My Lord and My God

The Hard Texts · Article 3 of 13

A week after the resurrection, Thomas sees the man he had refused to believe was alive. Jesus shows him his hands and side, and Thomas answers: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Jesus does not correct him. For many readers this is the clearest sentence in the New Testament: a disciple calls Jesus God, and Jesus accepts it. For readers who grew up with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the verse was usually handled another way: either Thomas was speaking to two persons, or Jesus is a god, a mighty one, but not Jehovah.

We receive Thomas’s words as written, and we read them where John put them: after the words Jesus spoke that same Sunday morning, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17), and before the sentence John writes immediately after, telling us why he wrote the book (John 20:31).

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), current eBible.org edition, checked word for word. The WEB prints God’s name as Yahweh. Notes on the Hebrew and Greek are at the end.

Our Case, Stated Plainly

The risen Jesus has a God. “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17). From heaven he still says it: “I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God” (Revelation 3:12).

There is one God, the Father. Jesus prays to him as “the only true God” (John 17:3). Paul writes, “yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6).

Scripture calls God’s anointed king God, and gives him a God. “Your throne, God, is forever and ever… Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.” (Psalm 45:6-7). Hebrews applies these words to the Son (Hebrews 1:8-9). Jesus himself defended his claim from Psalm 82: “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken), do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (John 10:35-36).

John tells us what Thomas’s confession means. “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31).

Our conclusion, stated at the start: Thomas’s confession is true. He called the risen Jesus God in the sense Scripture had already given the word for God’s anointed king, and John places that confession between Jesus’ my God and John’s the Christ, the Son of God.

A Fair Question

Here is the question for this article: When Thomas calls the risen Jesus “my God,” and Jesus accepts it, does Scripture teach that Jesus is the one God, or that he is God in a sense that the Bible itself explains?

The Text in Its Setting

John 20:28 sits inside one chapter and one week. Read John 20:1-31 in one sitting before going further. Here is its course.

Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene finds the tomb empty. Jesus meets her, and she calls him “Rabboni!” which is to say, “Teacher!” (John 20:16). Then he gives her a message: “Don’t hold me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17). She reports “that she had seen the Lord” (John 20:18).

Sunday evening. The doors are locked. Jesus stands among the disciples, “he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad when they saw the Lord.” (John 20:20). He sends them: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” (John 20:21).

Thomas absent. “But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, wasn’t with them when Jesus came.” (John 20:24). Told “We have seen the Lord!”, he answers, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25).

Eight days later. Jesus comes again and speaks to Thomas: “Reach here your finger, and see my hands. Reach here your hand, and put it into my side. Don’t be unbelieving, but believing.” (John 20:27).

The confession. “Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”” (John 20:28).

Jesus’ reply. “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” (John 20:29).

John’s purpose. “Therefore Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31).

Four things here are explicit. First, Thomas’s doubt was about one thing: whether the crucified man was alive. The evidence he asked for was nail prints and a wounded side. Second, Thomas answered him: the words are addressed to Jesus. Third, Jesus does not rebuke Thomas; he says Thomas has believed. Fourth, John immediately tells us what believing means in his book: believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

The Words in Greek, Simply Put

The Greek of Thomas’s words is ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou: word for word, the Lord of me and the God of me (see the Notes). Every Greek edition we checked prints Thomas’s words the same way: SBL (2010), Westcott-Hort (1881), Nestle (1904), Tischendorf 8th, the Byzantine Majority Text (2005) and the Textus Receptus (Scrivener 1894, Stephanus 1550). The only differences come before his words: the Byzantine and TR texts begin Kai, And, and the TR adds ho before Thomas.

Two features matter.

It is addressed to Jesus. The text says Thomas answered him and said to him (eipen auto). Greek often uses the nominative with the article, ho theos, where English would use a direct address, O God. The same form appears in a verse we will come to: ho thronos sou ho theos, “Your throne, O God” (Hebrews 1:8). Some Witness readers were taught that Thomas looked at Jesus and said my Lord, then turned toward heaven and said my God. We understand why that explanation appealed, and we share the concern behind it. But respectfully, the text does not support it. John gives one speaker, one addressee and one exclamation, and he introduces all of it with said to him. We would rather say that gently now than leave a reader to discover it later on their own.

