John Calvin Commentary John 8:42

"Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I came forth and am come from God; for neither have I come of myself, but he sent me." — John 8:42 (ASV)

If God were your Father, you would love me. Christ’s argument is this: “Whoever is a child of God will acknowledge his first-born Son; but you hate me, and therefore you have no reason to boast that you are God’s children.”

We ought carefully to observe this passage: there is no piety and no fear of God where Christ is rejected. Hypocritical religion, indeed, presumptuously shelters itself under the name of God; but how can they agree with the Father who disagree with his only Son? What kind of knowledge of God is that in which his lively image is rejected?

And this is what Christ means when he testifies that he came from the Father.

For I proceeded and came from God. He means that all that he has is divine; and therefore it is most inconsistent that the true worshippers of God should flee from his truth and righteousness. “I did not come,” he says, “of myself. You cannot show that anything about me is contrary to God. In short, you will find nothing that is either earthly or human in my doctrine, or in the whole of my ministry.” For he does not speak of his essence, but of his office.