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Scripture Readings: Matthew 13: 24 to 30 & 36 to 43. Romans 13:1-10. Text: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Matthew 22:21.
The whole idea of Religious Liberty, in its inception, evolution in different lands, is one to absorb our attention and of paramount interest because it is one of human tears, human blood, human effort and struggle; not of the physical only, but also of the mind, the heart and the soul of man. Jesus was preaching the gospel His Father sent Him to preach. The common people had heard him gladly and felt the manifestation of His healing power, but the ecclesiastical leaders, chief priests, scribes and Pharisees were jealous of Him and took counsel how they might entangle Him, so they sent their disciples with the Herodians, saying, "Master, we know that thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man, for thou regardest not the person of men, tell us therefore, what thinkest thou, Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not? Then Jesus, perceiving their wickedness said "why tempt ye me ye hypocrites", show me the tribute money. Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him Caesar 's, then saith He unto them", the words of our text.
Jesus enunciated a great truth here, the rightfulness of total separation of church and state, of ecclesiastical and civil power. No wonder when they heard His answer they marveled and durst ask Him no more questions. It is right that we should seek to know what these two powers are in their true manifestation. We are told God is Love and he made the world. " For thy pleasure they are and were created. The pleasure of love is to love and be loved and God wanted to rule the world only by love from within. For love is spontaneous and joyous and we are free in the doing. God gave us a law of Love, requiring only the things necessary to lead us into the free spontaneous obedience to this law. For this reason He left us as free to disobey as to obey. God could have compelled us to do the right, but He knew that only Love can recreate and control the heart. You can never reach but one-half of a man by any sort of force and unfortunately it is always the outside half. So God made and left men free. He wants no forced service. He wants the heart's sincere tribute of love, but when men ceased to be restrained and actuated by love from within, for men's sake, in order that they might live in harmony together and transact business, it was necessary that civil governments should be ordained, so "the powers that be are ordained of God. For the law of self-preservation and self defense. This refers only to civil relations.
Monarchy was unlimited and autocratic then. All men could do was to pay tribute and defend the government with their lives, but as a direct result of the teachings of Christ, and of the triumph of His Spirit of brotherhood, in human hearts, to some degree, it has come to pass that we may not only pay tribute but have a voice as to how this tribute should be used. In other words, we have a "Vote", and when the collective self-defense is not operative, the individual law remains. But this use of force must be confined to civil things, and it has only to do with external relations to each other, and external actions as they effect others. It is never to enter the realm of the mind, the heart or the conscience.
What is due to God? His Kingdom is one of Love only. He repudiates all compulsory service and so desires only the heart's tribute of love. He ordained force only for our protection. He regards these governments as a necessary evil under the circumstances, and represents them by wild beasts, lion, bear, great and terrible beasts.
He left His Church in the world to still represent His Kingdom of Love. He represented it as a woman, who rules only by love. The State has no power over the Church as such, when the church confines itself to religious matters. For the State is confined to civil things, external actions that relate to men in their mutual relations. But the State has no real coercive power over the real Christian, for he is restrained and actuated from within by love and does not require the external compulsion of force. The Bible teaches that when the Kingdom of God is fully set up, and Christ's prayer answered, there will be no place any more found for these governments of force.
Not only does the State not have power over the Church, collectively or individually, but the Church its self has no external power over its members. See Matthew 20:20 to 28; John 12:47 and 48; Matthew 7:12; Matthew 13:28 and Romans 14. Men have been so slow to learn this. This was the last thing learned in the evolution of liberty.
The most important of all, for it is the real reason for all religious liberty, what is due to God? We have seen what is due to Caesar. Now what is due to God? We are to hearken diligently to do all His commandments. His voice is to speak to us in the silence of our own souls, nigh thee in thy heart and in thy mouth. Thine ear shall hear a voice behind thee saying, that the soul cannot admit any other Voice. It is a fortress dedicated to God alone. Only thus can we walk with God, step by step. If we admit another voice against God's voice and follow it we leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the way of darkness. This walk is an individual walk and can not be made collective.
Consider the lily, no external force can bring a flower to its fullest bloom, only the love force of God in the heart can grow us into His image. So if any other power, governmental or individual attempts to direct us in our spiritual walk with God, what shall be our reply? "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." "For we ought to obey God rather than men." Acts 4:19 and 5:29.
The heart of each saved soul is a Virgin espoused to Christ. We cannot yield allegiance to another. "I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ." "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? То his own Master he standeth or falleth. Yea he shall be upholden." For God is able to make him stand.
"O, speed the moment on,
When wrong shall cease and Liberty and Love,
And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known,
As in their home above." Whittier.
George E. Fifield
"There is no saving truth connected with the character of God, or with the gospel of Christ, but what is best of all revealed and illustrated in the character and personality of Jesus Christ. Yielding the life into His keeping, allowing Him unhindered to live His life in us and to express His personality through us, this is the all of Christianity. "In Him is all the fulness of the God-head bodily." "In Him is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." And all our spiritual growth is just "Growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ." - From the Sermon Personality of Jesus
We can conceive of a Father punishing his child to discipline and correct him, in order to prevent him from doing something that would cause him greater pain or loss or destruction, but the instant that man punishes his child when none of these desirable results can hope to be gained thereby the punishment becomes revenge and the man ceases to be a father and becomes a fiend. Even in our jurisprudence we are coming to see that all punishment that is not corrective of the punished, or protective of others, is utterly wrong, inhuman and evil. And yet men still teach this and profess to believe in the Bible and that God punishes through all eternity for the sins of time, and that He punishes after all just reason for punishment other than revenge is entirely past. - From the Sermon Eternal Punishment