The Cross and the Coin

Matthew 17:22-27

Merry Christmas! On this Sunday before we celebrate our Lord’s birth, I thought about doing a special Christmas message rather than continuing our study of the Gospel of Matthew. But the more I studied today’s text, the more I came to see that what Matthew presents to us in these verses is the very spirit of Christmas.

This time of year, people speak glibly about the “Christmas spirit,” rarely meaning any more by this than familial jolliness, sentimental merriment, or perhaps human kindness, social charity, or some nebulous “peace on earth.” At this time of year, the world celebrates with indulgence and a carnival mentality rather than humbly worshiping God for His incarnation in Christ. Paul so profoundly expressed the true spirit of Christmas in Philippians 2 as He describes the theology of the incarnation of the Son of God:

⁵ Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, ⁷ but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. ⁹ Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phl. 2:5-11).

The real spirit of Christmas is the spirit of Jesus Christ—the Son of God, who being in His very essence equal with God, left the glory of heaven, became a man, took on the nature of an obedient bondslave, and humbled Himself to die on the cross for our sins. J.I. Packer wrote that the unfathomable truth of Christmas is that,

… the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises. Needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this; the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the incarnation.[1]

When the apostle Paul urged the Corinthian church to give generously, he expressed the spirit of Christmas, writing, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9). For the Son of God to become poor meant laying aside His glory, accepting hardship, rejection, malice, misunderstanding, suffering, and a death so terrible that His mind nearly broke under the prospect of it.[2] This is the spirit of Christmas. It’s also the spirit that we are called to exhibit. As the Holy Spirit says through Paul, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phl. 2:5).

With those thoughts in mind, let’s turn to Matthew 17:22-27. In these brief, few verses we see Jesus Christ demonstrate the spirit of love, humility, and self-sacrifice—the spirit of Christmas. Remember that Jesus had just been with three of His disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. There, His glory as the Son of God briefly shown forth, and God the Father spoke His approval of Christ from heaven. They saw a glimpse of the glory that was Christ’s from all eternity, that is His even now as He sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, and that will be His when He returns to earth to consummate His kingdom.

Then remember that, coming down from the mountain, Jesus encountered the failure of His disciples because of their lack of faith. We saw that mountain-moving faith is looking to Jesus Christ in complete dependence on Him. It’s all about Jesus and what He does and can do through us by faith.

Now, Matthew tells us that Jesus and the disciples have come back to Galilee. In Matthew 17:22-27 we have two events—one immediately after they come back together somewhere in the Galilee region and the other in the city of Capernaum. These incidents highlight Jesus’ identity and mission—that He is the Son of God who humbled Himself to die for us. Thus, they show us the spirit of Christmas.

First, we see the spirit of Christmas in …

1. The Cross: Jesus predicts His betrayal, death, and resurrection (Matt. 17:22-23).

²² Now while they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, ²³ and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.” And they were exceedingly sorrowful. (Matt. 17:22-23).

This is the second major prediction by Jesus of His death and resurrection. Remember that after Peter confessed that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” (Matt. 16:16), Matthew 16:21 records, “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and then be raised the third day.” From that point on, we find Jesus increasingly revealing information to His disciples about what would happen to Him in Jerusalem. So, Jesus has told them before, and He will tell them again several times before it all takes place.

This time, Jesus calls Himself the “Son of Man,” His normal way of referring to Himself in the fulfillment of His messianic vocation. It refers both to His deity and His humanity. It expresses His kingdom rule as the new ‘Adam’—the Head of the human race. Peter, James, and John had recently got a glimpse of Jesus’ kingdom reign on the Mount of Transfiguration. They saw His royal majesty and power.

Now think about what Jesus says here. This same Son of Man who shines in eternal glory as the ruler of the kingdom of heaven “is about to be betrayed into the hands of men.” The powerful king of glory, God’s Son, will be handed over to the murderous power of mere men. And rather than immediately smiting these wicked men with death and eternal judgment, God will allow them to kill His Son. Christ will submit Himself to the will of the Father and into the hands of evil men.

However, Jesus does not leave them without hope. As with His other prediction in Matthew 16:21, Jesus assures them that “the third day He will be raised up” (Matt. 17:23). Jesus would not stay dead. He would be raised up, resurrected the third day. He would conquer death.

Did the disciples understand any of this? Maybe a little, because Matthew reports their reaction, “And they were exceedingly sorrowful” (Matt. 17:23). Mark records that “… they did not understand this saying, and were afraid to ask Him” (Mark 9:32). Perhaps they were beginning to get the point that Jesus would be killed, but they “did not understand what his death meant or why it was necessary, and they certainly did not understand or believe in the resurrection.”^[3] Luke adds that “it was hidden from them so that they did not perceive it” (Luke 9:45). Their minds struggled against the plain meaning of what Jesus told them. They had no category for a Messiah who would literally die, so a literal resurrection was also beyond their understanding. In fact, the disciples would not really get it until after they experienced Jesus’ death and witnessed His resurrected body.

