Saturday, October 14, 2006

We submit to Caesar to acknowledge the supreme Lordship of Jesus

All our earthly allegiances are not only warranted and limited by the supreme authority of God, but are also shaped by that authority. In other words, even the duty we properly render to Caesar is rendered differently because Caesar is not absolute. We render obedience to Caesar where we can, not because he is Lord, but because our Lord Jesus bids us to. In other words, all our obedience to Caesar dethrones Caesar by expressing the Lordship of Jesus. We view all our serving of Caesar as serving his owner and Lord, Jesus. There is, therefore, no whiff of worship toward Caesar. He is stripped of his claim to divinity in the very act of submitting to his laws. Even our submission is therefore seditious toward rulers with pretensions of deity.

John Piper, page 330, from Demand #44, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's as an act of rendering to God what is God's, from What Jesus Demands from the World