The whole point of the story depends upon the fact that this
tribute-money was not a civil, but an ecclesiastical impost. It had
originally been levied in the Wilderness, at the time of the
numbering of the people, and was enjoined to be repeated at each
census, when every male Israelite was to pay half a shekel for 'a
ransom for his soul,' an acknowledgment that his life was forfeited
by sin. In later years it came to be levied as an annual payment for
the support of the temple and its ceremonial. It was never
compulsory, there was no power to exact it. The question of the
collectors, 'Doth not your Master pay tribute?' does not sound like
the imperative demand which a 'publican' would have made for payment
of an impost due to the Roman Government. It was an 'optional
church-rate,' and the very fact that it was so, would make Jews who
were, or wished to be considered, patriotic or religious, the more
punctilious in paying it.
The question put to Peter possibly implies a doubt whether this
Rabbi, who held lax views on so many points of Pharisaical
righteousness, would be likely to recognise the obligation of the
tax. Peter's quick answer seems to be prompted by zeal for his
Master's honour, on which the question appears to him to cast a
slur. It was perhaps too quick, but the apostle has been too much
blamed for his answer, which was in fact correct, and for which our
Lord does not blame him. When he comes to Christ to tell what has
happened, before he can speak, Christ puts to him this little
parable which I have taken as part of my text: 'How thinkest thou?
Do kings of this world take custom?'--meaning thereby not imports or
exports, but taxes of all kinds of things,--'or tribute,'--meaning
thereby taxes on persons--'from their own children, or from subjects
who are not their children?' The answer, of course, is, 'From the
latter.' So the answer comes, 'Then are the children free.'
Christ then here claims in some sense, Sonship to Him to whom the
tribute is paid, that is, to God, and therefore freedom from the
obligation to pay the tribute. But notice, for this is an important
point in the explanation of the words, that the plural in our Lord's
words, 'Then are the children free,' is not intended to include
Peter and the others in the same category as Himself. The only
question in hand is as to His obligation to pay a certain tax; and
to include any one else would have been irrelevant, as well as
erroneous. The plural belongs to the illustration, not to its
application, and corresponds with the plural in the question, 'Of
whom do the _kings_ of the earth take custom?' The kings of the
earth are contrasted with the one King of the heavens, the supreme
and sole Sovereign; and the children of the kings of the earth are
contrasted with the only begotten Son of the only King of kings and
Lord of lords.
So that here there is no mixing up of Himself with others, or of
others with Himself, but the claiming of an unique position,
singular and sole, belonging to Him only, in which He stands as the
Son of the mighty Monarch to whom the tribute is paid. He claims to
have the divine nature, the divine prerogatives, to bear a specific
relationship to God Himself, and to be, as other words in Scripture
put it, 'the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image
of His person.'
If there is anything certain about Jesus Christ's teaching, this is
certain about it, that He proclaimed Himself to be the Son of God,
in such a sense as no man shared with Him, and in such a sense as
vindicated the attitude which He took up, the demands which He made,
and the gifts which He offered to men.
What a deduction must be made from the wisdom of His teaching, and
from the meekness of His Spirit, if that claim was an illusion! What
shall we say of the sanity of a man who poses himself before the
whole race, claiming to be the Son of God, and whose continual
teaching to them therefore is, _not_, 'Believe in goodness';
'Believe in virtue'; 'Believe in truth'; 'Believe in My word'; but
'Believe in Me'? Was there ever anywhere else a religious teacher,
all of whose words were gracious and wise and sweet, but who--
'Make the important stumble,
Of saying that he, the sage and humble,
Was likewise--one with the Creator'?
But now what is the freedom based on sonship which our Lord here
claims?
I have said that this tax was levied with a double meaning; first,
it was an atonement or ransom for the soul; second, it was devoted
to the temple and its worship. And now, mark, that in both these
aspects our Lord alleges His true sonship as the reason why He is
exempt from it.
That is to say, first, Jesus Christ claims to have no need of a
ransom for His soul. Never one word dropped from His lips which
indicated the smallest consciousness of flaw or failure, of defect
or imperfection, still less of actual transgression. He takes His
position outside the circle of sinful men which includes all others.
It is a strange characteristic in a religious teacher, very unlike
the usual tone of devout men. And stranger still is the fact that
the absence of this consciousness of evil has never been felt to be
itself evil and a blot. Think of a David's agony of penitence. Think
of a Paul's, 'Of whom I am chief!' Think of the long wail of an
Augustine's confessions. Think of the stormy self-accusations of a
Luther; and then think that He who inspired them all, never, by word
or deed, betrayed the slightest consciousness that in Himself there
was the smallest deflection from the perfect line of right, the
least speck or stain on the perfect gold of His purity. And
remember, too, that when He challenges the world with, 'Which of you
convinceth Me of sin?' with the exception of half a dozen men, of
whom we can scarcely say whether their want of spiritual insight or
their arrogance of self-importance is the most flagrant, who, in the
course of nineteen centuries, have ventured to fling their little
handfuls of mud at Him, the whole world has answered, 'Thou art
fairer than the children of men; grace is poured into Thy lips.'