Yet, this is why the Son of God became a man to begin with. He came to “save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21) through His death and resurrection. When Jesus appeared to His disciples after the resurrection, Luke writes,

⁴⁴ Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” ⁴⁵ And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, ⁴⁷ and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ And you are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:44-48).

Jesus’s prediction of His death and resurrection is a testament to His identity and His mission. Jesus is the “Son of Man,” the Messiah-King who will reign over all earth and heaven. And He humbled Himself to become a man who died for our sins. His resurrection is both proof of who He is and what He has done—that He was victorious over sin and death. This is the spirit of Christmas—”Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” (Heb 2:14). “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9).

So we see the spirit of Christmas in the cross—Christ’s predicted death and resurrection. Next, we see the spirit of Christmas in …

2. The Coin: Jesus condescends to pay a tax (Matt. 17:24-27)

Out of all the Gospel writers, Matthew is the only one who tells us this strange story. It could be that this story about a coin to pay a tax was especially memorable to Matthew because he had been a tax collector. I think another reason Matthew includes this story is it would particularly speak to his Jewish readers about who Jesus is and what He came to do.

Matthew 17:24 says, “When they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?”” Literally the “temple tax” is the “two drachma” or “double drachma”. This is the silver coin that was formerly used to pay this tax. Even though this coin was no longer in wide circulation in New Testament times and other coins were used to pay the tax, they still called the it the “double drachma” tax. The double drachma was equal to a half shekel or stater.

The translators of the New King James Version call this the “temple tax” because that is a good description of what it was for. Even though the Romans were the governing and taxing authority in first-century Galilee and Judea, the Jews were allowed to collect this special religious tax for the temple service and upkeep. This practice had its roots in the Old Testament law. In Exodus 30, God commanded that a ransom be collected at the time of the census:

¹¹ Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: ¹² “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them. ¹³ This is what everyone among those who are numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (a shekel is twenty gerahs). The half-shekel shall be an offering to the LORD. ¹⁴ Everyone included among those who are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering to the LORD. ¹⁵ The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when you give an offering to the LORD, to make atonement for yourselves. ¹⁶ And you shall take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of meeting, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD, to make atonement for yourselves.” (Exo. 30:11-16).

The amount to be collected was a half-shekel. In Jesus’ day, that was the equivalent of the double drachma. Notice what Exodus calls it: “an offering to the Lord,” “a ransom,” and “atonement money.” It was an offering to the Lord “to make atonement” for themselves. God counted that half-shekel as a “ransom” for the life of the man who gave it—the life that was being “numbered” in the census. Every man paid the same amount. It didn’t matter how rich or poor you were. Each man’s life is worth the same. The temple tax was “a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD,” a reminder for the Jewish people that they owed their very lives to the Lord.

So these collectors of the temple tax come to Peter to ask if Jesus is accustomed to paying it. The fact that they asked the question implies that they thought Jesus might not pay the tax. They had good reason to wonder this. Jesus had already very clearly demonstrated that He would not be held to the Rabbinic traditions. Remember in Matthew 12, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath and refused to keep their Pharisaic traditions. At that time, they began to counsel how they might destroy Jesus. Perhaps they had also heard about Jesus driving the money changers and merchants out of the temple as John 2 records.

Notice in Matthew 17:25 that there is no hesitation on Peter’s part in answering the question. Peter had been with Jesus long enough to know both what His master taught and what His master did. Jesus opposed man-made traditions, but He perfectly fulfilled the law of God. In addition, Peter would have known if Jesus had paid this tax in the past or not. Peter responds to the tax collectors in the affirmative. “Yes,” Jesus does pay the two drachma.

It appears that Peter intended to talk with Jesus about the tax, but Matthew records, “And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, “What do you think, Simon?”” Before Peter could speak, Jesus already knew what was on Peter’s mind. Jesus showed that He knew Peter’s thoughts in order to teach him something about Himself.

Peter probably assumed that Jesus felt obligated to pay the temple tax that everyone else felt obligated to. He had assumed that, in that respect, Jesus was just like everyone else. But that’s when Jesus surprised him with a question that would reveal Jesus’ identity and His supremacy over such obligations. “What do you think, Simon?“, Jesus asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?” (Matt. 17:25). Jesus uses earthly kings and who they collect taxes from as a mini parable to make His point. Peter answers correctly, “From strangers” (Matt. 17:26). Kings and their sons don’t pay taxes; they collect them from others.

Jesus then makes His point: “Then the sons are free” (Matt. 17:26). The point is that, just as royal sons are exempt from the taxes imposed by their fathers, so too Jesus is exempt from the “tax” imposed by His Father. In other words, Jesus acknowledges the temple tax to be an obligation to God; but since He is uniquely God’s Son, therefore He is exempt.^[4] This was nothing less than a bold assertion of Jesus’ supremacy as the Son of God over the temple tax—and even over the temple itself.

