Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Image of Caesar and the Sovereign’s Soul (Matthew 22:15-22)

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The Image of Caesar and the Sovereign’s Soul (Matthew 22:15-22) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform thinking. It is is really great to have
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  you with us today. Yeah.
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  Thanks for tuning in everyone. So imagine you are stepping up
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  to a public microphone. You are looking out at this, you
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  know, completely hostile crowd, and you know that the very next
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  sentence out of your mouth will either ignite a bloody civilian
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  riot or or it will get you executed by the state for
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  treason. Right, there is no third option
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  there. Yeah, no third option at all.
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  You are completely trapped, and that is the precise scenario
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  we're looking at today. We are examining 2 comprehensive
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  theological expositions on Matthew 22.1522.
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  Which you probably know as the famous Render unto Caesar
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  passage, right? Our mission for today's Deep
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  dive is to uncover the strict distinction between our civic
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  duty and our absolute devotion to God, and we are viewing this
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  entirely through a Reformed theological lens that adheres to
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  the Westminster Confession. Yeah, that is a really crucial
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  framework for us today. Definitely.
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  Now, as always, just a quick ground rule for our discussion.
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  We will let each other finish our thoughts completely without
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  interrupting throughout the audio.
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  I agree that is always a good rule to maintain.
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  OK, let's unpack this. To grasp why this question about
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  taxes is so explosive, we first, you know, we really need to set
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  the historical scene. We do.
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  Context is everything here. Right, so we are situated on the
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  Tuesday of Passion Week. Jesus is teaching in the temple
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  courts and this is just days before he goes to the cross.
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  Yes, the tension in Jerusalem is already at a boiling point.
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  It really is, and the crowd approaching him is this
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  unnatural, unholy alliance. You have the Pharisees, who are
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  the rigorous religious purists of the day, standing side by
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  side with Herodians. Right, the political
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  compromisers. Yeah, the ones completely loyal
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  to Rome, and I mean these two groups despised each other.
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  They absolutely hated each other.
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  I mean, to understand the gravity of this alliance, you
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  have to look at their origins. Yeah.
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  Give us some background on that. Well, the Pharisees trace their
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  theological lineage back to the Maccabean revolt, so their whole
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  identity was built on on strict separation from Gentile
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  influence. They wanted nothing to do with
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  Pagan culture. Nothing at all.
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  They believed that Israel's subjugation to Rome was a direct
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  result of failing to keep the Torah meticulously.
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  OK, so that is the religious side.
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  What about the Herodians, right? Then you have the Herodians, and
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  they are not a religious sect at all, they are a political
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  faction. Purely political.
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  Yeah, their livelihood, their status, their wealth, all of it
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  depends on keeping the Herodian dynasty in place.
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  And that means keeping Rome happy.
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  Wow, so for these two groups to walk into the temple courts
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  together, it is like seeing water and oil suddenly mix.
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  Yeah, it is shocking. The only thing that could unite
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  them was a shared lethal hatred for the Son of God.
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  And the trap they set for him centers around a highly
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  flammable crisis, which is the Roman pull tax.
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  Yes, the text calls it the consos.
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  Right, the sources specify this is a specific head tax
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  instituted in 86 by the Roman governor Critias.
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  And we have to be clear here, this is not just an annoying
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  bureaucratic fee. No, this tax had a huge body
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  count attached to it, right? A massive body count.
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  When Quirinius instituted that census and the accompanying tax,
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  it sparked a major Zealot rebellion led by a man named
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  Judas of Galilee. Judas of Galilee, right?
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  What was his main argument? He essentially preached that God
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  alone was the Lord of Israel, so paying a direct head tax to a
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  Pagan emperor was tantamount to high treason against the
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  Almighty. That is a very intense
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  theological position. It was, and the Roman military
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  response was brutal and swift. Thousands of Jewish rebels were
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  crucified. Entire villages were burned to
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  the. So the memory of that slaughter
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  is still very fresh for the people in the temple.
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  Oh, very fresh. So when the Pharisees and
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  Herodians walk up to Jesus decades later and ask is it
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  lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, they are not asking a
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  theoretical question in a university classroom.
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  Right. It is not an academic debate.
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  Not at all. They are dragging a barrel of
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  gunpowder into the temple and, you know, just handing Jesus the
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  match. Let us map out the lethal nature
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  of this trap for the listener, because it is a brilliant,
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  vicious snare. It really is.
