What belongs to Caesar?

“We are a sovereign nation of laws!” So I am told.

But I wonder if this statement is really true.

I wonder things like: What are the requisites of sovereignty? What is “sovereignty,” exactly? Moreover, what is a “sovereign nation”? And how do “laws” follow from this “sovereign nation”? Does “law” require a sovereign nation to be fully and truly legal?

These questions all seem to think that there is a special place for national sovereignty that maps out a separate realm responsibilities and duties for the person.

Defending this view of national sovereignty, many like to cite Mark 12:17 (NJB): “Pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar—pay God what belongs to God.”

On the surface, Jesus seems to say that we ought to recognize the sovereignty of Caesar, national sovereignty and the laws that follow from it. But I think he begs a simpler question. Namely, “What belongs to Caesar?”

The question is even more radical given the dialectic between “Caesar” and “God” we find in Jesus’ reply. Considering this tension, the question becomes: “What belongs to Caesar that does not belong to God?”

Here we find an obvious answer: Nothing belongs to Caesar. That is, nothing belongs to Caesar that does not belong to God.

So, the reason we might give to Caesar is not because of the sovereignty of Caesar, but, instead, because of the sovereignty of God that makes giving to Caesar seem worthwhile. Withholding from Caesar, then, would follow from the same set of reasons.

In other words, we are not a sovereign nation of laws. Only God is sovereign. And laws derive their legality from divine—not nationalistic—order.

We are a nation of laws only insofar as those laws are in harmony with divine justice and, above all, Love.

Without this harmony, there is no law.

Without this truth there is no existence. There is nothing without God.

This is the real meaning and being of sovereignty: Nothing can be sovereign except God.

God alone suffices.

If this is true, then, whatever “national sovereignty” cannot be gained from the spoils of war and conquest. A nation can only approximate sovereignty by promoting justice and love.

Under these criteria we can be quite sure that we do not live in a sovereign nation. The “laws” that follow from such a nation, must be held in equal suspicion.