Jesus on Taxes: Nothing is (Rightly) Caesar's!

The story of Jesus commanding us to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's (Matt. 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26) is commonly misrepresented as His commanding us to give to Caesar the denari which he asks for (i.e., to pay taxes to government) as--it is assumed--the denari are Caesar's, being that they have Caesar's image and name on them. But Jesus never said that this was so! What Jesus did say though was an ingenious case of rhetorical misdirection to avoid being immediately arrested, which would have interfered with Old Testament prophecy of His betrayal as well as His own previous predictions of betrayal.

When the Pharisees asked Him whether or not it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar they did so as a ruse in the hopes of being able to either have Him arrested as a rebel by the Roman authorities or to have Him discredited in the eyes of His followers. At this time in Israel's history it was an occupied territory of the Roman Empire, and taxes--which were being used to support this occupation--were much hated by the mass of the common Jews. Thus, this question was a clever Catch-22 posed to Jesus by the Pharisees: if Jesus answered that it is not lawful then the Pharisees would have Him put away, but if He answered that it is lawful then He would appear to be supporting the subjection of the Jewish people by a foreign power. Luke 20:20 makes the Pharisees' intent in asking this question quite clear:

So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor.

Thus, Jesus was not free to answer in just any casual manner. Of the Scripture prophecies which would have gone unfulfilled had He answered that it was fine to decline paying taxes and been arrested because of it are the betrayal by Judas (Psalm 41:9; Zech. 11:12,13), and His betrayer replaced (Psalm 109:8--see Acts 1:20); see also Acts 1:15-26 and Psalm 69:25. Here is a quote from Peter on this matter from Acts 1:16:

"Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus."

In Matt. 26:54,56 and Mark 14:49 Jesus testifies to this exact same thing after He was betrayed by Judas. As well, Jesus Himself twice foretold of His betrayal before He was asked the question on taxes--see Matt. 17:22; 20:18; Mark 9:31; 10:33; and Luke 9:44; 19:31. See also John 13:18-30, which testifies to the necessity of the fulfillment of Psalm 41:9, as Jesus here foretells of His betrayal by Judas.

In addition, it appears that the only reason Jesus paid the temple tax (and by supernatural means at that) as told in Matt. 17:24-27 was so as not to stir up trouble which would have interfered with the fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture and Jesus's previous prediction of His betrayal as told in Matt. 17:22--neither of which would have been fulfilled had Jesus not paid the tax and been arrested because of it. Jesus Himself supports this view when He said of it "Nevertheless, lest we offend them . . ." (NKJV), which can also be translated "But we don't want to cause trouble" (CEV). He said this after in effect saying that those who pay customs and taxes are not free (v. 25,26)--yet one reason Jesus came was to call us to liberty (Luke 4:18; Gal. 4:7; 5:1,13,14; 1 Cor. 7:23; 2 Cor. 3:17; James 1:25; 2:12).

It should be remembered in all of this that it was Jesus Himself who told us "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves." (Matt. 10:16). Jesus was being wise as a serpent as He never told us to pay taxes to Caesar, of which He could have done and still fulfilled Scripture and His previous predictions of betrayal. But the one thing He couldn't have told people was that it was okay not to pay taxes as He would have been arrested on the spot, and Scripture and His predictions of betrayal would have gone unfulfilled. Yet the most important thing in all this is what Jesus did not say. Jesus never said that all or any of the denari were Caesar's! Jesus simply said "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's." But this just begs the question, What is Caesar's? Simply because the denari have Caesar's name and image on them no more make them his than one carving their name into the back of a stolen TV set makes it theirs. Yet everything Caesar has has been taken by theft and extortion, therefore nothing is rightly his.

Tax Collectors are Sinners!

A further demonstration that Jesus considered the institution of taxation to be unjust is given in the below story:

Matthew 9:9-13: As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, "Follow Me." So he arose and followed Him. Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." (See also Mark 2:14-17; Luke 5:27-32.)

It's important to point out here that Jesus actually made a stronger case against the unrighteousness of tax collectors than the Pharisees originally had in questioning Jesus's disciples about it: the Pharisees actually separated the tax collectors from the sinners when they asked "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Yet when Jesus heard this He answered the Pharisees by lumping the two groups together under the category of sinners--thus: "For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

Yet since this is the story of Matthew the tax collector being called to repentance by Jesus we will do well to ask how it was that Matthew obtained repentance. The answer: By first giving up tax collecting! And from this beginning Matthew would thus go on to become one of Jesus's twelve disciples.

Link

So taxes are evil? So is being rich, having reproductive urges, and disrespecting your parents. And we don't outlaw those things either...

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Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes. - Howard Zinn

You misunderstand the post. I posted it for Christians who believe Christianity supports being subservient to the government.

But one shouldn't outlaw anything due to a religious doctrine. Our form of government is not a theocracy, nor should it be.

However, taxation is theft, and that fact is fully supported by logic.