The word is theos, with the article. Thomas does not say a god. He says the God of me. The article here comes with the address form and with mou, my, so it does not by itself prove which sense of God is meant; but neither can the verse be rendered a god without leaving the Greek behind. (The New World Translation itself prints “My Lord and my God!” here.)

So the question is not whether Thomas called Jesus my God. He did. The question is what that word meant on the lips of a Jewish disciple, in John’s Gospel, a week after Jesus sent word that he was going to my God and your God.

“My God and Your God”: Eight Days Earlier

John places two uses of my God in one chapter.

In 20:17 the risen Jesus calls the Father “my God.” The Greek is theon mou kai theon hymon, my God and your God (see the Notes). This is the same risen Jesus Thomas will meet. Jesus does not stop having a God when he rises. He calls the Father his God, and he sets himself alongside his “brothers” in that relation: my Father and your Father, my God and your God.

The rest of the New Testament says the same thing after the ascension:

“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation” (Ephesians 1:17).
“that with one accord you may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:6).
From heaven, the risen Jesus himself: “I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God… I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God” (Revelation 3:12). Four times in one verse.

Whatever Thomas meant in 20:28, it cannot erase 20:17. Trinitarian readers do not say Thomas called Jesus the Father; they say Father and Son are both God in one sense. But in this Gospel Jesus names the Father “the only true God” (John 17:3), and the risen Jesus calls the Father my God (John 20:17) and still does so from heaven (Revelation 3:12). Our conclusion: God in its full sense in John is the Father, and Thomas’s my God is the other sense Scripture supplies. Our conclusion: the two sentences use God in two senses the Scriptures already knew. Trinitarian readers answer that Thomas uses the very phrase, my God, that Jesus used of the Father eight days earlier, and that nothing in 20:28 itself marks a second sense. The chapter marks it. The same risen Jesus has just said my God of the Father, and John immediately says what Thomas’s belief should lead us to (John 20:31). Our conclusion: the second sense is drawn from 20:17, 20:31 and John 10:34-36, which is exactly where John places 20:28.

How Scripture Uses the Word “God”

This is not a trick of English. It is how the Hebrew Scriptures speak, and Jesus himself appeals to it.

Moses. “Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, I have made you as God to Pharaoh; and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.” (Exodus 7:1). Earlier, of Aaron: “he will be to you a mouth, and you will be to him as God.” (Exodus 4:16). The Hebrew word in both is elohim (see the Notes). Moses did not become Yahweh. Yahweh made him stand in God’s place before Pharaoh, speaking with God’s authority.

The judges of Israel. “God presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods.” (Psalm 82:1). Then: “I said, “You are gods, all of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you shall die like men, and fall like one of the rulers.”” (Psalm 82:6-7). Readers differ on whether these gods are human judges or heavenly beings. Jesus’ own wording shows how he reads it.

Jesus’ own explanation. In John 10 the crowd says, “We don’t stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” (John 10:33). Jesus answers: “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken), do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (John 10:34-36).

Notice three things in that answer, all on the page. Jesus identifies the gods of Psalm 82 as those “to whom the word of God came”: people who received God’s word. He calls his own claim I am the Son of God, not I am God. And he grounds his standing in what the Father did: the Father sanctified and sent him. This is the clearest place in John where Jesus himself explains what it means for someone other than the Father to be called God, and he explains it from Scripture.

One with the Father. In the verse just before the crowd picks up stones, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30). Many readers take that as the plainest claim to deity in the Gospel, and the crowd heard it as blasphemy. But John records Jesus explaining the same word one later, in his prayer for the disciples: “Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are.” (John 17:11). And again: “that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.” (John 17:21). “The glory which you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:22).

The Greek word is the same in all three places (see the Notes). Jesus prays that the disciples will be one even as we are one. The disciples will not become one being; they share the name kept for them and the glory given to them (John 17:11, 22), and, our conclusion, one purpose. The setting of John 10:30 points the same way. The verses just before speak of the sheep held safe: “no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28), and “My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” (John 10:29). The Son and the Father hold the same sheep with one purpose, and in the same breath Jesus calls the Father greater than all. Our conclusion: one in John 10:30 is the oneness Jesus prays his disciples will share, not a claim to be the same God as the Father.

