This story about whether or not we should pay taxes to Caesar is not a story about money.
This story reveales your true identity!
A complete Bible study in only 6 minutes, revealing the deeper thruth of the ancient old story in Matthew 22!
Genesis 1:11-12 NASB
God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation: plants yielding seed,
and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so.
The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind,
and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
God made the animals, the plants and the trees in such a way that they would produce after their own kind.
But God made man after His own kind,
in the image and likeness of God Himself.
Genesis 1:27 (BSB)
So God created man in His own image;
in the image of God He created him;
He also instructed them to bear fruit so that they might multiply in the image and likeness of God.
Genesis 1:28 (BSB)
God blessed them and said to them,
“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.”
This way the whole earth would be filled with His glory; His image and His likeness.
Numbers 14:21 (NKJV)
Truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord!
Man produced other fruit however, and multiplied, not in the likeness of God, but in the likeness of man himself.
Look:
Genesis 5:3 NASB
When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years,
he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image.
We are all born of Adam, in his image and his likeness.
Therefore, we must be born again.
This is why Jesus said:
John 3:3
Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
We must be born again, this time not of Adam, but of God;
In His image and after His likeness.
In a cryptic way, Jesus also says this to the Pharisees and the Herodians.
The Herodians formed a political party.
They supported the descendants of Herod the Great against the governor of Rome, but they lived in friendship with the Romans.
They were very much hated by the Pharisees, but they worked with them to eliminate Jesus.
One day the Pharisees send their disciples and the Herodians to entrap Jesus so that they can accuse him.
They come to Jesus and ask Him:
Matthew 22:17-21 NLT
Now tell us what you think about this:
Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
But Jesus knew their evil motives.
You hypocrites! he said. Why are you trying to trap me?
Here, show me the coin used for the tax.
When they handed him a Roman coin, he asked, Whose picture and title are stamped on it?
Caesar’s, they replied.
Well then, he said, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.
With this text it is important that the original text, the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of the Bible, are carefully studied.
The disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians ask Jesus: Is it lawful to give tax to Caesar?
From the original text we learn that the word didomi is used for the word give.
The answer of Jesus is: Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.
From this we might conclude that Jesus says that the emperor and God are two comparable entities who would have in common that obedience is required to both.
This is of course far from what Jesus is saying here!
The original text shows that Jesus does not use the word didomi.
He uses the word apo-didomi.
This means giving back.
So Jesus’ answer is:
give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar’s, and give back to God what belongs to God.
What this means can also be discovered in the original Greek text….
The coin brought to Jesus by the disciples of the Pharisees is a denarius.
This coin featured an image of Emperor Augustus.
This Augustus was given the name Gaius Octavius at his birth.
After Julius Caesar adopted him as a son, however, he was given a new name;
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, after the name of his adoptive father.
This adoptive father of Augustus, Julius Ceasar, was declared a god after his death.
This explains the text on the coin.
“Imperator Caesar divi filius”
“Commander Caesar, Son of the Divine”
The person depicted on the coin was the adopted son of a man declared a god.
Emperor Augustus was born of another father, but because Julius Caesar adopted him as a son, Augustus had become the son of a god.
The same is also applicable to us.
We are all born of Adam. So Adam is our father.
When we are born again, however, this time not of Adam, but of God, we are accepted by God as His son.
John 1:12 NASB
As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God,
even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
As a son of God we will also be allowed to bear His Name.
Jesus says to John in the Book of Revelation:
Revelation 2:17 (NASB)
To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone,
and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.
The coin bore the image and likeness of Emperor Augustus, the son of a man declared a god.
You, as a son of God, bear the image and likeness of God.
Therefore, give back what belongs to Caesar ➡ everything earthly, the money made in the image of the emperor.
And give back to God what belongs to God ➡ which means….
Ephesians 4:22 NASB
….that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self,
which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,
and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self,
which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
