It is interesting that one theme ties together the beginning and the end of this long narrative section of Matthew's Book IV, the theme of offence.
Chapter 14 opened with Herod's murder of John the Baptist because of the offence John had given him. Now Matthew introduces this last episode with the second prediction by Jesus of His coming Passion: it is because of the offence Jesus gives that He will die. A glance forward into ch. 18, the Teaching part of Book IV about our life together in the church, shows that that too is concerned with offences and how we are to deal with them. The same Greek word is used in 17:27 as in 18:6: "... whoever 'offends' one of these little ones who believe in me." The word is skandalizo (skandalizw). We shall come back to it.
We are being shown what constitutes necessary offence and what constitutes unnecessary offence. There is an element of offence in the Gospel; it cannot be avoided. If we are true to it we shall disturb people, and we shall be a disturbance in society. But that is no excuse for us to give unnecessary offence.
How do you tell the difference? This will help us.
Some background is needed to understand the issue Jesus dealt with.
The Temple in Jerusalem was a vast institution. It cost a great deal of money to run and maintain: thousands of priests and Levites and goodness knows how many animals for sacrifice. The High Priest's robes alone were worth a king's ransom. The property cost as much to maintain as old cathedrals do today. The revenue to pay for all this was raised by the Temple Tax. Ex. 30:11 laid it down that every Jew over twenty years of age was to pay a half shekel every year "for the service of the Tabernacle" (later the Temple). The half shekel was worth about two denarii, and a denarius was an average day's pay. So it was two day's pay they were required to give. If in our money a day's pay is reckoned at $50 they had to give the equivalent of $100.
So to the point Jesus made that "the sons are free," v. 26.
Taxes in those days served chiefly to maintain the king's household, which was, of course, the society's governing body; taxes served the same purpose they do today, therefore, to maintain the government. Those who belonged to the King's Household itself were obviously exempt: since the money was raised largely for their support, they did not pay.
Now God is King, and Christ is His Son, so Jesus was in the position of a King's son who was tax-exempt. That is the point Jesus was making. Hence the question He put to Peter, v. 25: "What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their own sons, or from others?" And when Peter said, "From others," then Jesus said, "So the sons are free."
The Temple was His Father's House; from His boyhood He had known that: "Do you not understand that I must be in my Father's House?" (the right translation of Luke 2:49). He had every reason to regard Himself as tax-exempt - though of course those who were not believers in Him would not have understood His reason, or accepted it if they did.
Now the Lord's disciples are His brothers, as He said in Matt. 12:50: "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and my sister, and my mother." That is our real, factual status. Christians have their citizenship in heaven, not on earth. Jesus is saying, "Your standing as a child of God and a brother to Me means that you are not under an obligation to pay." That is plainly what He meant.
Now we have to understand something else about this issue, for it was a live issue, both at the time this episode actually happened, shortly before Jesus died, and later, when Matthew wrote his gospel.
It was not uncommon in those times for the citizens of a nation which had conquered another to be exempted from taxation because the conquered nation paid tribute to cover the cost of the empire's upkeep; that is what you went to war for! It is as though Australia went to war with New Zealand and levied a heavy tax on them so that Australians should be able to live tax free. Now Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, and if Matthew's Gospel was written about AD 80-90, there was no temple by the time he wrote; you would therefore expect the Temple Tax to have ceased. But it had not. After Rome had destroyed Jerusalem, Vespasian the Roman Emperor decreed that the half shekel temple tax should still be paid - not now to Jerusalem, but to Rome, for the upkeep of the Temple of Jupiter in the Capitol. This was a source of deep offence to the Jews. Many were violently opposed to it. How should Christians (then) respond? Many of them were still Jews politically. If Matthew wrote his gospel for a Palestinian congregation, he was addressing a live issue.
Should Christians today pay the Fringe Benefits tax if they feel that it is unjust? Should we pay taxes if our country is engaged in a war we believe is morally wrong, as some did believe when we were involved in Vietnam? Should we pay taxes to support Governmentrun casinos, or brothels, as is the case in some countries overseas? The answer Jesus gave was that He and His disciples should indeed pay the tax, but not, notice, because the Law required it. They really were, in truth, above that law by virtue of their relationship to the King of Kings.