The king. Psalm 45 is “A wedding song” for “the king” (Psalm 45:1). It says to him: “Your throne, God, is forever and ever. A scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness, and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.” (Psalm 45:6-7). The king is addressed as elohim, and in the next breath he has a God who anoints him and sets him above his fellows. Hebrews applies these words to Jesus: “But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever…”” and goes on, “therefore God, your God, has anointed you” (Hebrews 1:8-9).

That psalm is the closest parallel in all Scripture to what Thomas said: a son of David, addressed as God, who himself has a God. Article 4, Through Whom He Made the Ages, treats Hebrews 1 in full. Here we only note that the one text in the New Testament that addresses the Son as O God also says, in the same quotation, God, your God.

Lord: The Other Half of the Confession

Thomas says my Lord first. John has already shown what that title means for Jesus.

The disciples call him Lord throughout, and Jesus accepts it: “You call me, ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord.’ You say so correctly, for so I am.” (John 13:13). After the resurrection the word grows. Peter preaches, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know certainly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36). The title is something God made him, and God made him so by raising him. Peter’s proof text is the psalm Jesus himself quoted: “Yahweh says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.”” (Psalm 110:1). Two persons are named: Yahweh, and David’s lord, who sits at Yahweh’s right hand.

Paul puts the two titles side by side and keeps them distinct: “yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6). He writes this in a sentence that admits “there are things that are called “gods”… as there are many “gods” and many “lords”” (1 Corinthians 8:5). For believers, Paul says, the one God is the Father.

Our conclusion: when Thomas says my Lord, he says what Acts 2:36 and Psalm 110:1 say. The crucified man is alive, and he is the Lord God has made him. When he says my God, he goes further, and we turn to that now.

What Did Thomas See?

Thomas saw a man. He asked for nail prints and a wounded side, and he got them. Our conclusion: what overwhelmed him was the proof that the man who died was alive; John records no revelation of eternal being.

John also tells us how to see God in that man. Earlier, Philip asked to be shown the Father (John 14:8), and Jesus answered: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9). The Gospel opens on the same theme: “No one has seen God at any time. The only born Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him.” (John 1:18). And Jesus told the crowd in John 10, “believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” (John 10:38).

So John’s Gospel itself gives two ways to read my God:

Thomas means that Jesus is the God of Israel.
Thomas recognizes, in the risen Jesus, God’s own presence and action: the one who represents God fully, whom the Father sent and has now raised, and who carries God’s authority in the way Moses was as God and the king of Psalm 45 is addressed as God.

The first requires John to have Jesus call the Father my God in 20:17 and the disciple call Jesus my God in 20:28 in the same sense. The second uses the senses Scripture has already supplied in Exodus 7:1, Psalm 82:6, Psalm 45:6-7 and John 10:34-36. Our conclusion is the second.

Our Reading

Thomas addressed Jesus as my Lord and my God, and Jesus accepted it. In Scripture, God is used first and properly of Yahweh, the Father, and also of those to whom God gives his word, his authority and his representation: Moses before Pharaoh, Israel’s judges, and David’s royal son. The risen Jesus is that son of David in the fullest sense: God has made him Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36), seated him at his right hand (Psalm 110:1), and given him a name above every name (Philippians 2:9). Thomas, seeing the crucified man alive, confessed him as the one in whom God is present and through whom God acts. That is why the confession is true, why Jesus accepts it, and why the same chapter can still have Jesus say my God of the Father. Our conclusion: John 20:28 is the climax of John’s Gospel, and it fits John 20:31: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

Answering the Trinitarian Reading

At its strongest the Trinitarian reading runs like this. John’s Gospel opens with “the Word was God” (John 1:1) and, in several major Greek editions, calls the Son monogenes theos, only begotten God (John 1:18; see the Notes). Thomas’s confession closes the Gospel with the same word, a deliberate bookend: the Gospel begins and ends by calling Jesus God. Thomas is a Jew. A Jew who knew the Shema would not call a man my God loosely. The pairing my God and my Lord appears in prayer to Yahweh himself: “Wake up! Rise up to defend me, my God! My Lord, contend for me!” (Psalm 35:23), and in heaven: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God” (Revelation 4:11). Jesus does not correct Thomas, though elsewhere in Scripture angels and apostles refuse honor that belongs to God. He calls it belief. And John 5:23 says “all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.”

