17 

The Pathology of a Religious Hypocrite
(Mark 12:13–17) 

Then they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him in order to trap Him in a statement. They came and said to Him, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay?” But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at.” They brought one. And He said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were amazed at Him. (12:13–17)

The miraculous life and works of the Lord Jesus Christ clearly and convincingly demonstrated His deity. His virgin birth led to a sinless life, which perfectly displayed God’s mercy, compassion, and love. Christ’s power over the demonic realm, disease, death, and the natural world, and fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy was undeniable. Even His opponents never denied His supernatural power, miracles, and unequaled wisdom (Matt. 7:28; John 7:46). Nor did they deny His sinless life; His challenge, “Which one of you convicts Me of sin?” (John 8:46) went unanswered.

But though they could not deny the supernatural nature of Jesus’ life and deeds, the Jewish religious leaders hated and rejected Him. For three years, beginning with His first assault on the temple (John 2:13–20), they had dogged His steps. They were the gatekeepers, the ones who were supposed to shepherd God’s people, to preserve and teach the divine truth revealed in the Old Testament. Yet when Jesus, the promised Messiah, came, rather than honor and accept Him, they sought to destroy Him and succeeded. Instead of their Lord and King, they viewed Him as the enemy of the religion they taught and believed, and of the traditions by which they lived their lives. Faced with the choice of repenting and believing in Him, or eliminating Him, the religious leaders, chose the latter.

Jesus, of course, was well aware of their hatred and intention to kill Him. He spoke of it often to His disciples. Earlier on that Wednesday of Passion Week, He crafted a parable that reflected on Israel’s past leaders for persecuting and murdering the prophets, and indicted the present leadership for plotting to kill the Son of God (see the exposition of that parable in the previous chapter).

The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Monday demonstrated His unparalleled popularity, so before they could kill Jesus, they first had the task of turning the people against Him. In an amazing display of wicked cunning, they managed in a few days to manipulate a complete reversal of the people’s attitude toward Him. The same Passover crowd that had enthusiastically embraced Jesus as the Messiah on Monday would on Friday cry out, “Crucify Him!” (Mark 15:13–14).

To bring about the death of the Lord Jesus, the Jewish leaders not only had to turn the people against Him, they needed also to persuade the Romans to execute Him. To accomplish both, the Sanhedrin decided to set three traps for Jesus; this passage records the first of the three. By so doing, Israel’s rulers revealed the dark sins of deception that dominated them, including hatred, pride, flattery, deception, and above all, their consummate hypocrisy. Three aspects of that hypocrisy stand out in this passage. Religious hypocrites make awkward alliances against the truth, will say anything to gain their ground, and falsely pretend to pursue the truth.

RELIGIOUS HYPOCRITES MAKE AWKWARD ALLIANCES AGAINST THE TRUTH

Then they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him in order to trap Him in a statement. (12:13)

Satan can orchestrate all the various forms of false religion under his control to attack the truth, and history records some of those unholy alliances. Truth, on the other hand, cannot make alliances with error. After scheming to eliminate Jesus (Matt. 22:15) and sending “spies who pretended to be righteous, in order that they might catch Him in some statement” (Luke 20:20), the Sanhedrin sprang its first machination: they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him in order to trap Him in a statement. The Greek word translated trap appears only here in the New Testament, and refers to a hunter capturing an animal or a fisherman catching a fish. These men masqueraded as emissaries and agents of the true and living God, stewards of divine truth, and faithful shepherds of Israel—all the while seeking to have His Son the Messiah put to death.

Their plan was to force the action of their hated enemies, the Romans. Rome was very sensitive to the potential of insurrection, especially during the Passover season with its high enthusiasm and massive crowds, and could be counted on to move with force against any rebels. If they could trap Jesus into making an anti-Roman statement, they could report Him to the governor as a political revolutionary. By “deliver[ing] Him to the rule and the authority of the governor” (Luke 20:20), they would discredit Him in the eyes of the people. Jesus’ arrest would prove that He had no power over the Romans, and hence could not deliver Israel from Rome’s iron grip, as they expected Messiah to do.

The nineteenth-century American author Charles Dudley Warner once wrote, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” So also does false religion. The Pharisees and Herodians were ideological antagonists who could not have been more opposite in their political and religious views. The Pharisees were the most extreme advocates of religious law and conduct; the Herodians the least religious and violators of all that was sacred to Jews. The Pharisees were most concerned with the law of God; the Herodians were most concerned with the law of Rome. The Pharisees were most devoted to Israel; the Herodians were most devoted to Rome. The Pharisees were intensely religious; the Herodians were intensely political. Essentially, the Herodians were sycophants to Caesar and loyal to the Herodian family, in this case, Herod Antipas, the governor of Galilee and Perea. Antipas was not Jewish; he was half Idumaean and half Samaritan. After his father Herod the Great died, Antipas had been made ruler (under the ultimate authority and allowance of Rome) of a portion of his father’s kingdom.

