Here Comes a New Challenger

I’m of a certain age where I grew up playing video games and going to arcades. I’m probably right at that age where I’m the first generation who always had video games at their disposal. We had an arcade in our mall as a kid, and sometimes I would go in there and play fighting games like Street Fighter. Every so often, another person would come up, put a coin in, and hit the start button. When that happened, a big message would pop up on the screen that said, “Here comes a new challenger!”

That’s kind of like what’s happening here. In this passage, each of the major religious groups—The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes, as well as the Herodians—all approach Jesus one after another with a question meant to challenge Him and ultimately challenge the Bible itself because He is the living Word.

I. The Challenge to Biblical Authority (12:13-17)

--Pharisees (“Separated ones”) hated the Herodians, who supported the rule of Herod and general Roman authority. The Pharisees opposed Greek and Roman influence and authority into Jewish daily life. In particular, they saw the family of Herod as a bunch of usurpers because they were Edomites and not Jews. It just speaks to how much they both hated Jesus that they were willing to work together to try to take Him down. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

--There’s a great irony here in the way the question is presented. These men applaud Jesus for not being taken in by flattery and false praise, when this entire speech is flattery and false praise. In essence, they were admitting ahead of time that their ploy would not work on Him. Jesus saw straight through their ploy. The Bible said He knew their hypocrisy. You may be able to fool other people with a religious act, but you can’t deceive God. The Greek word for “hypocrisy” or “hypocrite” comes from a word meaning, “To wear a mask,” the way an actor on a stage would play a fictional character. The Lord sees through our acts. When we stand before Him one day, there will be no excuses, no masks to hide the truth from Him.

--The tribute mentioned here was the Roman poll tax, which was imposed when Judea became a Roman province in A.D. 6. Taxation represented Rome’s authority over the Jews, so to ask Jesus whether or not He supported it was meant to pin Him on the horns of a dilemma. If he answered “yes,” then He would be seen as pro-Roman and He would alienate many of His supporters (who were still hoping He would be a revolutionary who would overthrow the Roman government and reestablish the kingdom of Israel). If Jesus said “no,” then the Pharisees and Herodians could undermine Him by accusing Him of treason as an insurgent. However, Jesus was not fooled by their trap and instead took a third option.

--The penny here was a denarius, which was the equivalent of a day’s wages in Christ’s day. At that time, the image would have been of Tiberius Caesar, and the inscription engraved on the coin professed his divinity, something most Roman emperors alleged. Jesus is not endorsing the inscription, of course, but we must recognize that we live in an imperfect world with an imperfect government run by imperfect people. That’s not going to change until Jesus Christ returns to set up His kingdom. We aren’t going to agree with everything our government does, but that does not mean they don’t deserve our respect and duty as citizens.

--Jesus approved of paying taxes because the coins belong to the one whose image it bears. The fact that they possessed and used these coins meant they accepted their worth and therefore the authority of the one who minted it. For instance, if you had any Confederate money, it would be completely worthless (other than as a novelty) because nobody recognizes the authority of that government.

--While He doesn’t specify what the things are that belong to God, Genesis 1:26-27 says that we are made in the image of God, meaning that ultimately, all that we are and have belongs to Him. However, Christ makes it clear that this does not absolve us from other earthly responsibilities. We have dual citizenship between earth and heaven. As Christians who are also American citizens, while we may not agree with how our tax money is used, and we can express ourselves through our voice and our vote, we must accept the fact that God has established human government for our good, according to Romans 13. Even if we do not respect the people in office, we should respect the office itself. Keep in mind that when Paul wrote Romans 13, Nero was the Roman emperor at the time, and he is far worse than any president America has ever had.

--Now there are things that belong to God alone, and earthly government has no right to try to infringe upon them or claim them for themselves. In those instances, we must be like the apostles in Acts 5:29, “We ought to obey God rather than men,” but we also have to be ready to face the consequences of standing for the right thing. It won’t always be easy. Thankfully, as Americans, we haven’t had to face much of that yet, but it’s gradually getting there.

--The Pharisees and Herodians marveled at Christ’s answer, but they did not change their minds. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good of an answer you give if the other party isn’t actually interested in the truth. Now this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be faithful witnesses of the Gospel. It means that we can’t force someone to listen to us, and the salvation of others isn’t up to us. It’s between them and the Lord, so you haven’t failed if you witness to someone and they don’t get saved. You’ve done your part by giving the Gospel.