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  If Jesus answers yes, it is lawful, pay the tax, the
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  Pharisees win. They will immediately denounce
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  him to the crowds as a traitor to the Covenant.
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  Right. They will paint him as a false
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  Messiah who sympathizes with Pagan Rome.
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  Yeah, and his public influence is destroyed instantly.
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  The crowds would turn on. Him, but if he answers no, do
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  not pay the tax, then the Herodians win.
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  Because they are standing right there ready to report him.
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  Exactly. I mean precisely.
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  They are ready to run to the Roman governor and charge him
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  with sedition, which carries the death penalty.
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  And the Greek text confirms that vicious intent, does it not?
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  It does. Matthew writes that the
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  Pharisees took counsel how they might entangle him in his words.
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  Entangle. What is the original word there?
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  The verb used there is pegidosin.
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  OK. And if you look at extra
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  biblical literature from that period, or how that word is
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  utilized in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation
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  of the Old Testament, it carries a highly specific connotation.
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  What kind of connotation? Describes a hunter setting a
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  hidden snare to catch a bird. Oh wow, so it is predatory.
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  Highly predatory. The questioners were not seeking
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  truth. They were not wrestling with a
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  genuine ethical dilemma. They were hunting.
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  That brings up a fascinating point regarding the psychology
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  of hypocrisy. How so?
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  Well, the way they approach him is just sickeningly sweet.
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  I mean, they walk up and say, teacher, we know that you are
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  true and teach the way of God in truth.
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  Yeah, the. Flattery is heavy.
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  It is so heavy they use the vocabulary of orthodox
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  righteousness to mask a murderous intent.
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  It is chilling, really. It really is.
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  It is a terrifying reality that polished external religion can
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  completely camouflage A hardened, rebellious heart.
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  I would say it is the apex of moral evil.
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  Hypocrisy is not just, you know, failing to live up to your
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  ideals. It is weaponizing the language
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  of holy to execute wickedness. Right.
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  They are standing in the sacred precincts of the temple,
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  speaking the language of divine truth while actively plotting to
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  murder the author of that truth. That is a great way to summarize
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  it. It's.
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  Kind of like a modern hostile press briefing, right?
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  Where reporters ask these loaded gotcha questions to force a
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  public relations disaster. Yeah, that is a solid analogy.
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  Except here, the stakes are not a bad news cycle.
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  The stakes are lethal. Absolutely lethal, but Christ
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  does not just listen to the syllables coming out of their
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  mouths. No, he reads the motives buried
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  in their chests. Verse 18 states plainly that
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  Jesus perceived their wickedness.
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  He instantly reverses the interrogation.
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  He really does. He does not take the bait.
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  Instead, he asks for a visual aid.
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  He says show me the coin for the tax.
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  And what happens next is so revealing.
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  Right, because out of their own robes, right there in the
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  temple, they produce a Roman denarius and hand it to him.
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  What's fascinating here is the massive systematic theological
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  weight carried by that short phrase.
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  Jesus perceived their wickedness.
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  Yes, let us get into the theology of that moment.
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  Our sources highlight how Christ's immediate, infallible
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  knowledge of their malice affirms the doctrine of God's
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  exhaustive foreknowledge. So he is not just guessing what
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  they are up to. No, He knows their hearts
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  perfectly. Within our reformed framework,
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  this completely dismantles modern theological errors like
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  open theism. Let us pause and clarify that
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  for the listener, because that is a big claim.
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  Sure, yeah. Open theism essentially argues
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  that God does not know the future choices of free
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  creatures, or that his knowledge is somehow limited by human
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  action. It acts as if God is reacting to
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  events as they unfold. Right, that is an accurate
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  summary of that view, and that view collapses entirely upon
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  reading this text. Because Christ is not reacting
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  at all. Not even a little bit.
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  He is not caught off guard by their flattery.
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  Furthermore, this affirms his absolute sovereignty as
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  mediator, which aligns perfectly with the Westminster Confession
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  of Faith. Oh yes, Chapter 5 on Providence.
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  Yes, chapter 5 and also chapter 8 on Christ the Mediator.