The Son needs no 'ransom for His soul,' which, being translated, is
but this: the purity and the innocence of Jesus Christ, which is a
manifest fact in His biography, is only explicable when we believe
that we have before us the Incarnate God, and therefore the Perfect
Man. And the Son needs no temple for His worship. His whole life, as
human, was a life of communion and prayer with His Father in heaven.
And just because He 'dwelt in' God's 'bosom all the year,' for Him
ritual and temple were nought. Sense-bound men needed them; He
needed them not. 'In this place,' said He, 'is one greater than the
temple.' He was all which the temple symbolised. Was it the
dwelling-place of God, the place of sacrifice, the meeting-place of
man with God, the place of divine manifestation? 'The temple of His
body' was in deepest reality all these. In it dwelt the whole
fulness of the Godhead. It was at once sacrifice and place of
sacrifice, even as He is the true everlasting Priest. In Him men see
God, and meet with God. He is greater than the temple because He is
the true temple, and He is the true temple because He is the Son.
And because He is the Son, therefore He is free from all dependence
upon, and connection with, the outward worship of ceremony and
sacrifice and priest and ritual.
Now, dear brethren, let me pause for one moment to press upon you
and upon myself this question: Do I welcome that Christ with the
full conviction that He is the Son of God? It seems to me that, in
this generation, the question of questions, as far as religion is
concerned, is the old one which Christ asked of His disciples by the
fountains and woods of Caesarea Philippi: 'Whom say ye that I, the
Son of Man, am?' Can you lift up your face to meet His clear and
all-searching eye, and say: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God'? If you can, you are on the way to understanding Him and
His work; if you cannot, His life and work are all wrapped in
darkness for you, His death robbed of its truest power, and your
life deprived of its surest anchor.
II. Now, there is a second lesson that I would gather from this
miracle--the voluntary submission of the Son to the bonds from which
He is free.
He bids His disciple pay the tribute for Him, for a specific reason:
'Lest we should offend them.' That, of course, is simply a piece of
practical wisdom, to prevent any narrow or purblind souls from
stumbling at His teaching, by reason of His neglect of this trivial
matter. The question of how far religious teachers or any others are
at liberty, when they are not actuated by personal motives, to
render compliance with ceremonies which are of no value to them, is
a wide one, which I have no need to dwell upon here. But, turning
from that specific aspect of the incident, I think we may look upon
it as being an illustration, in regard to a very small matter, of
what is really the essence of our Lord's relation to the whole world
and ourselves--His voluntary taking upon Himself of bonds from which
He is free.
Is it not a symbol of the very heart of the meaning of His
Incarnation? 'For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and
blood He also Himself likewise takes part of the same.' 'He is found
in fashion as a man.' He chooses to enter within the limits and the
obligations of humanity. Round the radiant glories of the divinity,
He gathers the folds of the veil of human flesh. He immerses the
pillar of fire in a cloud of smoke. He comes amongst us, taking on
His own wrists the fetters that bind us, suffering Himself to be
'cribbed, cabined, and confined' within the narrow limits of our
manhood, in order that by His voluntary acceptance of it we may be
redeemed from our corruption.
Is it not a parable of His life and lowly obedience? He proclaimed
the same principle as the guide for all His conduct, when, sinless,
He presented Himself to John for the 'baptism of repentance,' and
overcame the baptiser's scruples with the words, 'Thus it becometh
us to fulfil all righteousness.' He comes under the law. Bound to no
such service, He binds Himself to all human duties that He may
hallow the bonds which He has worn, may set us the pattern of
perfect obedience, and may know a servant's heart.
The Prince is free, but King's Son though He be, He goes among His
Father's poor subjects, lives their squalid lives, makes experience
of their poverty, and hardens His hands by labouring like them.
Sympathy He 'learned in huts where poor men lie.'
Is it not the rehearsal in parable of His death? He was free from
the bonds of mortality, and He took upon Him our human flesh. He was
free from the necessity of death, even after He had taken our flesh
upon Him. But, being free from the necessity, He submitted to the
actuality, and laid down His life of Himself, because of His loving
will, to save and help each of us. Oh, dear friends! we never can
understand the meaning and the beauty, either of the life or of the
death of our Master, unless we look at each from this point of view,
that it is His willing acceptance of the bonds that bind us. His own
loving will brought Him here; His own loving will kept Him here; His
own loving will impelled Him along the path of life, though at every
step of it He trod as with naked feet upon burning iron; His own
loving Will brought Him to the Cross; His own loving will, and not
the Roman soldiers' nails, fastened Him to it. Let us look, then, to
Him with thankfulness, and recognise in that death His thorough
identification with all the bonds and miseries of our condition. He
'took part of the same that through death He might deliver them that
by fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.'
