or the Pharisees. If we don’t get that, we miss what we should marvel at. Jesus took the trap by its jaws and broke it.

First of all, his listeners are told to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, or what is due to him. That means Caesar does have things that are due to him. Caesar can tax. Caesar does have a legitimate realm in which to exercise authority. The Pharisees, whose hatred for the Romans caused them to reject the tax, hated authority in general. Their king had come, and they plotted how to take his authority. To them, Jesus says, “There are things that you must render to Caesar.”

But there is more. And this is what our modern secularised statist Christians fail to understand. Too often, Christians assume that Jesus is saying that government has carte blanche on what Caesar owns and ought to be rendered. When they tell us to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s they leave the very question of what belongs to Caesar unanswered. They assume Caesar is due everything he claims he is due. Why? Because their secular education with its idol of state and demos has trained them in worship well.

However, as Douglas Wilson often points out, one of the things Caesar is not rendered is the right to determine what should be rendered to him! Jesus’ answer was not simply “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” He finished by saying, “and to God what is God’s.”

The very coin that Jesus asked for, the denarius, had an inscription of Caesar on the coin, and would have had the words “Tiberius Caesar Augustus Son to the Divine Augustus” and on the other side, “Highest Priest”. Do these titles belong to Caesar? Should the early Christians have rendered them to him? Well considering he lies dead to this day awaiting the command of Christ to come out from his grave….of course not. Caesar thought he ought to have these titles rendered to him but they belong to Christ.

Furthermore, his first-century audience, well-versed in Scriptures would have been reminded of another image on something more valuable than a cold dead piece of metal. Man was stamped with the very image of God. Thus each one of those men in front of Jesus ought to have been rendered to God. The Pharisees, who stood in the way of the king ought to have bowed down before him. The supporters of the immoral Herod ought to have given themselves to Christ. All men ought to be rendered to God. All positions of authority ought to be rendered to God. All things ought to be rendered to God, because they are all his.

What does this mean? It means Caesar ought to render himself to God, by governing according to God’s laws, and not arrogating to himself what God has given to others. If he refuses to do this, he is not following Christ’s dictum here. In these very words, Jesus signaled the coming of the end to all totalitarians and self-aggrandizing powers. Nimrod in the days of the tower of Babel, the Pharaohs of Egypt, the kings and rulers of Assyria, Babylon and Persia and Greece, and yes, the Caesars of Rome were totalitarians. They abused and oppressed their citizens. But now, Christ has come, and he sounds the warning to all would-be oppressive regimes. Their end is nigh. Christ is king. He rules. Rulers and enemies who take counsel against him will be dashed in pieces. For he reigns. His yoke is easy and his burden light. And he shall have dominion, not they.

As Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, it conquered in a slow and gradual way. Even Caesar eventually rendered himself to God. As this took place, and as the fruit of Christianity gradually spread over the ensuing two millennia, where Christ’s kingdom has held sway, tyrants have been toppled and a Christian view of government has gradually developed and influenced society giving freedom to citizens. It is because of Christ’s words here in Matthew, and elsewhere that absolute monarchy was abolished. It is because of his words that the Constitution which granted rights to the individual became the founding document of the United States of America. Christ’s rule and reign brings freedom from the old way of tyranny. Unfortunately, as nations turn against Christ and embrace the idol of statism, they will once again suffer tyranny. If we will not render ourselves to God, He will hand us over to the not-so-tender love of our false gods.

In our current setting, we are really in little danger of refusing to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. This is not a problem many of us have. But in what seems a common danger, our leaders will use verses like these ones to challenge us on a sin that few of us are likely to commit while neglecting to highlight the very real danger almost all of us are in. “Make sure you give Caesar his due,” they remind their law-abiding congregations as we struggle to support our families on one income under exorbitant redistributive taxes that reward idleness and immorality. We will rail against a sin that we are unlikely to be committing because it’s more comfortable that way, and our religious leaders can remain ‘respectable’ in the eyes of the secular elite. Once again, just as in Jesus’ time, our religious leaders and secular leaders seem united in their opposition to Christ’s claims of universal lordship.

Let us not settle for that uneasy truce. Let us remember the things we ought to render to God. First of all, we render ourselves to God, not Caesar. We belong to God, not our rulers. When our governments try to tyrannise us or threaten us as if we belong to them, we should tell them in no uncertain terms that they ought to render themselves to God, and that we most certainly will never render ourselves to them. We will say as one, “I will never render complete and utter obedience to you, because I belong to God, and therefore I am not your slave. I was bought by Christ and I am now free.”