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  The Confession makes it clear that the Sovereign Lord actively
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  navigates the treacherous snares of reprobate men to fulfill the
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  Divine decree. His omniscience is actively
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  operating. Here and his strategy and asking
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  for the coin is just brilliant. Because by producing the
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  denarius, the Pharisees implicate themselves.
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  I mean, think about the physical reality of this moment.
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  They are trying to trap Jesus between devotion to God and
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  civic responsibility, but they themselves are carrying the
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  token of that civil obligation. They have it right there in
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  their pockets. Yes, they are actively
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  participating in the Roman economic system, They utilize
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  the Roman roads, they trade in the Roman markets, and they
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  benefit from the administrative order of the Empire.
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  Yeah, they are fully embedded in it.
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  So by reaching into their robes and pulling out that coin, they
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  expose their supposed moral dilemma as opportunistic rage.
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  They self incriminate, but the brilliance of Christ's response
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  goes even further when you look at the syntax of the exchange.
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  The Greek syntax. Yes, in verse 17, the opponents
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  frame their question using the Greek verb did me, which
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  translates as to give. OK, so they ask, is it lawful to
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  give tribute to Caesar? Right, They phrase it as if the
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  tax is a voluntary gift, like a free will offering of devotion.
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  Oh, I see. But in verse 21, Jesus corrects
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  their grammar. He replies using the verb APA
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  dude me, which means to render or to pay back a debt.
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  Oh wow, that is a massive shift. In category that is.
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  Huge. Going from a voluntary gift to a
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  mandatory debt completely alters the theological landscape.
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  It fundamentally changes the ground of the debate.
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  Giving to Caesar is not an act of worship.
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  It is not a voluntary gift of your devotion.
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  No, it is a transaction. Right.
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  It is simply paying back a temporal debt for the services
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  provided by the civil state. The coin was minted by Caesar's
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  government. It belongs to his economic
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  system. So therefore paying the tax is
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  simply returning what already belongs to that temporal
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  administration. Yeah, that is the logic Jesus
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  employs. So if Jesus establishes that
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  paying the tax is just settling A temporal debt, he introduces a
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  natural friction point for the early church.
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  A very significant friction point.
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  Because where does that debt end?
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  Acknowledging that the coin is owed to the state forces us to
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  define the legitimate boundaries of the state.
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  And Jesus does exactly he does that very thing.
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  He looks at the silver denarius and asks whose image and
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  inscription are on it. They replies Caesar's.
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  And then Christ delivers the first half of his famous
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  mandate. Render, therefore, to Caesar the
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  things that are Caesar's. We have to consider what was
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  physically stamped on that piece of silver though, yes.
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  Let us look. At that, because the coin bore
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  the E Shim, the physical image of Tiberius Caesar.
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  And the inscription. Right, the inscription on those
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  specific denari typically read Tiberius Caesar Devi Augusti
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  Phileas Augustus. Which translates to Tiberius
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  Caesar, Worshipful son of the divine Augustus.
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  That is a blatant claim of divine status.
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  It is pure idolatry. Wait, I have to push back here,
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  or at least ask the question our listeners are probably thinking.
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  Sure, go ahead. The confession states that God
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  ordains the magistrate, but Tiberius Caesar literally
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  claimed to be a God on the very currency they were using.
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  Yeah, it was stamped right on the silver, so.
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  How can a Reformed Christian square submitting to an entity
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  that fundamentally blasphemes the creator?
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  How does paying a tax with a blasphemous coin not constitute
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  idolatry? That is a highly practical
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  question, and it is the precise tension our sources address
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  today. OK, break it down for us.
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  The distinction lies in the sphere of authority.
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  The text establishes that the state possesses a real,
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  providential, yet strictly subordinate authority.
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  Subordinate being the keyword. Yes, our sources make it clear
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  that this command completely aligns with the Westminster
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  Confession of Faith Chapter 23. Which is titled of the Civil
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  Magistrate. Right.
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  That chapter establishes that God has ordained civil
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  magistrates to be under Him and over the people for His own
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  glory and the public good. So the authority of the state is
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  derivative. It is not inherent to Caesar at
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  all. It is delegated by God.
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  Precisely. Consequently, Christians have a
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  legitimate civic obligation. Paying taxes, honoring
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  magistrates and obeying the laws of the land do not constitute
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  spiritual apostasy. Even when the magistrate is a
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  Pagan like Tiberias. Even then, participation in
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  civil structures is part of the ordinary creaturely life under
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  God's Providence. Because you are paying a debt
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  for the maintenance of civil order, you are not endorsing the
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  Emperor's blasphemous theological claims.
