Matthew chapter
seventeen.
Matthew chapter seventeen, and we read verses twenty
-four to twenty-seven.
This incident, perhaps, is not as familiar as
other incidents that we have been considering, and
therefore it is necessary that we should read
it again.
And when they were come to Capernaum, they
that received tribute money, came to Peter and
said, Doth not your master pay tribute?
He saith, Yes.
And when he was come into the house,
Jesus prevented, or got a step ahead of
Peter.
Before Peter had had the opportunity of saying
anything, Jesus was a step ahead of him,
and said to him, What are you thinking
about, Simon?
Of whom do the kings of the earth
take custom and tribute?
Of their own children, or of strangers?
Peter said unto him, Of strangers.
Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children
free.
Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou
to the sea, and cast an hook, and
take up the first fish that cometh up.
And when thou hast opened his mouth, thou
shalt find a piece of money.
That take, and give unto them for me
and thee.
When we began this series, I remember saying
that there are some apparently unimportant, or semi
-important incidents in the life of our Lord,
and in the experience of Simon, which appear
to have played a major role in the
formulating of Simon's faith, and life, and convictions.
Now, I believe that the incident this morning
is such in one.
I don't suppose you would classify this as
on a par with Caesarea Philippi.
One might not normally place this alongside the
experience of seeing with your own eyes the
transfigured Son of God in his glory.
The kingdom of God come upon the mount.
And yet, here is a simple incident, destined
to serve, in a most remarkable way, to
mould the man before us.
And to leave an indelible mark upon his
way of thinking, and ultimately, his way of
acting as a servant of God.
Now, we're going to look at it, first
of all, considering the circumstances that occasioned the
incident.
We need to get the background.
I think it is necessary for us to
notice two things, by way of context, or
of background here.
First of all, the disciples' talk on the
way towards the city, the town of Capernaum.
Mark tells us that as the little group
made their way towards Capernaum, they were huddled
together in excited conversation about something.
Now, they didn't raise their voices, Jesus did
not overhear them, though, of course, he knew
what was going on.
But there they were, huddled together, and in
a semi-private sort of way, they were
really engrossed, they were really lost in talk
and conversation about something or other.
Knowing what was going on, Jesus wanted to
refer to it, and purposed to refer to
it later on.
But something intervened in the meantime, as we
shall see.
So, Mark puts it this way.
They come to Capernaum.
And when he was in the house, he
asked them, What were you discussing on the
way?
But they were silent.
For, this is the reason, on the way,
they had discussed, one with another, Who was
the greatest?
Who was the greatest?
Obviously, by this time, they have become convinced
that our Lord Jesus is really going to
be king.
They're now optimistic about the future.
Perhaps, I don't know, I can't dogmatize, perhaps
the three disciples that witnessed the transfiguration have
told the others something of the glory of
the mountaintop.
I don't know.
In any case, they all saw something of
his majesty and power right there at the
foot of the mountain.
When, after his disciples had been unable to
heal the boy whom the father brought, demon
-possessed as he was, Jesus came down and
in the nick of time saved the reputation
of the disciples and relieved the problem of
the father and completely healed the lad.
They'd all seen something of the kingdom and
the kingship of the Savior in that very
recent event.
And so, they were looking forward to a
future over which he would reign, in which
he would reign as king.
And so, of course, the topic of conversation
is this.
Which of us is the greatest?
Who will be the prime minister?
Or who will be the chancellor of the
exchequer?
Or who will be the foreign minister?
What place shall we occupy?
That's the first.
The second strand in the context, and we
need to see this also as background, is
the demand for tax to be paid towards
the Jerusalem temple.
One would like to know a little more
here.
Why did they not, why did not this
tax collector approach Jesus directly?
He was very approachable.
However, he didn't do that.
But recognizing Simon Peter as a disciple, he
went to him and quietly said, Aha, doesn't
your master or does your master pay tax?
Now possibly he was suggesting that Jesus was
a cheater, a tax evader.
You do have this species, don't you, even
in the world of today?
Perhaps especially in the world of today.
And perhaps there is an insinuation here that
the Lord Jesus was attempting to evade a
responsibility for the upkeep of the temple.
Peter jumps to his feet as usual and
says, Yes, he certainly does pay tax.
And now I guess that Peter was going
to say a word to his master about
the conversation as soon as he got back
into the house, but the master preceded him.
Now, without saying any more about that, it
is necessary for us to distinguish between tax
and tax in the New Testament.
The particular tax here in question needs to
be distinguished from a civil tax that was
levied by Rome.
Every man had to pay that.
This was obligatory.
Then there is another capitation tax levied by
Herod the Tetrarch.
Upon all Galileans, you had to pay that
too.
But this is a different one.
