The Book of Mark #72 chapter 12:13-17
The Book of Mark
The Pathology of a Religious Hypocrite
Mark 12:13-17
 
Just to set the scene, in our study of the book of Mark, we are in the last week of the life of Jesus.  For three years, He has demonstrated without a doubt that He is the Son of God.  He has proven it by His power over disease, demons, death and nature.  Anyone who has been paying attention should have been convinced of His deity. 
 
He has found resistance and hesitancy to acceptance  His claims in only one major area and that is from those who should have seen it first, the religious leadership of Israel.  And instead of accepting Him, they have decided He must die.
 
And as we saw last week, they will become the ones prophesied of in Scripture who kill the beloved Son of the owner of the vineyard in the story Jesus tells in verses 1-12.  And they want to kill Him then, but they were afraid of the people and they left Him alone for a little while and went away. 
 
We are about to find out that they went away to hatch a plan for how they will proceed.  Jesus has made it personal with His parable, and their response to that is found in our text tonight. 
 
Now reading between the lines, they have two items on their agenda.  First, they are going to have to turn the public against Him, and second, they need the Romans to kill Jesus. 
 
 
As you know, the plan to kill Him was initiated by the Sanhedrin which is the ruling council of 70 plus the High Priest.  The Sanhedrin in composed of three groups, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the scribes.  And all three confront the Lord in these final days of His life seeking to trap Him so He will be discredited before the people. 
 
 The first trap is set by the Pharisees. It doesn’t work. The second trap is set by the Sadducees. It doesn’t work. Third trap is attempted by the scribes and it doesn’t work either..
 
So when we come to verse 13 what we are seeing is this first approach by the Pharisees. 
 
Verses 13-17
 
Now one of the keys to why their traps didn’t work is found in verse 15.  “He knew their hypocrisy”.
 
If they had only known, everything they tried was useless because He knew what they were up to.  He knew what they were thinking.  He knew the plan better than they did.  He knew their motives.  And He knew their hypocrisy. 
 
In fact, this passage of Scripture provides a great expose of a hypocrite. 
 
First of all, hypocrisy creates
 
1. Awkward Alliances that Oppose the Truth
 
Verse 13
 
The Pharisees and Herodians were two sects that co-existed in the land of Israel with an uneasy kind of relationship. The Pharisees were the most religious.  The Herodians the least religious. The Pharisees were most concerned with the Law of God. The Herodians were most concerned with the Law of Rome. The Pharisees were most devoted to Israel. The Herodians were most devoted to Caesar. The Pharisees were intensely religious. The Herodians were intensely political.
 
Essentially, the Pharisees hated the Herodians, they had sold their soul. They were traitors to the Roman cause and the Pharisees, devout Jews that they were, despised them.  But remember, the Jewish leaders have two primary needs. 
 
They need to discredit Jesus and they need to get Rome to kill Him.  So in the Herodians they find a needed connection to the Roman authorities. 
 
The problem is the Pharisees wanted to get rid of Jesus for religious reasons.  But the Romans could care less about religion and they sure weren’t going to kill Jesus because of His trilogy.  For them to get involved there would have to be a political issue. 
 
Thus we have the Pharisees and the Herodians coming to Jesus.  The goal of this visit is to put Jesus in a position where He makes religious statements that set Him against the Jews and political statements that the Romans will see as rebellion or insurrection.  The plan then unfolds at the end of verse 13.  They want to catch Him in His words.
 
 
By the way, the word “catch” is the only occurrence of this word in all the New Testament and it means to capture in hunting. They’re coming after Him to capture Him like an animal.
 
So the first thing you see about hypocrites is their awkward alliances. 
 
Second thing,
 
2.  They will say anything to accomplish their goals.
 
Verse 14a
 
See what’s happening?  They believe flattering Jesus will relax Him and He’ll open up to them.  They call Him “Teacher”.  That’s a term of honor reserved for rabbis. That must have been hard for them to say.
 
The next thing they said must have come out even harder.  “We know that You are truthful.” Wow! Why would they say that? They don’t believe that for a second. In fact, they believe just the opposite.  They think Jesus is a deceiver and a liar and a fraud and has to be stopped in silenced and killed.
 
Why would they say that? They say that because they’re flattering Him. But the popular consensus among the people is that He’s a teacher who’s come from God. So they’re identifying with the people.  This comment is not so much for Jesus as it is for the crowd. 
 
After all, we’re one of you.  We simply came to Jesus looking for the same truth as you.  They want to appear as legitimate truth seekers.
And their question creates this scenario where Jesus will be motivated to answer. If somebody comes to you and says, “You are so truthful and wise.  Everything about you is truthful. You always tell the truth and you don’t care what anybody thinks about it so let me ask you a question. . .”, then you’re going to be pressured to tell them exactly what the truth is. The bar has been set so high and your pride is going to force you to give them the truth, whether or not you would prefer to do that. That’s what they’re doing here.
 
“You’re truthful and we know You are truthful and folks can just like it or lump it because you shoot straight. You just speak the truth and we honor You for that because you speak for God.”
 
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that a hypocrite will use any means they can to get their way and then try to justify their behavior.  They will say what they need to say to gain the ground they need to gain.
 
And that leads to the next characteristic of hypocrites which is
 
3. They falsely pursue the truth
 
verses 14-15a
 
They don’t really want the truth out of Jesus, they want to discredit the truth.  They couldn’t care less about His answer to their question. 
 
So think about the scenario they’ve set.  They’re asking this question to a rabbi, a representative of God who’s known for speaking the truth without flinching.
“Should we, as Jews, pay taxes to an idolatrous, pagan Gentile government who has invaded God’s holy land of Israel and occupied it, and seized control of God’s people? Should we pay their taxes or not?”
 
