Yet in the precincts of the temple the Lord taught daily during this
last week of His life, so it is not surprising that He came into
conflict with them. The whole of this chapter is occupied with details
of the conflict. The chief priest and scribes began the conflict, and
at the end they were left silenced and unmasked.
They started by challenging His authority. They were the people in
authority there, and to them He was but an upstart "Prophet" from
Nazareth. Their question assumed that they had the ability to judge of
the Lord's credentials, if He produced them; so He called upon them to
settle the preliminary question as to the credentials of His
forerunner, John. This at once put them in a quandary, for the answer
they wished to give would have been resented by the people. They were
time-servers, courting popularity, so they pleaded ignorance. To such
men as these the Lord did not produce His authority. Instead He
proceeded to speak with all the authority which omniscience gives, and
they were very soon made to feel its power. There could be no doubt
about His authority by the time the verbal conflict ceased.
In the parable, which occupies verses 9-16, He set forth with great
clearness the exact position of things at that moment. It reads like a
continuation of the historical statements made in 2 Chronicles 36: 15,
16. There it was God appealing by His "messengers, rising up betimes
and sending;" but all were mocked and misused until "there was no
remedy," and "He brought upon them the king of the Chaldees." Here the
story is carried a step further and the "Beloved Son" is sent, only to
be cast out and killed. Hence a worse chastisement than the Chaldeans
was to come upon them. The Psalmist had prophesied that the rejected
"Stone" should become the Head of the corner, and Jesus added that all,
who fall upon that Stone, or upon whom it shall fall, would be
destroyed. They were at that moment stumbling on the Stone, as Romans
9: 32 declares. The falling of the Stone upon them, and upon the
Gentile powers, will take place at the Second Advent, as Daniel 2: 34
shows.
The chief priests and scribes felt the point and authority of His
words, as we see in verse 19, but they were only thereby stirred up to
more determined opposition; and they sent forth men of craft and deceit
to entrap Him in His words, if possible. They came with the question as
to paying tribute to Caesar; and in this both Pharisees and Herodians
united, sinking their animosities in common hatred of the Lord.
The Lord's question, "Why tempt ye Me?" showed that He was
thoroughly aware of their craft. His request for the penny reveals His
own poverty. The superscription on the penny was a witness to their
subjection to Caesar. His reply thus was that they must render to
Caesar his rights, and yield to God the rights that were His. It was
because they had not rendered to God the things that were His that
Caesar had acquired the rights of conquest over them. All this was so
indubitable, when pointed out, that these crafty questioners were
silenced.
The question with which the Sadducees thought to entrap the Lord was
founded upon ignorance. No doubt they had often perplexed the Pharisees
with it, but then they had no more light than the Sadducees on the
essential point which the Lord made so plain. He contrasted "this
world" and "that world," using really the word which means "age." Now
it will be the portion of some to "obtain that age" as living men on
earth, without passing through death and resurrection; but those who
"obtain that age and the resurrection" will enter upon altogether new
conditions of life. They will be deathless as the angels, and marriage
will have no application to them. The Lord was here beginning to bring
"to light life and incorruptibility" (2 Tim. 1: 10. N.Tr.); and in
result the Sadducees' question, which to their ignorance seemed so
unanswerable, became merely ridiculous.
The Lord proceeded to prove the resurrection from Exodus 3: 6. If
the patriarchs were alive to God, centuries after they were dead to
this world, their ultimate resurrection was a certainty. Thus He
answered not only the foolish question of the Sadducees, but the
unbelief that lay behind their question. And He answered it with such
authority that even a scribe was moved to admiration and approval, and
they all feared to ask Him any more questions.
The Lord then asked them His great question, based upon Psalm 110.
Matthew records that no man was able to answer Him a word. No answer
was possible save to the faith that perceived the Divine glory of the
Christ, and they had no faith. They were silent in stubborn unbelief.
Answer His question they could not: ask Him any further question they
dared not.
It only remained for the Lord to unmask these evil men, and this He
did in few words, as recorded in the two verses which close the
chapter. They were hypocrites of the most desperate type, using
religion as a cloak to cover their self-seeking and rapacity. He
unmasked them, and pronounced their doom. He did not speak of a longer
damnation, as though judgment were bounded by time and not eternal. But
He did speak of greater damnation, showing that judgment will differ as
to its severity. They suffer "more abundant judgment" (N.Tr.).