This is an ecclesiastical, this is a religious
tax.
This has not Roman or Herodian authority behind
it, requiring it, but divine.
This was ordained of God.
This was first ordained for the upkeep of
the tabernacle, and now it is devoted to
the upkeep of the temple in Jerusalem.
Now, I asked Mr. Walker to read to
us this morning from Deuteronomy chapter 30, verses
11 to 16, because there you have the
institution of this tax.
Can I read just a few words from
that excerpt?
The Lord said to Moses, When you take
a census of the people of Israel, then
each shall give a ransom for himself to
the Lord.
Each who is numbered in the census shall
give this, half a shekel, according to the
shekel of the sanctuary.
The shekel is twenty geras.
Half a shekel is an offering to the
Lord.
Everyone who is numbered in the census from
twenty years old and upward shall give the
Lord's offering to make atonement for yourself.
Here then was a divinely instituted tax, modest
in measure, not legally enforceable, but expected of
every Jew of twenty years old and upward.
Every man has to pay this, so I
gather that the Levites and the rabbis were
generally exempt.
Now, those are the circumstances.
That is the background then, the talk and
the way and the tax that was expected
of the Savior.
Now, come next to see the condescension of
Jesus as revealed by what took place here,
standing out in stark contrast to the overbearing
officiousness of the tax collector, who appears to
have wondered whether he was a tax evader,
and to the arrogant pride of the disciples,
quibbling as they talk with one another, which
of us will be the greatest or is
the greatest.
We see our Lord Jesus Christ so humble.
Even though someone is charging him with something
that is utterly false, he doesn't stand upon
his own dignity and call the anathema of
God upon him.
Even though there is no reason for him
to pay the tax in question, or let
me put it the other way, there is
valid reason why he should not pay it,
he nevertheless takes steps to do so.
His humility, his condescension, his grace.
Now, let's look at it like this.
I want to pose two questions and answer
them as briefly as I can.
The first question is this, what did Jesus
do that revealed his unrivaled grace and humility?
We can put it negatively and then positively.
Negatively, let me repeat, he declined to press
his own rights.
His was a privilege which enabled him, if
he so desired, not to pay the required
tax.
He did not press his own rights.
Neither did he leap in defense of himself,
even though he was totally innocent of the
insinuation of the tax collector.
Now, we live in an age when people
jump like the trigger of a gun going
off in defense of their own rights.
I don't want to create a false impression
this morning.
I think that we, as Christians, should be
concerned that other people have their rights, but
this is a different thing here.
It is a man standing up for his
own rights.
And there are times and situations in life
when this ill befits a man or a
woman of God.
Oh, the world is so sensitive today.
Men will do anything to get their rights,
their loaf of bread, their pound of human
flesh if need be.
Men will hold nations to ransom and much
else.
I have no time to enlarge upon it,
simply because they will have their rights.
It doesn't matter how others fare.
It doesn't matter how the nation fares.
It doesn't matter what happens if I must
get my rights.
And, you know, it is also unlike the
Savior.
Never did a man have such rights as
the Son of God, the ruler of the
universe, the judge of men, the one to
whom all things belong.
Never did any man have the rights that
he had, and yet he did not press
for them.
Though he never treated lightly any attempt by
one man to disregard the rights of another
man, he never stood for his own rights.
Positively, Jesus set about doing what he could
legitimately refuse to do.
He made provision to pay the tax.
Now, you will notice that the tax in
question was not only of an ecclesiastical order
or nature, but it had a special significance.
Two things were mentioned in the excerpt I
quoted from Exodus 30.
You must have noticed it.
One, in the words of the Lord to
Moses, it was a matter of a person
giving a ransom for himself to the Lord,
Exodus 30, verse 12.
Or, quote, making an atonement for sin, verses
15 and 16 in the same chapter.
This was essentially, you see, a sinner's tax.
It was universal among the Jews because every
Jew was a sinner.
And therefore every Jew was expected to bring
this tax for the support of the tabernacle
first then of the temple because every Jew
was a sinner like every Gentile is a
sinner.
But Jesus was not a sinner.
Jesus needed pay no ransom.
Jesus need not make atonement for his sin,
nor even give a token ransom, nor make
a token atonement.
Simon Peter had recognized him as Messiah, son
of the living God, and he must be
sinless who is Messiah.
But God the Father had twice already acknowledged
him in these words, This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.
And if the Father finds no fault in
him, if the Father sees no sin in
him, he need not pay the sinner's tax.
He's exempt.
Now that comes from the book of Exodus.
But now Jesus puts it in a different
way according to Matthew.
He puts another face, another picture before us.
He puts it like this.
He turned to Peter and he put this
question to him.
Peter, he says, what do you think?