We take this seriously, and we answer it from John’s own chapter.

Jesus accepted the words, with my God on his own lips. Eight days earlier he called the Father my God (John 20:17); he names the Father “the only true God” (John 17:3), and he still says my God after his exaltation (Revelation 3:12). Our conclusion: Thomas’s my God is not the full sense Jesus reserves for the Father.
The bookend with John 1. John’s Gospel opens and closes with God used of the Word and of Jesus. Article 1 gave our reading of John 1:1. John 1:18 has a textual difference: several major Greek editions read only begotten God, others only begotten Son; the WEB follows Son (see the Notes). We build on neither reading. On either, John 1:18 distinguishes the one who declares God from the God no one has seen.
The Lord-and-God pairing. Psalm 35:23 and Revelation 4:11 put Lord and God together for Yahweh, and Thomas’s words may echo that language. Our conclusion: John means what Psalm 45 means when it addresses the king as God: God’s chosen one shares God’s honor without becoming God’s identity. Israel “prostrated themselves before Yahweh and the king.” (1 Chronicles 29:20). Revelation 4:11 is addressed to the one on the throne, distinct in the next chapter from the Lamb (see the Notes). Article 12, Shared Honors, Not Shared Identity, takes this further.
A Jew would not say my God loosely. Scripture itself called Moses as God (Exodus 7:1) and addressed a son of David as God (Psalm 45:6). Jesus quoted Scripture calling human beings gods (John 10:34-35). Our conclusion: a Jew steeped in those texts could say my God to the risen king without meaning that the king was Yahweh. John does not tell us what was in Thomas’s mind; he tells us what Thomas’s belief should lead the reader to (John 20:31).
More than the judges. The gods of Psalm 82 are rebuked and die like men (Psalm 82:7). Jesus is not like them in that. His argument in John 10 is from the lesser to the greater: if they were called gods, how much more the one the Father sanctified and sent. The parallel shows the word God can be used of one who is not Yahweh; it does not put Jesus on their level.

Answering the Jehovah’s Witness Reading

At its strongest the Witness case is this. The Bible calls others god without making them Jehovah: Moses (Exodus 7:1), the judges (Psalm 82:6), the king (Psalm 45:6). Jesus himself appeals to Psalm 82 to defend being called Son of God (John 10:34-36). So Thomas could rightly call Jesus my god, a mighty one, without calling him Almighty God. Jesus has a God (John 20:17), and Jesus calls the Father “the only true God” (John 17:3). Isaiah calls the coming king “Mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6), not Almighty. And John’s summary three verses later says belief is that Jesus is “the Son of God” (John 20:31), not God himself.

We share several points with the Witness reading: the scriptural range of God, the force of John 20:17 and 17:3, and the summary in 20:31. But we part from it in two places, and we want to explain why, calmly and from the text.

The two-addressee idea. As above, Thomas answered him and said to him. With respect, we do not think the text supports splitting the exclamation between two addressees. A reader who believes Jesus is not Jehovah does not need that explanation, and the case is stronger without it.
The a god reading brings in a second being the Bible does not name. The Witness reading needs Jesus to be a mighty spirit creature who existed before he was born, a god alongside God. But the scriptural gods Jesus appeals to in John 10 are those to whom the word of God came; on Jesus’ reading, people who received God’s word. Moses was as God; the king was addressed as God. None was a second divine being. Isaiah says, “Before me there was no God formed, neither will there be after me.” (Isaiah 43:10). Our conclusion: Scripture’s other uses of God support a human Messiah addressed as God because God has given him his authority, not a lesser god existing before the world.

Objections Answered

Objection: John 5:23 says to honor the Son as the Father. It does, and it gives the reason in the verse before: the Father “has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). Honor follows the gift. The same verse adds, “He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.” (John 5:23). The honor is routed through the Father: to refuse the one he sent is to refuse the sender. The surrounding verses keep the same order. Jesus says “the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). “For as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself.” (John 5:26). “He also gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man.” (John 5:27). Notice that last reason: judgment is given to him because he is a son of man. Our conclusion: John 5:23 asks us to honor the Son as the Father’s appointed judge, and the honor rises to the Father who appointed him. That is the same pattern as Thomas’s confession: full honor to the Son, with the Father still the source.