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  Right, you are using his currency to maintain the roads
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  and the courts, not bowing to his statue.
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  The sources specify that this teaching refutes 2 massive
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  historical errors regarding the relationship between the Church
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  and the state. Yes, there are errors on both
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  sides of the spectrum. Let us break those down.
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  What is the first one? On one side, it refutes the
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  historical Roman Catholic error of collapsing the church and the
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  state. How did that look historically?
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  Well, historically, the papacy attempted to wield both the
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  spiritual sword and the temporal sword.
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  They claimed ultimate authority over earthly kings and civil
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  government. Right?
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  But Christ's words demonstrate that the civil magistrate has a
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  distinct, legitimate sphere of operation outside the direct
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  administration of the Church. OK, so that is the first error.
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  What is the 2nd? On the other side, it refutes
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  the modern secularist error of making the state ultimate.
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  I see that a lot today. We all do The secular mindset
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  that acts as if the government owns every sphere of human
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  existence, the family, education, the economy and
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  religion. They want jurisdiction over all
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  of it. Yeah, but Jesus acknowledges
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  that Caesar has a realm, and by defining what belongs to Caesar,
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  he immediately places a boundary around civil authority.
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  That is a brilliant way to frame it.
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  Caesar gets the tax coin, He does not get the soul, he does
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  not. That answers the practical
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  friction point for a believer navigating a hostile system
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  today. I agree.
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  Believers are called to fulfill their earthly duties with
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  excellence, honesty, and respect, regardless of the Pagan
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  nature of the system. Yeah, you pay your taxes and
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  obey lawful civil ordinances and.
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  You do it not out of a secular pragmatism or out of a cowardly
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  fear of human reprisal, but as a deliberate act of obedience
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  toward the God who ordains all civil authority.
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  Romans 13 reinforces this entirely.
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  The magistrate is a minister of God for good.
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  But the caveat is the boundary line.
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  You render to Caesar only the things that are Caesar's.
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  Right, the state governs externally and temporally.
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  So the moment a government demands worship or demands that
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  a believer violate their conscience, which is bound by
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  the Word of God, that government has trespassed its delegated
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  bounds. That is spot on.
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  Think of Daniel's three friends in Babylon.
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  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Yes, they serve the Babylonian
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  state faithfully. They contributed to the society.
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  They were high-ranking officials, actually.
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  We were, but the moment King Nebuchadnezzar demanded they bow
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  to the golden statue, they refused.
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  They drew the line at worship. Caesar gets the silver, God gets
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  the knee. Here's where it gets really
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  interesting. That boundary line is what makes
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  the second-half of Christ's statement so staggering.
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  It really is the focal point of the whole debate.
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  While Caesar claims the minted silver, Jesus introduces an
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  infinitely higher claim. He finishes the mandate by
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  saying and to God the things that are gods, right?
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  If the coin goes back to Caesar because it bears Caesar's image,
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  the inevitable question follows what goes back to God?
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  This invokes the very dawn of creation in Genesis 1.2627.
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  Let us make man in our image after our likeness, yes?
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  Because man bears the Imago Dei, the image of God, the Creator
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  claims the totality of the human person.
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  The totality. The coin bears the image of the
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  Emperor, so it belongs to the imperial treasury.
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  You bear the image of the Creator, so you belong entirely
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  to him. That is such a heavy realization
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  it. Is, he claims, the mind, the
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  heart, the affections, and the will.
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  Every faculty, every breath, and every power of thought belongs
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  entirely to the One whose image is stamped upon your nature.
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  The two clauses in Christ's statement are not symmetrical in
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  weight at all then. No, they are vastly.
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  Different. We often read them as if Jesus
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  is splitting life down the middle, like 50% of the
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  government, 50% to religion. Yeah, people do that all the
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  time, but that is a complete misreading of the text it.
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  Is a devastating misreading. Caesar's claim is derivative,
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  partial, and temporary. God's claim is original, total,
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  and supreme. And this reality exposes all
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  forms of idolatry. Because autonomy isn't absolute
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  illusion. It is.
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  We are not our own. The fallen human heart
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  constantly seeks to negotiate with God, trying to divide life
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  into neat little compartments. Right, we say.