Jesus had stated His supremacy over the temple already in Matthew 12. When the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of breaking the Sabbath, Jesus reminded them that the priests in the temple were allowed by God to work on the Sabbath as they performed their priestly duties. And then Jesus shocked them all by saying, “Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple” (Matt. 12:6).

Now Jesus is saying that, as the Son of God who is Lord of the temple, He is free from paying the temple tax. Remember what Jesus said as a boy when His parents were looking for Him and finally found him in the temple? He said, “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49 LSB)[5]. Even at age twelve, Jesus knew that the temple belonged to God the Father, and He also knew that God was His Father and that He was God’s Son. If You are the Son of God, then You shouldn’t have to pay the tax in Your own Father’s temple. I believe this is the main point of the passage. It’s not so much about taxes as it is about Jesus. He is the royal Son of God.

Now, keeping the supremacy of Jesus as the Son of God in mind, let’s marvel at the next thing that Jesus does. In Matthew 17:27 Jesus says to Peter, 27 “Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you.”

Even though Jesus is supreme, even though He is exempt from the temple tax as “the Son of the King”, Jesus says “Nevertheless, lest we offend them . . .”, and sets Peter off to pay the tax. Why? Jesus doesn’t have to pay it, but He does so “lest we offend them.”  The word that is here translated “offend” means “to cause someone to stumble”. He did it so that the Jews would not stumble over it.

Jesus did not demand His divine and royal rights, but as Paul says, He “emptied Himself” and took “the form of a slave” (Phi. 2:6-7, LSB).[6] Jesus subjected Himself to the law (even though He was above the law) by paying the tax for the temple (even though it was His Father’s House); and by giving money to the priests (even though He was the perfect High Priest—Hebrews 3:1).[7] This is the spirit of Christmas.

Think about it. Why did the Son of God come to earth? Why was Jesus born? “To save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Jesus came to save sinners, not to save money. Jesus knew that if He refused to pay the temple tax, then rather than being able to talk to people about sin and forgiveness, they would be constantly stumbling over the fact that He didn’t pay the tax. Jesus did not want to put any unnecessary road-blocks to their faith in Him. Jesus was not going to let something as simple and insignificant as a tax become an offense to people that He would soon die to save. Jesus condescended to pay the tax because it was more important to save sinners than to exert His rights as the Son of God. Jesus says in Matthew 20:28, “Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

And look at how Peter was to pay this! He said, “. . . go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you” (Matt. 17:27). What a unique miracle! Jesus didn’t tell Peter to throw a net into the water, and pull up a bunch of fish. Instead, He sent Peter off to cast a single hook into the water. He didn’t even tell him where to do it. And He didn’t tell Peter to keep on casting the hook and keep on pulling out fish until he found one with money in its mouth. He said to pull up the very first fish, and that he would find the money in the mouth of that first fish! Think about everything that had to happen for this miracle to take place. Someone had to drop a coin in the sea. A fish had to grab the coin but somehow not swallow it. That particular fish would need to be swimming near Peter at the exact time that he cast in his hook, and grab hold of it before any other fish did.

And the coin had to be the exact amount that would pay for two people. For notice that Jesus not only provides the tax for Himself, He provides for Peter as well. Remember from Exodus 30 what was the meaning of the tax? It was an offering to the Lord, a ransom to make atonement for their life. And Peter will not pay for his own atonement. Jesus pays the ransom for Peter. The One who didn’t owe a ransom paid the ransom Himself for another.

Do you see how the cross and the coin are connected in this passage? They come together in Jesus. Isn’t this what the gospel is all about? Jesus didn’t owe a ransom for His life. He had no sins to atone for Himself. He was born sinless to a virgin and completely fulfilled the law of God without sin. But as Peter later writes, Christ “… Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 1:24); and again, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,” (1 Peter 3:18). John writes about Jesus that, “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2). How did you become free in the kingdom of God? Jesus paid for you. Jesus paid it all. There is not one bit of payment for our sins left to be paid.

This is the spirit of Christmas. Christ humbled Himself to pay for your sins on the cross. Now, as believers in Him, we also lovingly humble ourselves to serve and give so that others may not stumble over us on their way to the Savior.

What keeps you from coming to Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins? He is the only One who could pay your debt. He is the only ransom for your soul. Would you come and give your life to Him because He gave His life for you? This is how Jesus invited people, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30). He said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matt. 16:24-25).

————————————————————–

[1] J.I. Packer, What “Christmas Spirit” Should Actually Mean, https://www.crossway.org/articles/what-christmas-spirit-should-actually-mean. Accessed 12/19/2024. 

[2] Packer, ibid.

^[3] James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001), 330.

^[4] D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 394.

[5] The NKJV has, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” In both cases, the words “business” or “house” are supplied by the translators. More literally it reads “Did you not know I must be of My Father’s?”

[6] The NJKV says, “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant”. The Greek κενόω (kenoō) means to empty or lay aside. Christ

[7] The Bible Says Commentary, https://thebiblesays.com/en/commentary/mat+17:24. Accessed 12/22/2024.