Series: The Theological Blueprint — Study 22 (Study Edition)

"These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." — John 20:31

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED...

  • Did Thomas call Jesus "God" — and did Jesus accept it?
  • How does this fit with Jesus calling the Father "my God"?
  • What did a first-century Jew mean by those words?

THE HARDEST VERSE, FACED HEAD-ON

1 This study does something the others haven't needed to: it walks straight at the single strongest verse for the view it does not hold. When the risen Jesus appeared to the disciple Thomas, Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). A man looked at Jesus and said my God — and Jesus did not correct him. If any verse in the Bible teaches that Jesus is God Almighty, this is the one, and it deserves to be met honestly rather than dodged.

2 So let's be fair to the strong reading before examining it. The words are spoken directly to Jesus — John says so. Jesus accepts them and blesses the faith behind them (20:29). And John placed this at the very climax of his Gospel. That's a serious case. Any reading that ignores it isn't a reading; it's an evasion. One thing to settle first, though: this study will not try to shrink Thomas' words into a startled "my God!" gasp. Thomas was confessing, in the highest words he had, and he was right to. The question isn't how to make his worship smaller. It's what he was worshiping.

1, 2. (a) What makes this the hardest verse? (b) What three things make the strong reading serious?

JOHN TELLS US, TWO VERSES LATER, WHAT IT ALL MEANS

3 Here's the fact almost everyone misses: verse 28 is not the end of the paragraph. Two verses later, John steps out and tells us, in his own voice, what the entire Gospel — this climax included — was written to make us believe. Read John 20:30–31. "These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

4 Read that as the unit it is. Thomas confesses (v. 28); Jesus blesses believing (v. 29); and John immediately says what all of it was written to produce in you: belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Not "God the Son." Not "the second person of the Trinity." The author's own stated conclusion — placed right after the climax, as the key to the whole book — is exactly the confession this series has taught from Study 1. When an author puts a thesis statement two verses after his peak scene and says this is what I wrote all of it to make you believe, that statement governs how we read the scene. This isn't a rule imposed on John from outside. It's John interpreting John.

3, 4. (a) What does John say in verses 30–31? (b) Why does that govern how we read verse 28?

JOHN CAN'T MEAN AT VERSE 28 WHAT HE DENIES AT VERSE 17

5 Now look sixty verses earlier, in the same chapter. Read John 20:17. The risen Jesus tells Mary: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." The risen Christ — glory already begun — calls the Father my God. And on his last night he had prayed to the Father as "the only true God" (17:3), naming himself separately as the one God sent.

6 Hold the three together. One author, one book: Jesus says the Father is my God and the only true God — and Thomas says Jesus is my God. If "my God" in verse 28 means the one true Almighty God, then John has Jesus worshiping the only true God in verse 17 and being the only true God in verse 28, sixty verses apart, without noticing the contradiction. That's not a coherent writer. The coherent reading is the one this whole series has traced: there's a sense in which the Son is rightly called theos that doesn't collapse him into the Father who is his God — and John knows the difference, because he wrote both sentences.

5, 6. (a) What does the risen Jesus call the Father in verse 17? (b) Why can't verse 28 mean Almighty God?

THOMAS WAS REACHING FOR A CATEGORY HIS BIBLE ALREADY HAD

7 What sense of "God" addressed to another did Thomas' Scriptures already contain? Plenty. The Davidic king is addressed as elohim to his face — "Your throne, O God, is forever" — in the same breath that gives him a God: "therefore God, your God, has anointed you" (Psalm 45:6–7). Moses was made "God" to Pharaoh (Exodus 7:1). And the commissioned agent bears God's own Name because it was placed in him — "my name is in him" (Exodus 23:21) — so that to deal with the agent is to deal with the Sender (see Study 21).

8 Thomas was a first-century Jew soaked in those texts. Standing before the risen Messiah — the man in whom the Name dwells, of whom Jesus had said "whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (14:9) — he reaches for the highest address his Bible provides for the one in whom God is perfectly present. There may even be a specific echo: "my God and my Lord" appears in Psalm 35:23, spoken to Yahweh in a plea for God to arise and vindicate a righteous sufferer — which is precisely what the resurrection is. Standing before the vindicated one, Thomas may be speaking his own Bible back. The confession is enormous. It simply isn't the creed of a council three centuries away.

7, 8. (a) Who else is addressed as "God" in the Old Testament? (b) What might Thomas be quoting?

THE READING THAT STANDS

9 So this study turns down both usual answers. Not "a god" — the article is there, and this is worship, not a demotion; Thomas meant something exalted and was right to. And not "Jesus is God Almighty" — John denies it in verse 17, Jesus denies it in 17:3, and John captions the scene differently in verse 31. The reading that stands takes every word seriously: Thomas meets the risen Jesus and, in him, meets the God who raised him — because the Name is in the Son, the fullness dwells in him (Colossians 2:9), and to see him is to see the Father. He confesses the Messiah as my Lord (the enthroned one of Psalm 110, made Lord and Christ, Acts 2:36) and my God (the one in whom the only true God has acted and is present).

10 And it lands where all honor to the Son lands — "to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:11). Notice, finally, that John agrees this is the summit, and tells you what the summit is for. He doesn't end with Thomas. He ends with you: "these are written so that you may believe... and that by believing you may have life in his name." The point of the Gospel's highest confession isn't to win a debate. It's to bring you where Thomas stood — before the risen Christ, believing, alive.

9, 10. (a) Which two readings does the study reject, and why? (b) What is the confession finally for?

📖 KEY SCRIPTURES IN THIS STUDY

John 20:17, 26–31 · John 17:3 · Psalm 45:6–7 · Exodus 7:1; 23:21 · Psalm 35:23 · John 14:9 · Colossians 2:9 · Acts 2:36 · Philippians 2:11

💬 SHARING THIS TRUTH

A way in: "The verse people quote most to prove Jesus is God — Thomas saying 'my Lord and my God' — has John's own explanation two verses later. Want to read both together?" Discussion questions:

  1. "John 20:31 — what does John say the whole Gospel was written to make us believe?"
  2. "How can Jesus call the Father 'my God' in verse 17 and be called 'my God' in verse 28 — sixty verses apart, same author?"
  3. "If the Name was 'in' God's agent (Exodus 23:21), what does it mean to meet God in the risen Christ?"

✅ IN REVIEW

  • This is the strongest verse for the opposing view, and it deserves to be faced, not dodged.
  • Two verses later, John states his purpose: believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God — the author's own caption on the scene.
  • John can't mean at verse 28 what he denies at verse 17 ("my God and your God") and 17:3 ("the only true God").
  • Thomas reached for a category his Bible already had: the one in whom God's Name dwells and through whom God acts.
  • Reject "a god" (this is worship) and "God Almighty" (John denies it) — Thomas met the Father in the risen Son, to the Father's glory.

For the full evidentiary treatment, see the complete Study 22 in this archive.

Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one — and a doubter fell before the risen Christ and gave him the highest words his Scripture owned; met God in the man God raised; and heard the blessing spoken across the centuries to everyone who would believe without touching the wounds.