Whose Image Are You? Text: Luke 20:19-26
Introduction: The Politics of Murder
We often come to a passage like this with a sanitized, Sunday School air about us. We think of it as a tidy little lesson on church and state, a neat formula for separating our spiritual lives from our civic lives. But that is to completely misunderstand the scene. This is not a polite seminar on political theory. This is an attempted assassination by proxy. The air is thick with hatred. The scribes and chief priests are seething, their knuckles white, because Jesus has just finished telling a parable that cast them as wicked, murderous tenants who are about to be crushed by the owner of the vineyard. And they knew, the text says, that He spoke this parable against them.
Their response is not repentance. It is not self-examination. It is to double down on the murder plot. But they are cowards, afraid of the people, so they cannot do it themselves. They need the state to do their dirty work for them. They need to trick Jesus into saying something that will allow them to hand Him over to the secular authority, the governor, Pontius Pilate. This is what threatened religious establishments always do when confronted with the raw authority of Jesus Christ. When they cannot win the argument, they try to get the government to outlaw the argument. They wrap their malice in the flag and call it civic duty.
The trap they set is diabolically clever. It is a pincer movement, designed to crush Jesus between the nationalist aspirations of the Jews and the iron fist of Rome. It is a question about taxes. And we must understand that all political questions are, at bottom, theological questions. Every law is an attempt to enforce a particular morality. Every tax code is a statement about what a society values. The question they ask is designed to be a kill shot, no matter how He answers. But they are bringing a political knife to a theological gunfight with the sovereign Lord of the universe. And His answer does not just dismantle their trap; it dismantles their entire worldview and ours along with it.
The Text
And the scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on Him that very hour, but they feared the people. For they understood that He spoke this parable against them. So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, so that they might catch Him in some statement, in order to deliver Him to the rule and the authority of the governor. And they questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, we know that You speak and teach correctly, and You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But He perceived their craftiness and said to them, “Show Me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were unable to catch Him in a word in the presence of the people; and marveling at His answer, they became silent.
(Luke 20:19-26 LSB)
The Honey-Coated Hook (vv. 19-22)
We begin with the setup. The motivation is raw hatred, but the method is pure treachery.
"So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, so that they might catch Him in some statement, in order to deliver Him to the rule and the authority of the governor. And they questioned Him, saying, 'Teacher, we know that You speak and teach correctly, and You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?'" (Luke 20:20-22)
They send spies, actors, men who put on the mask of righteousness. They approach Jesus with the most saccharine flattery. Every word they say about Him is true, but they do not believe a bit of it. "Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You don't play favorites. You don't care about the opinions of the powerful. You just tell it like it is. You teach the way of God in truth." This is the classic devil's trick. He butters you up, praises your courage, and then invites you to demonstrate that courage by jumping off a cliff.
And then comes the question. "Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?" This was not just any tax. This was the poll tax, a head tax levied by Rome on every person in the conquered territory. It was a tangible, yearly reminder of their subjugation. To pay it was to acknowledge Caesar's lordship. The coin used to pay it, the denarius, was a piece of pagan propaganda, bearing the image of Tiberius Caesar and an inscription that declared him to be the son of the "divine" Augustus. For a devout Jew, to even handle such a coin was distasteful; to pay the tax with it felt like a compromise with idolatry.
So the trap is sprung. If Jesus says, "Yes, pay the tax," He will be discredited before the people. The Zealots, who advocated violent rebellion, would label him a Roman collaborator, a traitor to Israel. His popular support would evaporate.
But if He says, "No, do not pay the tax," the spies have him. That is sedition. That is inciting rebellion. They could go straight to Pilate, and the governor would have no choice but to arrest and execute Him as a revolutionary. They thought they had Him. He was trapped. There was no way out.
The Divine Counter-Trap (vv. 23-24)
But Jesus is never trapped. He is the one who sets the terms of every engagement.
"But He perceived their craftiness and said to them, 'Show Me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?' They said, 'Caesar’s.'" (Luke 20:23-24)
He sees right through their fake piety to the malice in their hearts. He calls their scheme what it is: craftiness, trickery. And then He turns the tables with a simple command: "Show Me a denarius." Notice, He does not have one. As the Son of God, the King of Israel, He is not carrying around the blasphemous coinage of a pagan emperor. He makes them produce the evidence. He makes them reach into their own purses and pull out the very coin that proves their own compromise. They are the ones carrying Caesar's image. They are the ones participating in his economic system. Before they even ask the question, their own actions have already answered it.