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  I will give a little to religion on Sunday, a little to public
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  respectability during the week, and I will keep the rest of my
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  inner life for my own personal preferences.
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  But the. Doctrine of the Imago Dei
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  destroys that illusion completely.
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  To withhold your heart from God is not a minor defect in your
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  spiritual performance. It is out right theft of divine
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  property. Now I must impartially report
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  the specific applications are source texts make regarding
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  modern issues at this point. OK, what do the authors say?
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  Well, the authors of the provided texts argue that this
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  specific passage and the theology of the Amigo Day
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  actively refutes the social Gospel, liberal theology, and
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  critical race theory. That is a very specific modern
• 17:44
  application. It is, the authors claim, that
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  these modern movements seek to divide human identity along
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  fleshly secular lines or intersectional power dynamics.
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  The authors maintain that true human identity cannot be found
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  in temporal categories of class or race, but is found solely in
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  the restored image of God through the regenerating work of
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  the Holy Spirit. So they.
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  See it as a categorical error. Yes, they argue that elevating
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  secular political or social categories above the imago dei
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  is a form of political idolatry. Well, if we connect this to the
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  bigger picture of Reformed theology, that assertion aligns
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  with the understanding that our primary foundational reality is
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  our standing before a holy God as his image bearers, right?
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  When any ideological system attempts to redefine humanity
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  primarily by temporal grievances, material wealth, or
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  social hierarchies, it obscures the absolute claim God has on
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  the soul. Let us follow the logical
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  progression of that absolute claim.
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  OK, let's do that. If we take it to heart that God
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  demands the total surrender of the human person because His
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  image is stamped on our very nature, we are faced with a
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  devastating reality about our own performance.
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  We really are. If the standard is total,
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  flawless devotion of the mind, heart, affections and will, we
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  have to look in the mirror and ask who among us has actually
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  met that standard? No one.
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  Not a single person. And this brings us to a crucial
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  theological mechanism that the source is outlined.
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  Which is the distinct log gospel dynamic present in this passage?
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  Right when Jesus commands us to render to God the things that
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  are gods, he is utilizing the first use of the moral law.
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  He is. Explain that mechanism for us.
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  What is the first use of the law?
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  The first use of the law acts as a mirror.
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  It reveals the absolute holiness of God and simultaneously the
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  utter depravity of human nature. So it shows us what we actually
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  look like spiritually. Yes.
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  When the law demands perfect obedience, it exposes our
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  inability to provide it. It shuts every mouth and holds
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  the entire world accountable before God's judgment seat.
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  So when Jesus issues this command, it reveals the
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  horrifying truth that we've all given God, divided hearts and
• 19:54
  distracted worship. We all fall short of that total
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  devotion. I think comparing this concept
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  to spiritual tax evasion is a highly accurate way to visualize
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  the mechanism. Tax evasion.
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  I like that. Imagine an auditor looking at
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  the accounting Ledger of your life.
• 20:07
  OK, tracking the analogy. We often take our best assets,
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  our time, our deepest loves, our fierce loyalties, our mental
• 20:14
  energy, and we hide them in offshore accounts of
• 20:16
  self-interest. Right, we keep them for
• 20:17
  ourselves. We actively try to keep them off
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  the books so the creator cannot claim them.
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  We willingly give the visible, heavily taxed currency to the
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  state to avoid prison. Sure.
• 20:28
  We want to stay out of trouble. And we pay our social dues to
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  maintain respectability in our communities.
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  But the core capital of our soul, the affections of our
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  heart, we keep hidden for ourselves.
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  That is a terrifyingly accurate analogy we render to Caesar
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  because we fear temporal punishment, but we rob God
• 20:47
  because we presume upon his patients.
• 20:49
  Wow. Yes, we presume upon his
• 20:51
  patients. The diagnostic weight of
• 20:53
  Christ's command exposes every single one of us as spiritual
• 20:56
  thieves, but the. Theology does not leave us in
• 20:58
  despair. Thankfully, no.
• 21:00
  The glory of the Gospel breaks through the darkness of our
• 21:02
  total inability. The sources point is directly to
• 21:06
  the gospel fulfillment. Because someone has to settle
• 21:08
  the account. Right.
• 21:09
  If we have marred the image, and if we have failed to render the
• 21:12
  devotion we owe, how is the debt settled?
