Balaam says
that his eyes have been opened and he now hears the word of the Almighty. In this, he sees Israel as beautiful and
blessed, in spite of the fact that he is not one of them. Balak now has a choice to make, fight them
or bless them. The prophet has finished
his word with the words the Lord spoke to Abraham and Balak can either bless or
curse the nation. He can listen to and
heed the words of the prophet or persist in his hardness of heart against
them. His words to Balaam are that the Lord had kept
him from being rewarded because he did not do the will of the king. What sort of prophet would only speak that
which the king commanded. He is of far
greater service if he speaks truth.
The real
question is left in the wind. They are
able to identify whose image or likeness is on the coin. Jesus has carefully chosen His words
here. The words image and likeness would
surely strike directly to the heart of those who had posed the initial dilemma
to Jesus. When they, experts in the Word,
heard those words they had to have immediately responded to them by recalling
Genesis and the special creation of mankind in the image or likeness of
God. Money is the creation of Caesar
while we are the creation of God. The answer
was perfectly composed, particularly for a Jewish audience. They were more concerned with things of earth
than things of heaven and the choice of this particular question proved that
truth.
Paul says we
are debtors not to the flesh but he never directly says to what or whom we are
debtors. He obviously means that we are
spiritual debtors but what does that mean exactly? It goes back to both the prophet in our first
lesson and the answer Jesus gives in the Gospel. Balaam has been allowed to live in spite of
his planned disobedience to the vision he had been given and the Lord prevented
him going through with that disobedience and used the donkey to open his eyes
to the spiritual reality rather than killing him on his way. Jesus points beyond the question of money and
earthly allegiance to the greater reality that we owe our very lives to the
Lord. In the case of both Israel and
believers, we have been redeemed from our true master, sin and death, and therefore
we owe an eternal debt to the one who has redeemed us that outweighs any
earthly obligation. We now are children
of God, more than image bearers, our lives are to be rendered to Him whose
image we bear and who has adopted us into His family.
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