Though the Pharisees despised the Herodians, they knew they could be useful in their plot to eliminate Jesus. Wanting to get rid of Jesus because of His withering critiques of their aberrant theology and their hypocritical personal lives, they knew that the Romans would not execute Jesus because of a theological dispute with His fellow Jews. Gallio, the Roman proconsul of Achaia, would later illustrate that Roman reticence to intervene in Jewish theological matters. When the Jews at Corinth accused the apostle Paul before him of “persuad[ing] men to worship God contrary to the law” (Acts 18:13), he refused to get involved:

The Pharisees therefore intended to trap Jesus into making an inflammatory political statement in front of the Herodians, who would then report that to Rome’s agents, Herod and Pilate. If they handled their plot well, the Romans, ever on the alert for any sign of rebellion, could be baited into arresting and executing Jesus as a threat to their power. Already aware that He had entered Jerusalem on Monday at the head of tens of thousands of fervently enthusiastic followers, they also knew that He had single-handedly thrown the merchants out of the temple on Tuesday, and thus were no doubt already alerted to Him as a potential troublemaker.

RELIGIOUS HYPOCRITES WILL SAY ANYTHING TO GAIN THEIR GROUND

They came and said to Him, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. (12:14a)

False religionists often resort to flattery as a ploy to advance their agenda. Cults that deny the truth about the Lord Jesus claim to love and honor Him. This delegation, sent by the Sanhedrin, came to Jesus and flatteringly addressed Him as teacher, a term of honor reserved for rabbis. It must have been hard for them to bring themselves to address the one whom they hated and whose doctrine they despised by that honorable title.

But what they said next must have been an even more painful lie if they had any functioning conscience. “We know that You are truthful, they said to Him. Luke records that they even added, “You speak and teach correctly” (orthōs, from which the English word “orthodoxy” derives, Luke 20:21). Of course they did not believe that He taught correctly and spoke the truth, or else they would not have so viciously opposed Him. The reality is that they viewed Him as a deceiver, liar, and fraud, who had to be silenced by death. Their flattery, however, had at least two devious purposes. First, they were pretending to identify with the people who, for the most part, did believe that Jesus taught the truth. The religious leaders wanted to convince the people that they, too, were legitimate truth seekers. Second, and more important, they wanted to inflate the Lord’s pride, hoping that would keep Him from dodging the question they were about to ask Him.

But they were not yet finished flattering Jesus. Not only did they declare Him to be truthful but also said that He would defer to no one. Their point was that Christ was so committed to the truth that He did not equivocate and change His message based on human opinion or negative consequences. He was not partial to any. Boldly they reinforced their earlier flattery that He was truthful by affirming that Jesus taught the way of God in truth. All that they said about Him was true, but they did not believe any of their own words. Such is the extreme deception of their false praise. Ironically, Jesus would soon demonstrate His impartial refusal to defer to anyone by issuing a scathing denunciation and judgment of these very men and those who sent them (Matt. 23:1–36).

RELIGIOUS HYPOCRITES FALSELY PURSUE THE TRUTH

Is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay?” But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at.” They brought one. And He said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were amazed at Him. (12:14b–17)

Thinking that they had the people and Jesus drawn in to their deception, the Pharisees and Herodians sprang their trap. With feigned sincerity and respect for His answer as a truth teller, they asked Him, “Is it lawful (according to divine law) to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay?” In reality they were only attempting to discredit Him publicly by forcing Him into an inescapable dilemma. Their expectation was that Jesus would have to answer that Jews should not have to pay the tax, because doing so would be a violation of God’s law. The people paid taxes to idolatrous Rome not by choice but because they were forced into doing so. They loathed Rome and its occupying presence in their land. Because they believed that the land of Israel and everything in it belonged to God, they hated giving anything to pagan idol worshipers whose presence desecrated God’s land.

Among the numerous taxes imposed on them by Rome (e.g., on imports, transportation, land, crops, etc.; Luke used a general term for such taxes in Luke 20:22), the universally abhorred payment by the Jewish people was the poll-tax. This was a tax not on their land or their goods but on their persons. It consisted of one denarius (a day’s wages for a common laborer) per person per year. What made this tax more hateful than the rest was its implication that Caesar owned them, while they were truly God’s possession (cf. John 8:33). They had been made subjects to another god, a violation of the first commandment (Ex. 20:3).