Objection: Isaiah 9:6 calls the Messiah Mighty God. It does: “His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6). The words are el gibbor (see the Notes), and one chapter later Isaiah uses the same two words of Yahweh himself: “A remnant will return, even the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.” (Isaiah 10:21). The verse before makes the reference plain: they “shall lean on Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.” (Isaiah 10:20). Isaiah used this title for Yahweh, and gave it to the child as a name. Scripture shows what such a name means.

First, Isaiah 9:6 is a name the child is called, in a list of names. Scripture gives God’s own name to those through whom he acts. Of David’s righteous Branch, Jeremiah says, “This is his name by which he will be called: Yahweh our righteousness.” (Jeremiah 23:6). Of Jerusalem, in nearly the same words: “This is the name by which she will be called: Yahweh our righteousness.” (Jeremiah 33:16). Our conclusion: the city does not become Yahweh, and neither does the Branch. Second, the child is born and given, he rules “on David’s throne,” and the whole of his reign is credited to someone else: “The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.” (Isaiah 9:7). Third, the Hebrew word el by itself is not reserved for Yahweh. Ezekiel uses it, in the plural with the same word gibbor, of fallen warriors in the grave: “The strong among the mighty will speak to him out of the middle of Sheol” (Ezekiel 32:21). Those mighty ones are dead men of the nations, not gods.

Our conclusion: Isaiah gives David’s heir a name that declares Yahweh’s own power at work through him, the same pattern as Jeremiah 23:6 and Psalm 45. The JW contrast between Mighty and Almighty is not needed, and Isaiah does not draw that line.

Objection: Paul calls Jesus the image of God, and Philippians 2 says he was in the form of God. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says Christ “is the image of God.” An image shows someone else. Philippians 2 gets its own article, The Form of God.

Summary of Tested Claims

Thomas addressed his words to Jesus (John 20:28). Explicit, from the Greek.
Thomas’s doubt was whether the crucified man was alive (John 20:25, 27). Explicit.
The risen Jesus called the Father my God (John 20:17; Revelation 3:12). Explicit.
John wrote so readers would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (John 20:31). Explicit.
Scripture calls Moses (as God), Israel’s judges, and the king God (Exodus 7:1; Psalm 82:6; Psalm 45:6). Explicit.
Jesus defended his claim from Psalm 82, calling it I am the Son of God (John 10:34-36). Explicit.
The king addressed as God in Psalm 45, applied to the Son in Hebrews 1:8-9, has a God who anoints him. Explicit; a canonical connection.
God made Jesus Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36); to us there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6). Explicit.
One in John 10:30 is the same word Jesus uses for the disciples’ unity in John 17:11, 22. Explicit; the inference that it is unity of purpose is our conclusion.
Isaiah uses el gibbor both of the coming son (Isaiah 9:6) and of Yahweh (Isaiah 10:21); Jeremiah gives the name Yahweh our righteousness both to David’s Branch and to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 23:6; 33:16). Explicit; that the name declares what Yahweh does through the son is our conclusion.
Thomas confessed Jesus as the risen Lord in whom God is present and acts, God in the sense Psalm 45 and John 10 supply. Our conclusion.

Verify It Yourself

Read John 20 in one sitting. Mark 20:17 and 20:28 and read them side by side.
Read John 10:28-38 and then Psalm 82. Then read John 17:11 and 17:21-22 and compare the word one. Ask: whom does Jesus say the gods were?
Read Psalm 45:6-7 and Hebrews 1:8-9 together. Count how many times the word God appears, and to whom each refers.
Read John 20:31, then ask what Thomas’s confession is meant to lead you to believe.

Where We Stand

Our conclusions: Thomas called the risen Jesus my Lord and my God, and Jesus accepted it. The confession is true. Jesus is Lord because God made him Lord (Acts 2:36), and he is rightly called God in the way Scripture addresses the anointed king (Psalm 45:6-7; Hebrews 1:8-9) and the one whom the Father sanctified and sent (John 10:34-36). The risen Jesus still has a God, his Father and ours (John 20:17). There is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6). Jesus did not personally exist before his conception.