• 21:15
  It is settled by the true and perfect image of God.
• 21:17
  Which is Jesus. Yes, the Apostle Paul in
• 21:20
  Colossians 1.15 states that Jesus Christ is the image of the
• 21:24
  invisible God. And Hebrews says something
• 21:26
  similar. Right, the writer of Hebrews in
• 21:28
  chapter 1, verse 3 declares that Christ is the exact imprint of
• 21:32
  his nature. So beautiful.
• 21:34
  Where Adam failed, and where we continually more the image
• 21:37
  through our sin, Christ perfectly maintained it.
• 21:40
  And this is where we see the magnificent mechanism of his
• 21:43
  active and passive of obedience on display.
• 21:45
  This is a critical distinction in reformed theology.
• 21:48
  Let us breakdown both the active and the passive obedience for
• 21:51
  the listener. Let us start with the active
• 21:54
  What is Christ doing during his earthly ministry to settle our
• 21:57
  debt? Active obedience refers to
• 22:00
  Christ's positive minute by minute fulfillment of every
• 22:03
  precept of the moral law. So it is more than just not
• 22:06
  sinning. Much more, It is not just that
• 22:09
  he avoided sinning. He actively loved the Lord his
• 22:12
  God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength every single
• 22:16
  second of his earthly life. He rendered total devotion, yes.
• 22:20
  Where we failed to render our devotion, Christ stood in our
• 22:23
  place as our covenant head and rendered flawless, uninterrupted
• 22:26
  obedience to the Father in thought, word, and deed.
• 22:29
  And what happens to that act of obedience?
• 22:32
  This act of righteousness is what gets imputed or credited to
• 22:35
  the believers account by faith. That is incredible.
• 22:38
  And then there is his passive obedience, right?
• 22:41
  Because mere days after this intense debate in the temple,
• 22:44
  Jesus was arrested, beaten and nailed to a Roman cross.
• 22:48
  Passive obedience refers to Christ willingly submitting to
• 22:51
  the penalty of the broken law. He took the punishment.
• 22:54
  He absorbed the wrath of God against our sin on the cross.
• 22:59
  He paid the infinite tax demanded by divine justice.
• 23:02
  He settled the Ledger. He shed his own blood to satisfy
• 23:05
  the massive debt of spiritual tax evasion that we could never
• 23:08
  afford to pay in a billion lifetimes.
• 23:11
  He rendered to God the ultimate sacrifice.
• 23:13
  Because Christ accomplishes this massive substitutionary work,
• 23:17
  the daily life of the believer is fundamentally altered.
• 23:20
  It changes everything about how we live.
• 23:22
  The passage then provides what Reformed theologians call the
• 23:24
  third use of the law, or. The Tertius Osisligus.
• 23:28
  Right as codified in the Westminster Confession Chapter
• 23:31
  19. Let us unpack how that operates
• 23:33
  in the life of a Christian today.
• 23:35
  Well, for the justified believer, someone who is united
• 23:38
  to Christ by faith, the moral law is no longer a sentence of
• 23:42
  condemnation. The debt is paid.
• 23:44
  The debt is fully paid. Therefore, the law now functions
• 23:48
  as a guide, a rule of life to show us what pleases our
• 23:51
  Heavenly Father. So it is no longer a threat.
• 23:54
  No, it is a path to walk in, and civic duties like paying taxes
• 23:58
  and honoring the state are completely transformed.
• 24:01
  They are no longer a burden of secular pragmatism.
• 24:04
  Precisely when a believer pays their taxes, or obeys the speed
• 24:08
  limit, or honors a civil contract, they are not just
• 24:11
  trying to avoid a fine. What are they doing then?
• 24:13
  Those mundane actions become acts of grateful worship.
• 24:16
  Grateful worship. Yes, the believer learns by the
• 24:20
  ongoing grace of the Holy Spirit to yield their heart and life to
• 24:23
  the Lord as a pattern of sanctification.
• 24:25
  You submit to the temporal magistrate because you adore the
• 24:28
  eternal King who instituted the magistrate.
• 24:31
  Christ's breathtaking answer to the Pharisees leaves the crowd
• 24:34
  entirely stunned. I.
• 24:35
  Mean. How could it not?
