Jesus v. Caesar

A fascinating point that was brought to my attention over the past 10 years is the

unspoken, but implied, conflict between the Caesars of Rome and the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the ancient world, many of the Caesars declared themselves to be gods or others declared them to be gods and the Caesars simply used that to their advantage. One Caesar declared that his father was a god, which would have made him what—a son of God.

The region known as Asia, modern day Turkey, wanted Augustus to know that they supported him in his victory against Mark Antony. (They had originally supported Mark Antony.) They did so by instituting and enforcing worship of him and by building a temple in his honor. I can imagine that on the lips of people in the ancient world, “Caesar is Lord,” was commonplace.

But Jesus comes along and is crucified and raised from the dead, exalted and coronated (Acts 2:22-36). This was the means by which God made Him both Lord and Christ. So, on the lips of the early church was the proclamation, “Jesus is Lord.”

Implications of the conflict between Jesus and the Caesars of Rome seem to be scattered throughout the New Testament. For example, in the opening lines of Paul’s letter to the saints in Rome he writes of Jesus that he “was declared to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (1:4). In my early readings of that line, my eyes would simply pass over it like so many others. But today it reads like a strikingly bold affirmation implying that Jesus is “the Son of God” and Caesar is not.

Is it any wonder that the early church was persecuted by the Roman government. Their central declaration was treasonous. The final book in the New Testament is all about the war between the church and Rome. It provides timeless guidance for the church throughout the ages as it considers the challenges it faces with the governments of the world.

But I also find it curious that such a major conflict is not more explicit in the writings of the New Testament. An entire book was written by a number of writers exploring this very point. For the writers of the book, the emphasis on Jesus and de-emphasis on the Caesars is one of, well, emphasis.

…to say “Jesus is Lord” does not seem actually to entail saying “Caesar is not [Lord].” Rather, it entails not saying “Caesar is Lord.” This minute grammatical distinction, simply a matter of where the negation is placed, seems to me to explain so much about the New Testament witnesses. The affirmation “Jesus is Lord” requires not so much a strident denunciation of earthly lords as a studied silence concerning their pretensions. The answer to Caesar’s inflated claims of significance is further proclamation of Jesus the Messiah’s real significance. (Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies, p. 13).

This may provide us with some guidance on how to consider some of what is going on politically in our world. There is no getting around the politics today—not with elections for the next president around the corner and the two conventions at hand. It is an easy thing to get caught up in it all. But regardless of who our next President may be, the mandate our Lord has given the church does not change. The Gospel, by definition, the good news, is the Jesus is Lord. That is what we are to proclaim to our families and neighbors, indeed to the nation. This, to my way of thinking, helps to raise us up above the fray.

Dennis Prager wrote a book titled, Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. For Mr. Prager, America is the best hope. I sympathize with his efforts, and without intending to be painfully technical, I must say that it is the church, and not America that is the best hope. The only grounds for real unity is embracing certain basic truths declared in the Bible.

Our emphasis should not be on politics, but on the declaration that Jesus is Lord. I have seen politics silently divide people in churches that otherwise live in pleasant fellowship with one another under the rule of Jesus, and living as fellow members and fellow partakers in the grace of God.

Where is your emphasis today?