Main menu:
John 20.28
apekrithē Thōmas kai eipen autō HO Kyrios mou kai ho Theos mou
ἀπεκρίθη Θωμᾶς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ , Ὁ Κύριός μου καὶ ὁ Θεός μου !
answered Thomas and said to him the Lord of me and the God of me
Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
In contrast with the controversy surrounding so many other descriptions of Jesus as ‘God’ in the New Testament, John 20.28 brings us to a novel, if temporary, consensus. The wording here is so definite in the Greek that every set of translators, of whatever theological persuasion, have been forced to render the words in a manner identical or very similar to the ones written above.
That this statement, one of the strongest declarations of the deity of Christ in the New Testament, should come from the lips of Thomas, reputedly the most sceptical of the apostles, is remarkable enough in itself. Instantly he appears to be transformed from being the dullest of Jesus’s disciples to the most spiritually astute, as, to quote the words of J.H. Bernard,
he now, in a flash, perceives that Jesus was his Lord in a deeper sense than he had understood before’.<1>
Obviously, for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who seem somewhat slower to catch up, this situation presents a considerable problem. In the past, they have tried to escape the situation by suggesting that ‘My Lord’ and ‘My God’ referred to two separate persons Potentially, there might be some merit in this idea: there are, after all, passages in the Old Testament, such as Psalm 110.1 and Daniel 7.14, where the Messiah is presented as exalted next to Yahweh himself, and Jesus himself evokes this image in John 17.5 where he asks the Father to ‘glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began’ and later asks that ‘those you have given me’ would see ‘the glory you have given me’ (verse 24).
The other escape clause might be that the whole statement was directed to the Father. Thomas, after all, may well have suffered a major crisis of faith like the other disciples. The entire foundation of his faith had been shattered by the inexplicable events of the crucifixion. On the basis, his words may simply have been a spontaneous outburst of praise to God himself.
Outwardly attractive though both of these suggestions may be, however, they suffer together from one fatal defect. It is impossible to avoid the fact tha Thomas said to him [that is, Jesus], “My Lord and my God.”
In more recent times, therefore, the Watchtower organization has employed a more subtle line of reasoning:
... he may have addressed Jesus as “my God” in a way similar to expressions made by his forefathers, recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, with which Thomas was familiar. On various occasions when individuals were visited or addressed by an angelic messenger of Jehovah, the individuals, or at times the Bible writer setting out the account, responded to or spoke of that messenger as though he were Jehovah God . . . This was because the angelic messenger was acting for Jehovah as his representative, speaking in his name, perhaps using the first person singular pronoun and even saying “I am the true God.” . . . Thomas may therefore have spoken to Jesus as “my God” in this sense, acknowledging or confessing Jesus as the representative and spokesman of the true God.<2>
Clever though it is, this argument simply evades the issue. If God’s created representative, whether in the Old or the New Testaments, can call himself ‘God’ or even ‘Yahweh’ with impunity. how are we to know when (if ever) the true God is actually being referred to? If it were true that Christ was merely God’s envoy, the entire theological framework underpinning John’s Gospel would begin to fall apart.
More damaging for this understanding of Thomas’s words is Jacob’s blessing on Ephraim and Manasseh in Genesis 48.15–16:
May the God before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully,
the God who has been my shepherd
all my life to this day,
the Angel who has delivered me from all harm
– may he bless these boys.
Surely Jacob did not really believe that God was merely an angel! In fact, the shoe is clearly on the other foot: he clearly describes the angel as ‘God’ in Genesis 32.30, and elsewhere the same angel openly receives titles and honours otherwise restricted to God himself.
The conclusion, therefore, is compelling. Had Jesus wanted to deny that he was God, the exchange with Thomas would have been a perfect opportunity to do so. When the apostles receive such a response as God’s spokesmen, they denounce it sharply (Acts 10: 25-
At this point the Witnesses sometimes switch to a different tack. Does the Gospel writer not make a retreat at this point? Rather than going on to emphasise the dual title ‘My Lord and my God’, he simply exhorts his readers to put their faith in Jesus as ‘the Son of God’ (20: 31). One writer answers such a suggestion in the following way:
Scholarly opinion widely holds that 20:31 marks the original end of the gospel, with the final chapter (on the evidence of the ‘we’ in 21:24) being written by friends or followers of John. If this is the case, then John originally ‘framed’ his Gospel with John 1:1-
If, therefore, it takes just one unambiguous statement of fact to establish a clear New Testament doctrine, then this passage surely provides it: it is difficult to escape the clear message here that Jesus is, in fact, both Lord and God. Our response, like that of Thomas, should be one of awe and wonder, not to run away from the issue.