22:41-46 When Christ baffled his enemies, he asked what thoughts they had of the promised Messiah? How he could be the Son of David and yet his Lord? He quotes Ps 110:1. If the Christ was to be a mere man, who would not exist till many ages after David's death, how could his forefather call him Lord? The Pharisees could not answer it. Nor can any solve the difficulty except he allows the Messiah to be the Son of God, and David's Lord equally with the Father. He took upon him human nature, and so became God manifested in the flesh; in this sense he is the Son of man and the Son of David. It behoves us above all things seriously to inquire, What think we of Christ? Is he altogether glorious in our eyes, and precious to our hearts? May Christ be our joy, our confidence, our all. May we daily be made more like to him, and more devoted to his service.

Verse 45. - If David... Son? The argument is this: David speaks with highest reverence of Messiah, calling him his Lord: how is this attitude consistent with the fact that Messiah is David's Son? How can Messiah be both Son and Lord of David? We, who have learned the truth concerning the two natures of Christ, can readily answer the question. He is both "the Root and the Offspring of David" (Revelation 22:16). The Athanasian Creed offers the required solution of the seeming paradox: "God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man of the substance of his mother, born in the world; perfect God, and perfect Man... who although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ." Here was an explanation (if the Pharisees took his words to heart) of much that had excited their indignation, and caused cavil and carping. He claimed to be the Messiah; and Messiah, as Scripture presented him, had a twofold nature. When, therefore, he asserted equality with the Father when he, "being man, made himself God" (John 10:33), he was vindicating that Divine nature which he as Messiah possessed. Jesus did not further elucidate this mystery. He had given food for reflection; he had unfolded the hidden meaning of Scripture; he had shown the shallowness of the popular exegesis; the knowledge was here; there was wanting only the will to raise the flower of faith in the heart of these obdurate hearers.

If David then call him Lord,.... That is, the Messiah, which is taken for granted, nor could the Pharisees deny it,

how is he his son? The question is to be answered upon true and just notions of the Messiah, but unanswerable upon the principles of the Pharisees; who expected the Messiah only as a mere man, that should be of the seed of David, and so his son; and should sit upon his throne, and be a prosperous and victorious prince, and deliver them out of the hands of their temporal enemies: they were able to make answer to the question, separately considered, as that he should be of the lineage and house of David; should lineally descend from him, be of his family, one of his offspring and posterity, and so be properly and naturally his son; but how he could be so, consistent with his being David's Lord, puzzled them. Had they understood and owned the proper divinity of the Messiah, they might have answered, that as he was God, he was David's Lord, his maker, and his king; and, as man, was David's son, and so both his root and offspring; and this our Lord meant to bring them to a confession of, or put them to confusion and silence, which was the consequence.

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