That tells us that our citizenship of heaven is no mere figure of speech: in the mind of Jesus it is a hard, solid fact. Our citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven raises us above our citizenship obligations to any earthly kingdom. We really are bound by the higher obligations of our higher rank, and freed thereby from our obligations to the lower. Jesus here says so. We are exempt.
Or are we? Not really! We should pay taxes. But the reason why is what we have to understand. It is "so that we should not give offence." And in this case, Jesus meant that we should not give offence to unbelievers, not simply to believers. We are not to give offence to secular, political society.
The phrase 'to give offence' had a particular shade of meaning which everyone understood. It meant offending, not peoples' sensibilities, but their consciences. It did not imply the attitude which leads you to insult others, or to hurt their pride; rather it described a thing you did that genuinely disturbed another's conscience. It meant 'causing them to stumble,' doing some harm to their souls. It is what Jesus meant when in ch. 18:5 He said, "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me (disciples) to sin ..."
Paul twice addressed the same issue in his letter to the Corinthians, I Cor. 9:12 and 8:13. In 9:12 he made the point that by order of the Lord Himself, no less, he had every right to demand that he be paid for the exercise of His apostleship, his Christian ministry. The Lord Himself had said so, so there could be no argument about it. As an ambassador of the king, he had a right to expect the king's subjects to pay his stipend. But he chose to waive that right so as not to 'offend' those to whom he took the Gospel.
In the second passage, he defended his right to eat meat sacrificed to idols. He agreed with those who believed that because idols were no gods at all, and had no real existence, that they could not taint meat that had been offered to them. But he agreed also with those who believed it was wiser not to eat such meat even so, so as not to 'offend' those who could not see this - who believed that idols were real, though false gods, and could not understand therefore how Christians could claim to believe in only one God when they supported the worship of idols by eating meat that had been offered to those idols in the name of religion.
"If it really disturbs the conscience of my weaker brother," said Paul (not his prejudice, note, but his conscience - Paul makes that point with some vigour), "then I will not do so." Himself he knew better; but for the sake of those who did not, he accepted a restraint by which he really was not bound.
Necessary offence, and unnecessary offence. There are some things about which we cannot compromise; about others we can. What makes the difference?
The difference between the two is decided by the very fact that creates it - grace. The very thing that lifts us above the Law motivates us to fulfil it. It is beautiful this, and it belongs to the very heart of the Gospel.
To come back to the temple tax issue, Jesus said quite plainly that because He and the disciples were sons of the Kingdom, they were not under obligation to pay. But what made them children of the Kingdom was the grace of God. They had no title to that rank; it was a gift to the undeserving. Yet it was real, and it really did lift them above the Law that ruled the lesser earthly kingdom in which they still must live on earth. Unbelievers, however, cannot see that. If we refuse to pay our taxes for that reason, we shall give offence to the authorities who do not and cannot understand our reason. They can only see our attitude as treason. By their lights, it would be a real offence to their conscience. So because we are ruled by grace, which means we treat people better than they deserve, we accept their law. I repeat, the very thing that lifts us above the Law motivates us to fulfil it.
When unbelievers are moral it is because they observe the rule of Law. But when Christians are moral it is because they observe the rule of grace. The rule of grace, which is my rule because I am a citizen of the Kingdom will also make me a good citizen of the earthly kingdom. *
As to whether it is morally compromising for Christians to pay taxes to support a government which spends their money in immoral ways, the answer is that whilst that may be true in some particulars - like casinos and brothels - nonetheless, the great bulk of their tax is used to maintain law and order and to pay for those services which are vital to the community's well-being, like sewage, the upkeep of the roads, the administration of justice in courts of law, the provision of power and communications etc. etc. And government in that sense is ordained by God for the decent ordering of our life in society. Government in general is an institution ordained by God, and we are bound, therefore, as children of God as well as citizens of an earthly society, to support it.
From one point of view, there is no reason why we should. As Christians we know that all earthly societies and their governments are sinful because they are run by sinful men - and for that reason will fall ultimately under the judgment of God. They will pass away "by order of the Lord." Why should we maintain a soiled institution that stands under the judgment of God? Because government, for all its imperfection, is one of God's mercies in a fallen world. It curbs men's lawlessness, and therefore has His blessing ... which is why it should have ours.
We are to be good citizen of both worlds, the heavenly and the earthly. That is the will of God for us, made plain in Scripture: Rom. 13:1-10.
* This introduces the theme of ch. 18, which is about the way the children of the Kingdom are to live by grace.
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