II. The Challenge to Biblical Accuracy (12:18-27)

--Sadducees (“Righteous ones”) denied:

1. Resurrection of the body
2. Immortality of the soul
3. Existence of spirits and angels
4. Divine predestination

They also only accepted the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) as inspired Scripture. Unlike the Pharisees, they gladly cooperated with the Romans, which enabled them to maintain a privileged, wealthy status among the Jews.

--Imagine being the seventh brother here. Probably a lot of sleepless nights.

--Jesus pointedly says that the Sadducees’ hypothetical scenario (which was intentionally designed to try to make the concept of the resurrection seem absurd) was fatally flawed because they did not understand the Scriptures or the power of God. The resurrection is not merely the restoration of life as we know it. It is an entirely new life. Some people make the same mistake where they think heaven will simply be a better earth. Eternal life in heaven is an entirely different kind of life altogether. Even our human relationships will be different. Now there are still a lot of things about our future resurrection that we don’t know, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Essentially, Jesus is saying that there will be no need for marriage in heaven because there will be no death and thus no need to have children to continue the family line, which is one of the primary reasons marriage exists in our world.

--When we don’t know the Scriptures, we don’t have a foundation for truth and faith. When we don’t know the power of God (which is revealed within the pages of Scripture), we doubt His ability to do what He has promised. “With God all things are possible.” This is why it is so important to read the Bible for yourself and know what it says. There are people out there who will attempt to deceive you, and you can be taken in by Scripture being used out of context. We should strive to be like the Bereans in Acts 17:10-12, who didn’t just take Paul’s word for it. They studied the Scriptures for themselves and ascertained that what he preached was true. Now Paul was not attempting to deceive them, and I’m not saying I am or that Pastor Hayden would, but it is so important to know what you believe for yourself and why you believe it. That’s what got me started reading the Bible for myself back when I was in high school.

--As I said before, the Sadducees only accepted the Pentateuch as genuine Scripture, so they rejected immortality and the resurrection because they claimed it wasn’t taught in those five books. Jesus takes on that challenge as well by quoting from Exodus 3:6, where God says He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Christ says that because God speaks of the patriarchs in the present tense despite the fact that they had been dead for hundreds of years at that point proves that they were (and are) still alive.

III. The Challenge of Biblical Assertions (12:28-34)

--The scribes were men who were learned in the Mosaic law, and they examined the more difficult and subtle questions of the law. Because of this, many scribes were part of the Sanhedrin, and they’re often mentioned in connection with the priests and elders. This scribe in particular is not antagonistic like the groups from the previous two questions. He actually seems genuinely interested in what Christ’s answer is. There is sincere intellectual curiosity at work here. The word “well” in verse 28 has the idea of being completely right with no room for a counterargument, so he acknowledges that Christ’s answers up to this point have been correct.

--The rabbis counted 613 commandments in the law of Moses. 365 were classified as prohibitions (negative), and 248 were considered commands (positive). They were further divided into categories of more or less importance, so this scribe was asking Jesus to pick which one of these 613 commandments was the most important one, which seems almost impossible at first glance.

--But Jesus did the scribe one better and gave Him two commandments. He starts with what is known as the Shema from Deuteronomy 6, which pious Jews still recite daily even now. In the parallel passage in Matthew, He says that all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. In essence, every single command in the Bible can be boiled down to loving God and loving your neighbor. If you do those two things, you’ll automatically obey all the others. In reality, Jesus did not esteem one law above the others. He basically defined the law with these two commandments [Use Ten Commandments as examples].

--The scribe’s answer was right on the money and in line with Scripture. I Samuel 15:22 says, “To obey is better than sacrifice.” Jesus recognized the wisdom of the scribe’s reply by saying he wasn’t far from the kingdom of God. He wasn’t there yet, but he was headed in the right direction because, unlike the other challengers, the scribe came into this discussion with an open mind. Just knowing the right answer isn’t enough. We still must personally put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ to forgive our sins. There is a difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge.

--This passage concludes with saying that no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions after this. He took on all challengers and emerged victorious. There have been many people who have tried to attack and overthrow the Word of God throughout the ages, but it still stands and always will [Example of Voltaire]. Jesus never fails.