"Whose likeness and inscription does it have?" The word for likeness is eikon, the same word used in Genesis for the image of God. This is crucial. Jesus is drawing a fundamental distinction. This piece of metal is stamped with the image of a man who pretends to be a god. They answer correctly, "Caesar's." The coin belongs to the one who minted it. It bears his mark. It is his property.
The Lordship of Everything (v. 25)
Now comes the answer that leaves them speechless. It is one of the most profound statements on ethics and government ever uttered.
"And He said to them, 'Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.'" (Luke 20:25)
First, "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." The word for render is apodote, which means "to give back." It is the paying of a debt. Jesus acknowledges the legitimacy of civil government in its proper, limited sphere. Caesar provides a certain amount of order, roads, and a system of commerce, all of which is facilitated by his currency. Fine. Give him his metal back. Pay the tax. This is not an endorsement of Caesar's blasphemous claims, but it is a refusal to engage in pointless, symbolic rebellion over a coin. Paul would later flesh this out in Romans 13, commanding Christians to be subject to the governing authorities and to pay taxes.
But if Jesus had stopped there, He would have been a mere pragmatist. The thunder is in the second clause: "and to God the things that are God's." This is not the creation of two separate, equal kingdoms, the sacred and the secular, where you give your money to the state and your Sundays to God. Not at all. This is the establishment of an absolute hierarchy. The question immediately becomes, what are the things that are God's? What bears God's eikon, His image?
You do. I do. Every human being is created in the image of God. So while Caesar has a limited claim on his coins, God has an absolute, total, and all-encompassing claim on you. You are to render your entire being, your heart, soul, mind, and strength, to God. Your body, your family, your work, your thoughts, your money, your politics, everything. You are God's property. Caesar's claim is derivative; God's claim is ultimate.
This means that you render to Caesar what is his as an act of rendering to God what is His. You pay your taxes as an act of worship, as a submission to the one who ordains all authorities. But it also means that when Caesar commands what God forbids, or forbids what God commands, you must obey God rather than men. Caesar's authority is delegated and limited. God's authority is inherent and absolute. Caesar can have his coin, but he cannot have your conscience. He cannot have your children. And he cannot have your worship.
The Sound of Silence (v. 26)
The effect of this answer was total intellectual and strategic defeat.
"And they were unable to catch Him in a word in the presence of the people; and marveling at His answer, they became silent." (Luke 20:26)
They were checkmated. He had brilliantly avoided both horns of their dilemma. By affirming the tax, He gave them no grounds for a charge of sedition. By subordinating Caesar to the absolute claim of God, He satisfied the deepest principles of the Torah and silenced any accusation that He was a Roman sympathizer. He had answered their political question with a profoundly theological truth that they could not refute.
All they could do was marvel and shut their mouths. They came with a trap and were themselves trapped, exposed as hypocrites who cared neither for the law of God nor the authority of Caesar, but only for their own power. They were silenced by the wisdom of the Word made flesh.
Conclusion: Re-Minting the Coin
This encounter is about far more than taxes. It is about ultimate ownership. The central issue is one of image-bearing. The denarius bore the image of Caesar, so it belonged to Caesar. You bear the image of God, so you belong to God.
But we must confess that the Fall has marred that image in us. Like a coin that has been scraped, defaced, and worn down by sin, the image of God in us is distorted. We have rendered ourselves to other lords, to sin, to self, to idols. We have taken the property of God and given it over to His enemies.
The good news of the gospel is that God has sent His Son, who is the perfect image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), the very stamp of His nature (Heb. 1:3), to buy us back. On the cross, Jesus paid the ultimate debt, not to Caesar, but to the righteous justice of God. And in the resurrection, He began the great work of re-minting us. Through faith in Him, the Holy Spirit begins to re-stamp the image of God on our hearts, conforming us to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29).
So the question for us today is the same. Whose image are you? And to whom are you rendering your life? Are you giving Caesar's little coins back to him while giving your whole self, your allegiance, your worship, and your love to God your maker? For you are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body, in your finances, in your citizenship, and in your soul, for you belong to Him.