Big Idea: In response to two questions designed to trap Jesus, he gives replies that not only avoid the traps but also convey important teaching.

Understanding the Text

Once Jesus has reached Jerusalem, he has set himself up as a regular teacher in the court of the Gentiles (19:47; 20:1). This has quickly provoked the temple-based leadership into challenging his authority (20:1–8), to which Jesus has responded with a parable that in turn questions their legitimacy as leaders of Israel (20:9–19). The two encounters in these verses are with different groups within the “coalition” that makes up the Sanhedrin. Their theological and political agendas were different, but they were united in the desire to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the crowd and to find a basis for destroying his challenge. In these two incidents the Jerusalem authorities take the initiative, but from 20:41 on it will be Jesus who directs the debate.

Historical and Cultural Background

The imposition of direct Roman rule over Judea and Samaria in AD 6 was followed by a census in order to impose a capitation (poll) tax on all citizens of the area. This particular tax was therefore a symbol of their political subjection, and so it was violently opposed by many Jews on patriotic grounds. The census provoked a significant armed uprising led by Judas of Galilee. His rebellion was crushed, but his ideology of “No king but God” (and therefore no taxes paid to a pagan power) was the inspiration for the later Zealot movement, which eventually led to war with Rome and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The question posed to Jesus was therefore politically very sensitive.

Sadducees, the “party” that controlled the temple priesthood, accepted as authoritative only the written law of Moses, and so they rejected such “newfangled” ideas as resurrection and life after death. The test case that they propose in order to ridicule the idea depends on the law of levirate marriage (Deut. 25:5–6). There are only two examples of this law being applied in the Old Testament (Gen. 38:6–11; Ruth 4:5–10), in both of which the surviving relative proves reluctant. But a large body of rabbinic legislation on the subject shows that the law remained in force, at least in theory. The imaginary story of a woman’s seven marriages may be loosely based on a story from the apocryphal book of Tobit, where a woman, Sarah, marries seven husbands in turn but each is killed by a demon before the marriage is consummated (Tob. 3:7–8; 6:14–15). Sarah eventually marries Tobias, son of Tobit, who survives the wedding night through prayer and by repelling the demon with the help of the angel Raphael (Tob. 8:1–18).

Interpretive Insights

20:20 they sent spies. In context “they” must be the members of the Sanhedrin with whom Jesus has just been disputing. Luke uses strongly pejorative language to describe these agents provocateurs and their political purpose. The question that they pose is not a sincere inquiry, but rather an attempt to get Jesus to incriminate himself. It is the more remarkable, therefore, that Jesus, well aware of their intention, nonetheless takes the issue seriously in his reply.

20:21 you do not show partiality. The fulsome opening address is, of course, flattery designed to get under Jesus’s guard. But it also recognizes that Jesus, as a Galilean, was not subject to the controversial Roman tax in Judea. His opinion is therefore ostensibly being sought as a respected neutral authority in matters of religious duty.

20:22 Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Note the “for us”: Jesus, they imply, can afford as a non-Judean to be objective about what was for them a fraught existential issue. The trap is clear enough: to answer yes would be to alienate a large part of Judean public opinion, which saw this as a matter of patriotic principle; to answer no would make Jesus a dangerous radical in the eyes of the Romans.

20:24 Show me a denarius. The Roman silver coin, used for paying the tax, bore the portrait of the emperor and an inscription describing him as “son of God” and “high priest.” Strict Jews therefore regarded it as idolatrous and so refused to use it; copper coins without such a portrait were available for daily commerce. By getting his questioners to produce a denarius, Jesus exposed their supposed patriotism as phony: they themselves were using the emperor’s coinage, so they had no grounds for refusing to pay his tax.

Whose image? The word may be intended to suggest an analogy with the “image of God” in Genesis 1:27: as the coin belongs to Caesar, so we belong to God.

20:25 give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. This answer cleverly avoids a simple yes or no. But it does more. “Give back” suggests that taxation is a proper return for the benefits received through good government; this is far from the Zealot ideology, which saw Rome as simply the enemy of Israel and of God. But the second clause sets civic duty in the broader context of the kingdom of God. For the rebel Judas the Galilean and his followers, Rome was diametrically opposed to God, but Jesus implies that there may be good government under God (as there was at this time while Tiberius was emperor); there is no necessary conflict. But Jesus’s formula does not address the question of how God’s people should respond when Caesar sets himself up against God, as would happen under later emperors.

20:26 they became silent. Jesus has won the debate. Their discomfiture leaves the field open for a different faction within the Sanhedrin to try a more theological question in 20:28–33. When Jesus is judged to have won that debate as well, the tactic of public questioning will be abandoned (20:40). But the authorities have not dropped the issue: in 23:2 the same matter of Roman tax will be raised, and Jesus will be accused of the very radicalism that here he has carefully avoided.

20:28 raise up offspring for his brother. The verb suggests that the only “afterlife” that the Sadducees envisage is through progeny. If there was an expectation of personal resurrection, why need Moses have made such provision?

20:29 Now there were seven brothers. The story is meant to ridicule the idea of the resurrection. Could the woman be the wife of all seven in the afterlife? But even if the question was not meant seriously, it raises a real pastoral issue. Many people are married more than once, whether through death or divorce (or, these days, through serial relationships even without marriage). What becomes of such relationships in heaven?

20:34–36 The people of this age marry. Heaven is not to be envisaged as a simple continuation of life as we know it now. In that deathless (and birthless) existence (“like angels”) there is no place for the procreation that is the basis of earthly marriage, and so perhaps Jesus is suggesting that the exclusiveness that is so important to earthly marriage will be transcended in heaven. At any rate, he warns against any attempt to depict the life of “children of the resurrection” as being just like life on earth.