Counter-texts, answered:

John 20:28, my God: the risen Jesus’ own my God (John 20:17) and John’s purpose (John 20:31) set the sense; Scripture addresses the anointed king as God (Psalm 45:6-7; Hebrews 1:8-9). Our conclusion.
The echo of 20:17 in 20:28: the same chapter keeps both, and John 17:3 reserves the only true God for the Father. Our conclusion.
The bookend with John 1: answered in Article 1; John 1:18 differs among editions, and we build on neither reading.
Lord and God together (Psalm 35:23; Revelation 4:11): God’s chosen king shares God’s honor without becoming God (Psalm 45:6-7; 1 Chronicles 29:20).
Isaiah 9:6, Mighty God: a name declaring what Yahweh does through David’s son (Isaiah 9:7), as Yahweh our righteousness is the name of both the Branch and Jerusalem (Jeremiah 23:6; 33:16). Our conclusion.
John 5:23, honor the Son: honor follows the Father’s gift of judgment (John 5:22, 27).

What Scripture does not say: God the Son; that Thomas addressed two persons; that Jesus is a god who existed before the world; that Thomas meant Jesus is the Father; that the risen Jesus has no God.

Notes

John 20:28: apekrithe Thomas kai eipen auto, Ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou (SBLGNT). Both nouns are nominative with the article, used in direct address, as in Hebrews 1:8 (ho thronos sou ho theos). Sources: BibleHub parallel Greek texts, John 20:28; SBLGNT apparatus, which compares Westcott-Hort, Tregelles, NA28 and Robinson-Pierpont and lists a difference only at apekrithe. We have not checked the full manuscript apparatus.
Granville Sharp: Granville Sharp’s rule concerns two nouns joined by kai under a single article. Here each noun has its own article, so that rule does not decide the verse. The single addressee comes from eipen auto, said to him.
John 20:17: Anabaino pros ton patera mou kai patera hymon kai theon mou kai theon hymon (SBLGNT).
John 1:18: SBL, Westcott-Hort, Tregelles and NA28 read monogenes theos; Robinson-Pierpont (Byzantine), Tischendorf 8th and the Textus Receptus read ho monogenes huios (SBLGNT apparatus; BibleHub parallel texts). The WEB follows Son.
John 10:34: Ego eipa, Theoi este, quoting Psalm 82:6 (Septuagint 81:6).
Exodus 7:1 and 4:16: Hebrew elohim in both (OSHB/WLC). In 7:1, netattikha elohim le-Pharaoh, literally I have made you God to Pharaoh; there is no word for as, which the WEB supplies. In 4:16 the form is le-elohim, for God or as God; there the WEB’s as reflects the Hebrew preposition.
Psalm 82:1, 6: elohim used both of God and of the gods (OSHB).
Psalm 45:6-7 (Hebrew 45:7-8): kis’akha elohim olam va‘ed; elohim elohekha, God, your God (OSHB). Grammarians debate whether 45:6 should be read Your throne, O God or Your throne is God’s; the WEB and Hebrews 1:8 (ho thronos sou ho theos, SBLGNT) both read it as address.
Psalm 35:23: Hebrew elohai va’donai, my God and my Lord (OSHB); the order is the reverse of Thomas’s.
Revelation 4:11: ho kyrios kai ho theos hemon, our Lord and God (SBLGNT). It is addressed to the one on the throne who created all things, distinct in the next chapter from the Lamb (Revelation 5:6-7).
Isaiah 9:6 (Hebrew 9:5): el gibbor, Mighty God (OSHB/WLC). The same two words appear in Isaiah 10:21 for Yahweh. In Ezekiel 32:21 the plural ele gibborim is used of fallen warriors in Sheol; the WEB renders it the strong among the mighty.
Jeremiah 23:6; 33:16: vezeh shemo asher yiqre'o YHWH tsidqenu; vezeh asher yiqra lah YHWH tsidqenu (OSHB). In 33:16 the WEB supplies name.
John 10:30: ego kai ho pater hen esmen (SBLGNT). Hen is neuter, one thing, not masculine heis, one person. John 17:11 and 17:22 use the same neuter hen for the disciples: hina osin hen kathos hemeis, that they may be one, even as we are.
John 5:23: hina pantes timosi ton huion kathos timosi ton patera (SBLGNT).

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© 2026 Elvis Lucas, Open the Text. Original: https://openthetext.com/series/the-hard-texts/03-my-lord-and-my-god/
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