• 24:37
  He synthesized civil responsibility, total depravity,
• 24:40
  the doctrine of creation, and the coming judgment into a
• 24:43
  single sentence. It is unmatched wisdom.
• 24:46
  But the reaction of the original audience, as recorded in the
• 24:49
  text, carries A terrifying warning for anyone studying this
• 24:54
  passage today. We have to look closely at verse
• 24:56
  22. What does it say?
• 24:57
  It records the immediate aftermath.
• 24:59
  When they had heard these words, they marveled and left him and
• 25:03
  went their way. They marveled and left him.
• 25:06
  The enemies are publicly silenced.
• 25:08
  Yep, they're brilliant trap has collapsed entirely and they are
• 25:11
  intellectually defeated by the unsearchable wisdom of the Son
• 25:14
  of God. But the.
• 25:15
  Text makes it painfully clear that they are not spiritually
• 25:18
  surrendered. Not at all.
• 25:20
  That is the tragedy of this conclusion.
• 25:22
  They possessed an intellectual admiration for his rhetoric.
• 25:25
  They respected the debate skills.
• 25:26
  They recognized his brilliance and his ability to navigate a
• 25:30
  lethal theological snare without a scratch, but they completely
• 25:34
  lacked saving adoration for his person.
• 25:36
  They. Marvelled it as intellect, but
• 25:39
  they left completely unrepentant.
• 25:41
  They withdrew into the crowd with their hypocrisy fully
• 25:44
  intact. This raises a massive concern
• 25:46
  about the state of our own hearts when we interact with
• 25:49
  theology. I think about this all the time.
• 25:51
  It is entirely possible to possess orthodox vocabulary, to
• 25:55
  marvel at the intricacies of Greek syntax, and to appreciate
• 25:59
  the rigorous logic of the Westminster Confession while
• 26:03
  your heart remains a rebel province.
• 26:06
  This raises an important question for you, the listener,
• 26:08
  regarding how we consume theological knowledge today.
• 26:11
  Yes, it is a vital question. Do you read the text just to win
• 26:15
  debates? Do you listen to expositions
• 26:18
  simply to marvel at the brilliance of the historical
• 26:20
  context? Or do you actually bow the knee
• 26:22
  to the Sovereign who spoke the universe into existence?
• 26:25
  Because admiration without adoration is just another form
• 26:28
  of rebellion. It is a very polite form of
• 26:30
  rebellion, but it is rebellion nonetheless.
• 26:33
  So what does this all mean? That is the big take away.
• 26:35
  It means that we cannot remain neutral spectators in the temple
• 26:38
  courts. We have traced the historical
• 26:41
  hostility of the Pharisees and Herodians dissecting the lethal
• 26:45
  snare they set regarding the Kunsos tax.
• 26:48
  We have seen Christ's divine omniscience effortlessly unmask
• 26:52
  their hypocrisy, affirming His total sovereignty.
• 26:56
  He. Sees right through it.
• 26:57
  We have observed the clear boundaries he established for
• 27:00
  civil government, granting Caesar his temporal due while
• 27:03
  actively denying the state ultimate authority over the
• 27:06
  soul. A vital boundary for us today.
• 27:08
  And we have confronted the absolute terrifying standard of
• 27:12
  the imago DI, the reality that God claims the entirety of our
• 27:16
  human nature, a standard met only by the perfect, active and
• 27:20
  passive obedience of Jesus Christ.
• 27:22
  The gospel is our only hope there.
• 27:24
  As we wrap up this deep dive, I want to leave you with a final
• 27:27
  thought to ponder off air. Something to take with you.
• 27:30
  Look at the coins of your daily attention, your anxieties and
• 27:33
  your ambitions. Look at where you spend the
• 27:35
  currency of your mental energy and your deepest affections
• 27:39
  whose image is stamped on them. Are you rendering them to God?
• 27:42
  Are you spending the wealth of your mind on temporal kingdoms
• 27:45
  that will eventually rust, fade, and collapse?
• 27:48
  If you are an image bearer of the Eternal King, what piece of
• 27:51
  your soul are you still trying to hand over to a temporary
• 27:54
  Caesar? That is a piercing thought to
• 27:56
  end on. Thank you for joining us on this
• 27:58
  deep dive into the word. Keep resting in the grace of the
• 28:02
  perfect image and we will catch you next time on Reformed
• 28:04
  Thinking. Farewell.