20:35 those who are considered worthy. Jesus does not teach a universal resurrection to “the age to come”; it depends on God’s verdict, not on inherent “immortality.”

20:37–38 even Moses showed that the dead rise. Jesus has answered the specific question asked, but now he turns to the basic issue it was intended to highlight: Is there life after death at all? That question might more easily be answered from texts in the poets and prophets of the Old Testament (e.g., Job 19:25–27; Ps. 16:9–11; Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2), but the Sadducees gave priority to the law of Moses. So Jesus argues instead from a pentateuchal passage, Exodus 3:6. If Moses can describe God as identifying himself as the God of people who have died, they must still be living (or will be raised). Underlying this assertion is God’s covenant with the patriarchs. If God has committed himself to them in a covenant, he cannot allow that relationship to be simply terminated by death. It is an argument from the character of God, not simply from the way that text is expressed.

20:39 Well said, teacher! Scribes, who were mostly of the Pharisaic school and so believed in an afterlife, were pleased to see their ideological opponents silenced.

Theological Insights

The issue of how religion should affect civil responsibilities was important in the first-century church, and it has been controversial ever since. Jesus’s answer here is not just “clever,” for it also teaches that it is possible to be both a faithful Christian and a responsible citizen; the kingdom of God can coexist with the empire of Rome. Paul expresses a similar view in Romans 13:1–7 (cf. 1 Pet. 2:13–17) that even pagan rulers have a God-given function. Paul wrote in the earlier part of Nero’s reign, when the imperial government was still relatively benign. A very different picture emerges in the book of Revelation, written at a time when Rome had apparently become a persecuting power, demanding religious submission in direct opposition to Christian loyalty. The principle of the two complementary jurisdictions of God and Caesar remains valid in theory, but when Caesar challenges God, there are uncomfortable decisions to be made.

Jesus’s argument for life after death in 20:37–38 is so brief as to be quite cryptic. As an ad hominem argument addressed to Sadducees, it apparently carried its point, but a full theological defense of resurrection belief must take in the whole gamut of Scripture, the Old and New Testaments. The separate argument in 20:34–36 concerning the nature of resurrection life sounds an important warning against simplistic assumptions based on earthly experience. There is an inevitable and proper element of mystery about life after death.

Teaching the Text

These two pericopes are related in that they represent challenges to Jesus from various groups within the leadership of Israel. They can therefore be taught together with the rest of chapter 20 around the theme of Jesus’s successful debates with his opponents. Ideally, however, they should be taught separately, since they have different themes and raise unique theological questions.

1. The tax question. Make sure that people have grasped the political situation underlying this question and how sensitive it was in Judea at the time. Discuss the possible repercussions if Jesus had answered with a straightforward yes or no. How would bystanders have evaluated what he in fact said? Where might they have placed him on the scale between patriotic insurgents and traitorous collaborators?

This passage of course raises the difficult question of the relationship of the Christian to the state. Discuss what sorts of issues in our society raise the same question of God versus Caesar. Who or what is “Caesar” in our political system? Are there limits to the principle that both God and Caesar have legitimate claims? How should Christians today react when these claims seem to be in conflict? Would Jesus have answered differently if he had been living at the time of the book of Revelation?

2. The resurrection question. This passage can raise many questions when you consider how many of our acquaintances can expect to meet more than one former spouse/partner in heaven. What are the pastoral issues involved? Does Jesus’s teaching about “no marriage in heaven” sound bleak and unattractive? Why is this? How far are our subconscious ideas about heaven simply modeled on life as we know it on earth? How can we avoid this pitfall? While these questions are important and may be addressed in a sermon or lesson, be sure to focus on Jesus’s primary point, which is the reality of resurrection and the afterlife.

Some of your listeners may find Jesus’s argument from Exodus 3:6 obscure or unconvincing. His point is that long after the patriarchs were dead, God still identified himself as their God. They must therefore have a continuing existence with him. In your teaching you might suggest other arguments for the afterlife from Scripture, especially if not constrained by the Sadducean focus only on the law of Moses. Tease out in what way Jesus’s argument depends on the character of God and his relationship with his people; how could we develop that argument more fully for our generation?

Illustrating the Text

A necessary conflict exists between loyalty to God and civil obedience.

Biography: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer (1906–45) was a German theologian and pastor who grew into his understanding of the need for civil disobedience. When he was twenty-seven, he wrote an essay entitled “The Church and the Jewish Question” after the Nazi regime had effected a boycott of Jewish businesses. He contended that the church had to defend and stand with the Jews; they could not sit by in neutrality, which would be simply cowardice and passivity. He paid for his civil disobedience with his life. The Nazis executed him in 1945. A very fine documentary called Bonhoeffer is available, and there are a number of excellent biographies, including Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxas.

Quote: “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King Jr. This eloquent letter (August 1963) is addressed to eight white Alabama pastors who argued that the racial battle had to be fought in the courts and not on the streets, a response to King’s participation in the Birmingham campaign. The document is worth knowing thoroughly because it addresses the church’s sin in being, in King’s words, a “thermometer instead of a thermostat”—a striking metaphor. The following paragraph shows the spirit of King’s thinking.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see . . . that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. . . . But we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; . . . then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.1

Current Trends: Today, there are an increasing number of such conflicts. For example, the announcement of a mandate for all businesses and institutions to perform abortions and supply contraceptives in their facilities and through their insurance plans created a dilemma for the Catholic Church and its hospitals.

The resurrection is of fundamental importance to the Christian faith.

Quote: A. W. Tozer. Tozer (1897–1963), a well-known pastor, preacher, and author, wrote, “Let no one apologize for the powerful emphasis Christianity lays upon the doctrine of the world to come. Right there lies its immense superiority to everything else within the whole sphere of human thought or experience. . . . We do well to think of the long tomorrow.”2