III. Then there is another lesson which I think we may fairly gather
from this miracle, viz. that we have here the supernatural glory
which ever accompanies the humiliation of the Son.
The miracle, at first sight, appears to be for a very trivial end.
Men have made merry with it by reason of that very triviality. But
the miracle is vindicated, peculiar as it is, by a deep divine
congruity and decorum. He will submit, Son though He be, to this
complete identification of Himself with us. But He will so submit
as, even in submitting, to assert His divine dignity. As has been
well said, 'In the midst of the act of submission majesty flashes
forth.' A multiform miracle--containing many miracles in one--a
miracle of omniscience, and a miracle of influence over the lower
creatures is wrought. The first fish that rises carries in its mouth
the exact sum needed.
Here, therefore, we have another illustration of that remarkable
blending of humiliation and glory, which is a characteristic of our
Lord's life. These two strands are always twined together, like a
twisted line of gold and black. At each moment of special abasement
there is some special coruscation of the brightness of His glory.
Whensoever He stoops there is something accompanying the stooping,
to tell how great and how merciful He is who bows. Out of the
deepest darkness there flashes some light. So at His cradle, which
seems to be the identifying of Him with humanity in its most
helpless and lowest condition, there shall be angels, and the stars
in their courses shall bow and move to guide wise men from afar with
offerings to His feet. And at His Cross, where He sounds the very
bass string and touches the lowest point of humiliation and defeat,
a clearer vision sees in that humiliation the highest glory.
And thus, here, He will not only identify Himself with sinful men
who need a ransom, and with sense-bound men who need a sacrifice and
a temple, but He will so identify Himself with them as that He shall
send His power into the recesses of the lake, where His knowledge
sees, as clearly as our eyes see the men that stand beside us, and
obedient to an unconscious impulse from Him, the dumb creature that
had swallowed, as it sunk, the shining _stater_ that had
dropped out of the girdle of some fisherman, shall rise first to the
hook; in token that not only in His Father's house does He rule as a
Son over His own house, but that He 'doeth as He hath pleased, in
all deep places,' and that in Him the ancient hope is fulfilled of a
Son of Man who 'hath dominion over the fish of the sea, and
whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.' The miracle was
for a trivial end in appearance, but it was a demonstration, though
to one man only at first, yet through him to all the world, that
this Christ, in His lowliness, is the Everlasting Son of the Father.
IV. And so, lastly, we have here also the lesson of the sufficiency
for us all of what He provides.
'That take, and give unto them for Me and for thee. He does not say
'_For us._' He and Peter do not stand on the game level. He has
chosen to submit Himself to the obligations, Peter was necessarily
under them. That which is found by miracle in the fish's mouth is
precisely the amount required for both the one and the other. It is
rendered, as the original has it, _'Instead of_ thee and Me,'
putting emphasis upon the characteristic of the tribute as being
ransom, or payment, for a man's soul.
And so, although this thought is not part of the original purpose of
the miracle, and, therefore, is different from those which I have
already been dwelling on, which are part of that purpose, I think we
may fairly see here this great truth,--that that which Christ brings
to us by supernatural act, far greater than the miracle here, is
enough for all the claims and obligations that God, or man, or law,
or conscience have upon any of us. His perfect obedience and
stainless life discharged for Himself all the obligations to law and
righteousness under which He came as a Man; His perfect life and His
mighty death are for us the full discharge of all that can be
brought against us.
There are many and solemn claims and claimants upon each of us. Law
and duty, that awful 'ought' which should rule our lives and which
we have broken thousands of times, come to each of us in many an
hour of clear vision, and take us by the throat, and say, 'Pay us
what thou owest!' And there is a Judgment Day before all of us;
which is no mere bugbear to frighten children, but will be a fact of
experience in our case. Friend! how are you going to meet your
obligations? You owe God all your love, all your heart, will,
strength, service. What an awful score of unpaid debts, with
accumulated interest, there stands against each of our names! Think
of some bankrupt sitting in his counting-house with a balance-sheet
before him that shows his hopeless insolvency. He sits and broods,
and broods, and does not know what in the world he is going to do.
The door opens--a messenger enters and gives him an envelope. He
tears it open, and there flutters out a cheque that more than pays
it all. The illustration is a very low one; it does not cover the
whole ground of Christ's work for you. It puts a possibly commercial
aspect into it, which we have to take care of lest it become the
exclusive one; but it is true for all that. You are the bankrupt.
What have you to pay? Oh, behold that precious treasure of gold
tried in the fire, which is Christ's righteousness and Christ's
death; and by faith in Him, '_that_ take and give' and all the
debt will be discharged, and you will be set free and made a son by
that Son who has taken upon Himself all our bonds, and so has broken
them; who has taken upon Himself all our debts, and so has cancelled
them every one.