The issue of taxation had always been an explosive one, and occasionally the Jews’ smoldering resentment flared up into open revolt. In A.D. 6, a Galilean named Judas, the founder of the Zealots (to which Jesus’ disciple Simon had belonged; Mark 3:18), led a revolt in Galilee in response to a Roman census connected with collecting the poll-tax (see the reference to this revolt in Acts 5:37). Though the revolt was crushed and Judas and his followers killed, Jewish resentment against paying taxes to Rome lingered. Eventually, it would help trigger the Jewish revolt against Rome in A.D. 66–70 that led to the devastation of Israel and the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem.

Given that background, if Jesus answered that they should not pay the tax, the Herodians would view Him as another Judas of Galilee and report Him to the Romans. On the other hand, if He answered that they should pay taxes, the people would turn on Him and His popularity would plummet.

At this point the focus of the story turns from the devious manipulations of the Sanhedrin to the infinite knowledge and wisdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Since “He Himself knew what was in man” (John 2:25), He understood their hypocrisy, “detected their trickery” (Luke 20:23), and “perceived their malice” (Matt. 22:18). Therefore Jesus said to them, “Why are you testing Me?” Matthew notes that He added, “you hypocrites” (Matt. 22:18). As noted above, the delegation did not approach Jesus looking for an answer to an honest question. They were not pursuing the truth but rather seeking to snare Him in a manner that would lead to His execution.

The Lord’s response was simple and profound. He called for them to bring Him a denarius to look at. It may have taken them some time to find one, since most Jews refused to carry them. A denarius was a silver coin minted under the authority of the emperor and equal to a day’s wages for a Roman soldier or a common Jewish laborer (cf. Matt. 20:2). A denarius in Jesus’ day probably bore the image of Tiberius Caesar who, since he was the adopted son of the deified emperor Augustus, was the son of a god. The Jews therefore considered the coins to be miniature idols, and carrying them to be a violation of the second commandment’s prohibition of idolatry (Ex. 20:4).

Eventually, they located one and brought it to Jesus, no doubt expecting Him to denounce the coin, and by extension the false god Caesar, and declare that the law of the true Lord forbids paying tribute to him. When He responded with that expected reply, the Herodians would immediately report Him to Pilate. The governor would have no choice but to have Jesus arrested, discrediting Him in the eyes of the Jewish populace. As noted above, the people expected Messiah to overthrow the Romans, not be captured by them.

The Lord’s unexpected retort, however, shattered their evil expectation. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” He told them, “and to God the things that are God’s.” The profundity of that far-reaching statement should not be overshadowed by its simplicity. Jesus clearly taught that paying taxes to a secular government is an obligation; the Greek verb translated render refers to repaying something that is owed.

Scripture teaches that government is an institution of God. In Romans 13:1–7 Paul wrote,

Peter wrote of that same truth in his first epistle:

Submitting to the government also involves praying for those in positions of authority, as Paul wrote to Timothy: “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity” (1 Tim. 2:1–2).

Civil authority is an expression of common grace. There has been no legitimate sacral society since the end of Israel’s theocracy, and there will be none until the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth in His millennial kingdom. In between there is no such thing as a Christian government, or a Christian nation. But even secular governments provide many benefits for their citizens. The Romans’ military might provided peace, security, and protection. The roads they built and the shipping networks they maintained expedited the flow of goods that added to their subjects’ prosperity. It was just and fair for them to expect the services they provided to be paid for by those who benefited from them. Caesar had his sphere, and not to pay him his due was to rob him. Jesus affirmed the role of government to collect taxes for its support because it is God’s ordained means for man’s protection and well-being. The only time government may be legitimately disobeyed is when it commands something contrary to the law of God, or forbids something commanded by it.

Of far greater importance than giving Caesar his due is to render to God the things that are God’s. The Jewish leaders balked at giving Caesar what was due him, but far worse they disregarded giving to God what was due to Him. The most immediate and blatant example of that was their refusal to honor His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all honor is due, since to honor Him is to honor God (John 5:23; cf. Matt. 17:5). All people owe God obedience to the greatest commandment in His law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30; see the exposition of that verse in chapter 19).

The denarius belonged to Caesar and bore his image; people belong to God and bear His image. The coin can be rendered to Caesar in obedience to temporal law, but obedience and honor is to be rendered to God in light of divine law.

The Sanhedrin’s initial attempt to lure Jesus onto their hook had failed dismally. But though they were amazed at Him because of the profound wisdom in the simplicity of His reply, they had no intention of reexamining their obligation to God. Instead, they became morosely silent (Luke 20:26) and left, defeated again (Matt. 22:22).

In the end, since their attempt to suck Jesus into incriminating Himself through flattery failed, they were left only to resort to an outright lie. He would not say anything to indict Himself, so they took Him before Pilate and “they began to accuse Him, saying, ‘We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King’” (Luke 23:1–2). Such sinful stubbornness revealed that like all who persist in religious hypocrisy, they were in a hopeless, irremediable, and unredeemable spiritual condition.