Mat 22:15-33 | Family

Matthew 22:15-33

Herodians; they held that it was lawful to pay tribute to Cesar, or to the Romans, who had conquered and governed Judea. The Pharisees held that it was not, but was contrary to the divine law. De 17:15. Wicked men for evil purposes sometimes make great professions of respect to preachers of the gospel, and pretend to have an earnest desire to know the truth; yet when the truth is exhibited, as revealed by God, they reject it; thus showing that their real character was not that of sincere inquirers, but of objectors and hypocrites. Tell us; settle the question so much disputed among us.

Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cesar, or not? if he should say it was not lawful, they meant to accuse him to the civil authority as an enemy to the Romans; if he should say it was lawful, they meant to accuse him to the people as opposed to the law of God. Perceived; he saw their hearts, their motives, as plainly as he did their faces. Tribute-money; the Roman coin in which the civil taxes were paid. Cesar's; this showed that as they were under his government, and enjoyed its protection, they ought to assist in supporting it; while, at the same time, they ought to obey God. Marvelled; they were astonished at his wisdom in escaping their snare. Neither could accuse him, for he had maintained the rights of the government and the rights of God. No resurrection; of the body after death. They denied any existence of the soul after death, and consequently any reunion of soul and body in a future resurrection. Seed; children, who should be called after his brother, that no family in Israel might become extinct. Whose wife; they thought the resurrection absurd, and that this difficulty would prove its absurdity. The difficulties which men bring forward, in order to show that doctrines revealed in the Bible are false, are often difficulties of their own making, and spring from ignorance of the Scriptures, not from these doctrines as God has revealed them. The doctrines of the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection of the body were both taught in the Old Testament; as was also the obligation of men to love God with all the heart, and their neighbors as themselves. By Christ these truths were revealed with greater clearness, but the great requirements of both Testaments are substantially the same. Toughing the resurrection; in proof from the Bible of the resurrection.

Have ye not read, Ex 3:6,15. The manner in which God spoke of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, showed they were still alive, in opposition to the doctrine of the Sadducees. And as Jehovah was then the God of their living souls, he would in due time raise their bodies incorruptible and immortal. Astonished; to witness his acquaintance with the scriptures, and the wisdom and justice of his application of them.