From whom do the kings of the earth
take toll or tribute?
From their sons or from others?
And when he said from others, Jesus said
to him, then the sons are free.
I'm aware that you can expound this in
two or three different ways at least.
I'm taking the simplest.
I believe humbly that the simplest is really
the key to this situation and the key
to the passage and to the usage referred.
It's very simple.
Kings of the earth don't tax their own
children.
Now we're thinking of a totalitarian ruler more
or less, the man who has the power
to call for taxes.
He doesn't tax his own family.
He doesn't tax his own children.
Who does he tax?
Well, he taxes the nation at large in
order fundamentally to support his own family and,
of course, to look after the realm.
But kings of the earth don't normally tax
their own children.
Very well, says the Son of God.
I am the Son of the King.
As the Son of the King, the Lord
of all creation.
My Father doesn't tax me.
Therefore I'm exempt.
I have no need to pay this tax.
I am the Son of the King of
all creation, the Lord of all being and
of all life.
I have no reason to pay this tax.
Then notice this.
Nevertheless.
Oh, this condescending nevertheless.
No man has the right to force me
to do this or even to expect me
to do this.
Nevertheless, says the condescending Son of God, though
there is no enforcement from above, no moral
obligation, I'll do it and he does it.
What he did, therefore, was to refuse to
stand upon his own dignity and plead legitimate
exemption despite the fact that he could appeal
first to Scripture and then to tradition.
Some people put a tremendous emphasis upon tradition.
We put emphasis upon Scripture.
Here you have both of them.
Jesus appealed to Scripture and tradition and he
says, there's no reason why I should do
it.
Very well.
Nevertheless.
My friends, let's get this before we pass
on.
Tell me, are you a man or a
woman who is always known as standing for
your own rights?
There are times when this can be most
nauseating because it is evident oftentimes of an
arrogance and a selfishness and a carnality that
is all out of consonance with the spirit
of the gospel and with the person of
the Son of God.
He to whom all things belong said, all
right, I'll pay the tax and not begrudgingly.
When did Jesus thus show such self-effacing
condescension?
That's the second question I want to answer
because this puts it in a different focus
again and lets us see something of the
wonder and the grandeur of this episode.
Now the fact of his willingness to pay
the temple half shekel would have been significant,
I think, at any time, particularly, sir, when
you remember that the temple at this time
is the headquarters of the religion of the
Jews.
And already the leaders, the very people who
are in charge of the temple are machinating
to slay him and to get rid of
him.
Already they've got their plans afoot.
Already they will not recede his word.
Already they are setting the machinery in motion
whereby they will ultimately crucify him.
They are the leaders of the temple.
Why should Jesus pay tax to a temple
that's doing that?
Why should he support a regime that's involved
in this kind of thing?
If ever there was a time when Jesus
could legitimately say, not a penny, this was
the time.
But I want to add to that.
In the first place, he does it in
the wake of his recent experience of transfiguration.
Before the eyes of his onlooking three disciples.
Now, if we rightly understand that passage, there
may have been times when Jesus was often
transfigured privately in fellowship with God, but on
that occasion he was transfigured before them.
They saw it.
They'd never seen it before.
He was but like an ordinary man in
one sense before, just like an ordinary bush
that Moses saw in the backwoods, but this
time, this day, the glory of the Shekinah
was upon him and within him.
Oh, what it meant to him, none of
us can ever tell.
The glory that surrounded him, the Shekinah, the
voice that came to him, the people that
spoke to him, Moses and Elias, speaking of
the exodus that he was to accomplish in
Jerusalem, what it meant to him, who can
tell?
I shall not attempt to do so this
morning, but the one thing I must say
is this.
It reminded him of the dignity and the
glory of his person and of the uniqueness
of his mission, who he was and what
he'd come for, and that he was the
son of God to whom all men should
listen, and yet he refuses to stand upon
his dignity, and yet he refuses to make
a battle with somebody that thinks he's a
tax evader.
Oh, the humble son of God, in the
awareness of his dignity and of his destiny
and of his glory, he refuses, I say,
to press for his rights.
This is grace, you know.
Ye behold the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who though he was rich, yet for
our sakes he became poor, that we out
of his poverty or through his poverty might
be made rich.
Over and over again he did the same
kind of thing.
John chapter 13, for example.
I won't go after it this morning.
The same self-consciousness could not other than
be enhanced by the spectacle of the healed,
demon-possessed boy to whom we've already referred,
and in this respect.
Already Jesus knew of a fish in Galilee's
lake that had a whole shekel in its
mouth, and he had the power to cause
that little fish to come to the very
spot where Simon was going and to respond
to Simon's hook, and yet in the awareness
of the power and the might and the
glory that was his, he did not press
for his rights.