The obvious answer is “no.  I’ll guarantee you if you turn and ask the crowd that’s gathered that’s what they’ll say!  And for commentary on that, just think about what we know about the treatment of tax collectors.  Tax collectors were nothing more than Jews who bought franchises from Rome and used strong-arm tactics to get the money out of the people.
 
No, the Jews hated Rome. They hated the occupied presence of Rome. They hated the taxation of Rome because Rome was idolatrous and Rome was pagan. And they hated the notion of giving Rome anything.
 
So what do you say Rabbi Jesus?  Do we pay it or not?  Is it lawful according to God’s law? What would God have us do when it comes to paying this tax?
 
If He says “yes”, He loses His popularity with the people because He’s not getter than a tax collector.  IF He says “No”, He’s an insurrectionist with thousands of people following Him and He becomes a threat to Rome and the Herodians will see Him as a threat that must be destroyed.
 
So we see the hypocrites who have no honest desire for the truth.  They will join up with any and everyone to accomplish their goals and say and do whatever they must to accomplish their goals. 
 
 
The second part of verse 15 turns the story away from them and to the Lord. 
 
Verse 15b
 
Immediately Jesus reveals that He knows their motives. They’re not looking for answers. This isn’t a pursuit of the truth. There’s no honesty here. They were simply setting a trap. 
 
So Jesus asks for a denarius.  That is an extremely important detail because the Jews didn’t carry that coin. It shouldn’t be in the pocket of a Pharisee. It’s a Roman coin used between 300 B.C. and 300 A.D.  It was minted in silver by Rome’s emperors. Only emperors had the power and authority to mint coins in silver and gold.
 
And all such coins minted by the emperor bore the sacred image of the emperor engraved on one side and some other identifying inscription on the other side.
 
Now when the Bible says, verse 16, “so they brought it” two possibilities emerge.  Either they had to go find a Roman and borrow a coin or one of these Jews is carrying what He shouldn’t be. 
 
I tend to thin it was the second one and some red-faced Pharisee has to pull out this denarius he has in his robe.  Not understand, I’m speculating, but it’s kind of fun, isn’t it? 
 
Anyway, they bring this coin to Jesus and He asks about the image on the coin.  Everyone knows it’s Caesar’s so that’s what they answer.
 
And by the way, let’s just assume it was minted by Tiberius Caesar. On the front of the coin it would have said, “Tiberius Caesar, Augustus, Son of the Divine Augustus.” Augustus had minted coins in 17 B.C. He had identified himself as God. Tiberius designated himself as the son of the divine. 
 
If you flipped the coin over it would have a picture of Livia, the mother of Tiberius, and it would have been inscribed “Pontifex Maximus.” That is the title the Pope now wears which is a pagan title, by the way.  So Tiberius adds to His titles that of high priest.
 
So these coins, in the minds of the Jews, were little idols. They were graven images and it violated Exodus the second command.  They wouldn’t carry them. They wouldn’t use them. They would pay the Roman tax in the equivalency in their own Hebrew coinage.
 
And by the way, I am convinced Jesus saws those coins in the same way.  They were blasphemous and it was expected that Jesus would denounce the coinage, maybe even denounce Caesar himself, call him the blasphemer that he was and say the Law of God forbids paying any tribute to anyone other than God. 
 
They would have never imagined Jesus would respond as He did. 
 
verse 17a
 
That is a far-reaching statement.  Jesus says, “Pay the tax.  You owe it, it’s a debt, it belongs to him.”
 
How could He say that?  It is because Scripture teaches us that government is an institution of God.  The authority of the government is God given and God expects us to honor those He’s palced in authority over us. 
 
Listen to Romans 13:1-7
 
We’re called to submit ourselves and even to pray for the authorities that are over us.  And God designed that and Jesus proclaimed it long before Paul wrote to the Roman believers about it. 
 
So what if the government asks you to do something that God forbids you to do? Then you do what God tells you to do. Otherwise, you render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.
 
But here’s the real important statement. “And to God the things that are God’s.” That was the issue with the Pharisees.  They were making a big stink about having to give Caesar what Caesar wanted and they were completely disregarding, giving God what God wanted. You owe God. This is far greater.
 
See, the big issue here is not paying taxes. The big issue is to give God what you owe God. So what did they owe God? They owed God the honor due His Son.  How many times did Jesus say, “If you honor Me, you honor My Father. If you don’t honor Me, you don’t honor My Father. The Father had said at His baptism and again, “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him.” Listen with believing ears and a believing heart.
 
What did they owe God?  The same thing you and I owed God. 
Instead of hypocrisy, He is looking for those who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.  He wants those who “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” We owe Him that.  He’s worthy of that and He commands it.
 
You owe Him to listen to His Son, to love His Son and to honor His Son and to believe in His Son and to embrace His Son as your only hope and your only Savior, the very Son that He is the one who put on the cross to bear the punishment for your sins. They were being forced to give their money to Rome, and they hated it. But it never occurred to them that they owed God the honor due His Son! 
 
The coin belongs to Caesar, He says. But you, He says, belong to God. The coin has Caesar’s image. You bear God’s image. Give the coin to Caesar, but you belong to God.
 
Well, the trap collapsed. Notice the end of Verse 17b
 
Luke adds they were silent and Matthew says they marveled and left, but not for very long. The Sadducees will soon come to pay their visit.  And before we close, I just want to show you the last little part of the story. It’s found in
 
Luke 23:1-2
 
That is an outright lie, isn’t it?  In seems if you are a hypocrite, if flattery doesn’t work, then just lie if you need to!  That’s what hypocrites do.  I think I’ll keep that in mind!  
 
Let’s pray.