Taxation is not a contribution. If you refuse to pay, you will receive threatening letters demanding payment. If you ignore them, eventually a case will be filed in court. If you ignore the summons and fail to appear, a warrant will be issued for your arrest and men with guns will come to your home to take you to jail. If you tell them you're not going and to leave your property, they will forcibly try to take you in. If you physically resist and fight back, they can and will legally kill you. That is taking money by threat of force, and by force if the threat isn't sufficient. That is theft, and it is immoral.

"To take a man's property without his consent is robbery; and to assume his consent where no consent is given, makes the taking none the less robbery. If it did not, the highwayman has the same right to assume a man's consent to part with his purse, that any other man, or body of men, can have. And his assumption would afford as much moral justification for his robbery as does a like assumption, on the part of the government, for taking a man's property without his consent. The government's pretense of protecting him, as an equivalent for the taxation, affords no justification. It is for himself to decide whether he desires such protection as the government offers him. If he does not desire it, or does not bargain for it, the government has no more right, than any other insurance company to impose it upon him, or make him pay for it." - Lysander Spooner, "Trial by Jury"

The 'logic' you've presented is so convoluted that it is almost impossible to follow.

You've quoted about three lines of scripture and used about 10,000 words to twist it until it says what you want.

"Render unto Ceaser that which is Ceaser's "... which means,... pay your damn taxes, boss.


Freeloading is theft.




bye

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Goldwater caused nerve ends to twinge with his passion and indignation. Yet he had no handle to the problems, no program, no solution- except backward to the Bible and the God of the desert. Proud of his handsome, clean-lined family, proud of his radiant children, proud of his families war record and patriotism, he had in him neither the compassion nor the understanding to deal with the faceless newer enemies of the Digital Society -Theodor H. White from 'The Making of the President-1964'

Taxation is theft. If anything I presented is false, then prove it.

I did a little more than that. Again, if something is in error POINT OUT SPECIFICALLY WHAT IT WAS.

No, that's not what was meant, as was fully explained earlier. The only one twisting the truth here is you. The statement was a little more complicated than you want to admit:

"What Jesus did say though was an ingenious case of rhetorical misdirection to avoid being immediately arrested, which would have interfered with Old Testament prophecy of His betrayal as well as His own previous predictions of betrayal.

When the Pharisees asked Him whether or not it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar they did so as a ruse in the hopes of being able to either have Him arrested as a rebel by the Roman authorities or to have Him discredited in the eyes of His followers. At this time in Israel's history it was an occupied territory of the Roman Empire, and taxes--which were being used to support this occupation--were much hated by the mass of the common Jews. Thus, this question was a clever Catch-22 posed to Jesus by the Pharisees: if Jesus answered that it is not lawful then the Pharisees would have Him put away, but if He answered that it is lawful then He would appear to be supporting the subjection of the Jewish people by a foreign power. Luke 20:20 makes the Pharisees' intent in asking this question quite clear:

So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor."

Again, if something I posted wasn't true, THEN SPECIFICALLY STATE WHAT IT WAS.

Those who are using the government to steal from others and reallocate funds to them should stop freeloading off the producers.

Jesus statement was not a clever catch 22, it was a simple statement.

You say the money wasn't Ceasars' because his claim to collect taxes was spurious. When you live in a country, you enjoy it's protection, its roads, its police protection ect. ect. By not paying the bill for these accoutrement's, you are in effect freeloading.


Jesus' point was simply that practical things have a practical application. By twisting it by bringing in your opinion and some irrelevant quotes, you make the mistake so many do when interpreting scripture. You see what you want to see.


No pastor or biblical scholar would agree with you who didn't have some sort of personal/political agenda. I am not going to get into specifics and pick your argument apart because, really, you simply post distortion and opinion. There is no proof. It is all common sense.


Bro

__________________
Goldwater caused nerve ends to twinge with his passion and indignation. Yet he had no handle to the problems, no program, no solution- except backward to the Bible and the God of the desert. Proud of his handsome, clean-lined family, proud of his radiant children, proud of his families war record and patriotism, he had in him neither the compassion nor the understanding to deal with the faceless newer enemies of the Digital Society -Theodor H. White from 'The Making of the President-1964'

I think he understood the deal, did he not tell his followers to give up their wealth, and go on welfare?

Yes, it was.

Again, you skew the truth while ignoring the root issues. As the Spooner quote demonstrates, one must voluntarily ask for some type of "protection" - there can be no "implied" consent - and I would deny that the CIA is protecting Americans, it is actually opening them up to danger by creating more enemies for the U.S.

As to the territory issue, why doesn't the State just leave? Who is entitled to occupy the space?

Perhaps a hardcore statist would simply assume that the government rightfully owns everything, but libertarians, such as myself, reject that assumption, given the State's history of conquest and plunder. We believe rightful property comes from homesteading and voluntary exchange, not conquest. The State doesn't rightfully own property; people do.

Appeal to Authority fallacy.

...because you can't.