The sacred and the secular. There are three preliminary truths which may be gathered before considering the proper subject of the text.
1. The worthlessness of heartless praise. What value do we suppose Jesus Christ attached to the eulogium here pronounced (Luke 20:2)? How worthless to him now are the epithets which are uttered or the praises which are sung by lips that are not sincere?
2. The evil end of a false attitude toward Christ. The attitude of hostility which his enemies had definitely taken up led them to resort
3. The final discomfiture of guilt. (Luke 20:26.) It is silenced and ashamed. Respecting the principal subject before us, we should consider—
I. TWO NOTIONS THAT FIND NO COUNTENANCE IN OUR LORD'S REPLY,
1. When Jesus answered, "Render unto Caesar," etc., he did not mean to say that the spheres of the secular and the sacred lie so apart that we cannot serve God while we are serving the state. Let none say, "Politics are politics, and religion is religion." That is a thoroughly unchristian sentiment. If we ought to "eat and drink," if we ought to do everything to the glory of God, it is certain that we ought to vote at elections, to speak at meetings, to exercise our political privileges, and to discharge our civil duties, be they humble or high, to the glory of God, it is certain that we ought to vote at elections, to speak Christ as truly and as acceptably in the magistrates' court, or in the lobby of the House of Commons, as he can be in the school or the sanctuary.
2. Nor did Christ mean to say that these spheres are so apart that a man cannot be serving the state while he is engaged in the direct service of God; for, indeed, there is no way by which we render so true and great a service to the whole body politic as when we are engaged in planting Divine truth in the minds and hearts of men; then are we sowing the seeds of peace, of industry, of sobriety, of every national virtue, of a real and lasting prosperity.
3. Nor yet that there are no occasions whatever when we may act in opposition to the state. Our Lord encouraged his apostles in their refusal to obey an unrighteous mandate (Acts 5:28, Acts 5:29).
II. THE LEADING TRUTH WHICH CHRIST'S WORDS CONTAIN, Viz. that our obligation to God does not conflict with our ordinary allegiance to the civil power. If the latter should enjoin apostasy, or blasphemy, or positive immorality, then disobedience would become a duty, and might rise into heroism, as it has often done. But ordinarily, we can serve God and be loyal citizens at the same time, and this none the less that the rulers whom we serve are Mohammedans or pagans. To be orderly and law-abiding under the rule of an infidel is as far as possible from being unchristian. On the contrary, it is decidedly Christian (see 1 Timothy 2:2; Romans 3:1-7). Indeed, service rendered to "the froward" has a virtue not possessed by service to "the good and gentle." and faithful citizenship "in a strange land" may be a more valuable and acceptable service than in a Christian country. Our duty, in the light of Christ's teaching, is not that of discovering conscientious objections to the support of the civil government; it is rather that of rendering a hearty obedience to the Divine will, and also of conforming in all loyalty to the requirements of human law.—C.