I enjoy riddles. Like this one:
The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?
Riddles like this one are fun for me because they give me the opportunity to stretch my thinking. The way to solve most riddles is to think outside of the box. Like this one. The answer? Footsteps.
It makes total sense now that you know the answer, right?
This week’s session features three challenges—riddles of sort—the Pharisees and Sadducees gave to Jesus, and one that Jesus gave back to them. In each of the four brief encounters, we see the unsurpassed wisdom of Christ. He not only easily “solved” the riddles thrown His way, but he presented His own riddle that stumped and quieted the Jewish leaders. Because knowing the background of each of these challenges is necessary to understand them, let’s walk through each one together.
The Religious Leaders’ Goal (Mt 22:15)
The conversations in this chapter take place at the tail end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, during the week leading up to the crucifixion. By this point, the religious leaders, who at first were somewhat open to considering that Jesus may have been the Messiah, have made up their minds that He is not the Messiah and are looking for a way to get rid of him. The problem is that the people still support Jesus, so they will need a good reason to deal with Him, one that would turn the people against Him.
A Question about Allegiance (Mt 22:16-22)
The Backstory: We have to remember that Rome was an occupying force in Israel, one of a long series of foreign occupiers. While Rome was a rather tolerant occupying force due to their theory of Pax Romana, they were still a foreign power restricting the rights of the Israelites and taking its resource. Every tax dollar paid to the Romans was, therefore, a dagger in the hearts of the Israelites who yearned for freedom. To make matters worse, those tax dollars would go to supporting the occupying Roman army. In essence, then, Israel was paying to be occupied by Rome.
The Angle: The Pharisees, taking the first crack at Jesus here, were the people’s party. They knew the pulse of the people well and the people could relate with them much more than they could the Sadducees who were more elite. The Pharisees anticipated Jesus answering their question in one of two ways. First, Jesus could say that the Israelites should pay taxes to Rome. If Jesus answered this way, then the Pharisees could turn to the people and rile them up against Jesus, the Roman sympathizer. But if, instead, Jesus said that the Israelites should not pay taxes to Rome, then the Pharisees could go to the Romans and accused Jesus of being an insurrectionist. Rome was rather lenient with the people they occupied, as long as they remained submissive. They had little tolerance for anyone disrupting Roman peace, even if it was a charade. Rome would then deal with Jesus, taking care of Him on their behalf.
The Result: In essence, Jesus said that the Israelites should pay taxes to Rome, bu the way He did it demonstrated amazing wisdom. Jesus asked for them to show Him a Roman coin, which had several images and statements of worshipping the Roman Emperor and gods. The monotheistic Jews despised these coins, so this was Jesus’ way of asking, “Who would want these Roman coins anyway? These belong to Caesar, why not give them back?”
A Question about Resurrection (Mt 22:23-33)
The Backstory: It was now the Sadducees turn to try to trip up Jesus. Besides the Pharisees being the people’s party and the Sadducees being the part of the elite, rubbing shoulders with the wealthy and even the Romans, the two groups differed strongly when it came to theology. One key area of disagreement was bodily resurrection. The Sadducees denied it.
The Angle: The Sadducees knew that Jesus taught a bodily resurrection, to their goal was to make their best argument against it in public, to make the idea of it, and Jesus who taught it, look to be foolish. Coupling the idea of resurrection with the law of levirate marriage, where a brother would be obliged to marry the widow of a brother, they told a rather absurd story of seven brothers, each of whom was married to the same woman in succession when each died. Their question was simple: If there is resurrection, whose wife would she be? While the Jews were know to practice polygamy, polyandry, one woman having multiple husbands, was generally rejected.
The Result: Jesus took three shots at the Sadducees. First, He rightly pointed out that they did not know the Scriptures. Notice that they failed to argue directly against resurrection from Scripture.
Second, their understanding of marriage was flawed, thus their question was moot. In heaven there will be no marriage as it is on earth. Instead there will only be one marriage—Christ and His bride. A point of clarity is in order here. Jesus did not say here that people will be like angels—we don’t become angels. Rather, in the sense that angels are not married we will be like them.
Third, Jesus directly challenges their rejection of resurrection from Scripture, pointing to Exodus 3 when God told Moses, “I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” If there were no resurrection, God would have been mistaken. He should have said. “I was the God of Abraham…” But as Jesus explained, God did not make a mistake here for He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. We all need to call our middle school English teachers and ask them to forgive us for doubting the value of grammar, don’t we?
The Sadducees attempt to trick Jesus flopped spectacularly.
A Question about Priorities (Mt 22:34-40)
The Backstory: The Old Testament has over 613 laws that the Jews had to follow. The problem was that there were occasions when it was impossible to keep a law because to do so would require you to break a different law. What should a good Jew do in those times?
To answer this question, rabbis developed a system to evaluate which laws where most important—these were categorized as “heavy” laws. The other laws were called “light” laws. This in no way diminished the requirement to obey the “light” laws on their own. They were vital too in that sense. But if two laws ever collided, the “heavy” law would win out.
That was the easy part. The hard part is determining which laws were “heavy” and which were “light.” It was a subjective exercise and any rabbi’s categories were open for attack from others.
The Angle: It was the Pharisees’ turn again. This time they took a “safer” approach; they would push Jesus to side with one of the various interpretive schools concerning which laws were “heavy” and which were “light.” This is what was meant by the question of which is the greatest command. No matter who Jesus sided with, a significant portion of the rabbis and people would immediately find themselves against Jesus. This question would splinter Jesus’ support base no matter what.
The Result: Instead of siding with a rabbi’s system, Jesus offered His own. The greatest command is to love God. The second is to love your neighbor. All of the law hinges on these two. Think about it: what command in Scripture does not align under one of these two? Not a single one. Love is at the core of all we do. Love for God and love for others. Once again, Jesus had provided an answer that could not be questioned.
A Question about Identity (Mt 22:41-46)
The Backstory: As they say in baseball, three strikes and you are out. It is now Jesus’ turn. Jesus draws attention to the undisputed belief that the Messiah would be a descendant of David to silence His critics based a title that David gave the Messiah.
The Angle: Jesus quoted Psalm 110:1 where David had spoken of the Messiah. Jesus draws the Pharisees’ attention to the use of “lord.” The first “lord” was not an issue—it referred to God, the Lord. But what of the second? This refers to the Messiah, David’s descendant. And that was the issue. Ancestors do not pay respect to their descendants. It’s the other way around. The younger respects the older. Why would David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, calls the Messiah lord, or “sir”? He wouldn’t. The answer is plain: the Messiah was lord in the same way as the Father—He is Lord. He is divine.
The Result: And with that, neither the Pharisees, the Sadducees, or the people dared to question Jesus any more. They had been beaten and they knew it.
But, as we know, the religious leaders would find another way to get to Jesus: lies.
Our trust in the Bible stems from our trust in Jesus Christ: the man who is God, the King of the world, the crucified, risen and exalted rescuer … I love him, and I’ve decided to follow him, so if he talks and acts as if the Bible is trustworthy, authoritative, good, helpful and powerful, I will too … even if some of my questions remain unanswered, or my answers remain unpopular.” — Andrew Wilson
Andrew Wilson, Unbreakable: What the Son of God Said About the Word of God (10Publishing, 2014) [eBook].
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