John Calvin Commentary Matthew 22:42

"saying, What think ye of the Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, [The son] of David." — Matthew 22:42 (ASV)

What think you of Christ? Mark and Luke express more clearly the reason why Christ put this question. It was because an erroneous opinion prevailed among the scribes: that the promised Redeemer would be one of David’s sons and successors, who would bring with him nothing more elevated than human nature.

For from the very beginning, Satan endeavored, by all the arts he could devise, to put forward some pretended Christ who was not the true Mediator between God and men. Since God had so frequently promised that Christ would proceed from the seed, or from the loins of David, this conviction was so deeply rooted in their minds that they could not endure to have him stripped of human nature. Satan, therefore, permitted Christ to be acknowledged as a true man and a son of David, for he would have attempted in vain to overturn this article of faith. But—what was worse—he stripped him of his Divinity, as if he had been only one of the ordinary descendants of Adam.

In this manner, however, the hope of future and eternal life, as well as spiritual righteousness, was abolished. And ever since Christ was manifested to the world, heretics have attempted by various contrivances—and, as it were, underground—to overturn sometimes his human and sometimes his Divine nature, so that either he might not have full power to save us, or we might not have ready access to him.

Now, as the hour of his death was already approaching, the Lord himself intended to attest his divinity, so that all the godly might boldly rely on him. For if he had been only man, we would have had no right either to glory in him or to expect salvation from him.

We now perceive his design, which was to assert that he was the Son of God—not so much on his own account as to make our faith rest on his heavenly power. For just as the weakness of the flesh, by which he approached us, gives us confidence so that we may not hesitate to draw near to him, so if that weakness alone were before our eyes, it would rather fill us with fear and despair than excite proper confidence. Yet it must be observed that the scribes are not reproved for teaching that Christ would be the Son of David, but for imagining that he was a mere man, who would come from heaven to assume the nature and person of a man. Nor does our Lord make a direct assertion about himself, but simply shows that the scribes hold a wicked error in expecting that the Redeemer will proceed only from the earth and from human lineage. But though this doctrine was well known to be held by them, we learn from Matthew that he interrogated them in the presence of the people about what their sentiments were.