Secondly, we will never render our children to them. My children have the very image of God stamped on them. Of course they do not belong to the government! Therefore I will not let an out-of-control and self-aggrandizing government take my children and brainwash them in their overweening attempts at control through education. That would be idolatry on my part. So I say to the state, “They are not your children, they belong to Christ.”

Thirdly we will not render our work to the government. Sure, because they are bigger than us, and can unjustly take our money from us to give to their pet idolatries, we might be bullied and forced to give up the fruits of our labour. But we will recognise that this labour and its fruit does not belong to them. God has called each man to the task of dominion. As God enjoyed the fruit of his work, and blessed it, so each man ought to enjoy the fruit of his own work. It ought not to be confiscated from him and its blessing be transferred to another. This is unjust, and the God of justice will judge such wickedness.

Fourthly and on a related note, we will remind them, and our fellow citizens that the role of the state is a minister of the sword. God appoints the state to administer justice. They are stewards of the authority he gives them. Christians who are not naive realise that despite allowing the state to bear the sword, Christ does not authorise it to kill indiscriminately or make up its own standards of justice. This same logic applies to the role of the state. Yes, Christ commands us to render tax to Caesar and Caesar can lawfully tax. But that does not mean he cannot unlawfully tax. When Caesar taxes to usurp authority that Christ has not given him, he is in rebellion against Christ. Christ has given the state a particular role. It is not the minister of welfare. Nor is it the minister of education. And it certainly isn’t the minister of economics. It is not minister of the Word and Sacrament. Whenever the state steps outside of its God-given bounds, it is rebelling against its king, Jesus Christ. We will do all we can to encourage our fellow Christians to reject the idolatry of statism and to worship Christ alone. We will encourage them to reject the easy, but almost always idolatrous answer to all problems that begins with the words, “The government needs to…” We will work to see the state reject its idolatry and fulfill the calling Christ has given it. This means we need the gospel of Christ’s lordship to be preached and accepted in the hearts of our fellow citizens. Repent and believe. Christ is Lord, not Caesar.

Who Do They Belong To?

One of the idols of our age is the state. And education is very important to the state, particularly the leftist state which seeks to control and manipulate every area of life to achieve utopia. They need to produce compliant citizens who will follow their dictates mindlessly. Part of this of course is that much of what they say is arrant nonsense, and it takes a certain type of idiot to listen to them. For example, only someone bereft of sanity – an idiot – can sagely proclaim that a man with a few bits chopped off and given some hormone treatment is a woman. So you see, they believe they must control education, and education is not about developing critical thinking and intelligence as much as they try to tell you that. If it was, they would free it up to different views and approaches.

You don’t believe me? At teacher’s college, I wrote an essay suggesting that teacher registration was a waste of time, because it didn’t protect students, and it didn’t improve teacher standards. Moreover, I argued that independent schools should have the freedom to employ people who have not jumped through the ideological hoops required by registration since to attract students who pay fees when the government holds a monopoly of ‘free’ schools obviously forces those schools to provide a superior service. Predictably, my essay was not looked upon favourably. Written comments from more than one lecturer were recorded on the paper which I had never seen before. One comment in particular stuck with me. “We must have gatekeepers.” Yes, quite. The statists have to control who teaches your children. That is an assumed good.

So statists, and unfortunately most teachers are statists, do not believe that parents are responsible for the education and training of their children. Setting themselves against Christ, they believe that children must be rendered unto Caesar and his bureaucratic minions. They arrogate to themselves what belongs to parents. In New Zealand, we see this in their monopolistic control of education generally, and in their zoning rules (and a host of other rules) specifically. We also see it in the way teachers think they have the right to teach values contrary to the wishes of parents.

Indeed, this evil has saturated the Western world. A couple of recent examples are in order. In Loudoun County, Virginia, the district educational leaders have proposed policies requiring teachers to use a child’s preferred gender pronouns. At a public meeting on this issue, parents were so opposed to this, that the board closed public comments at the meeting, and the police declared an unlawful assembly. Two parents were apparently arrested for refusing to leave the meeting. There is nothing so frustrating to these control freaks than to have parents arrogantly assume they have a say in what their children are being taught.

In other parts of the US, teachers, are complaining about the crackdown by conservatives on critical race theory being taught in schools. Here’s one example of the kind of ill-educated brainwashing robots government schools tend to attract.

So what should you do? Get your children out of government schools. Seriously. What are you waiting for? Do not render to Caesar what belongs to God. Give your children an actual education. “Free compulsory education” gets a one out of three. Yes, there is compulsion. It’s not free and it’s not education. It costs the souls of our children and stifles their ability to think and challenge the idolatrous State.