"My Lord and My God"
John 20:28
“My Lord and My God”
The same chapter names whose God Thomas meant
Eleven verses earlier the risen Messiah named his God --- and his God was the Father.
--- The Standing Stone ---
Behind “LORD” in your Bible lies a hidden name --- in the Hebrew it is Yahuah Psalm 83:18**; Yahuah is the Father** Isaiah 63:16**; Yahuah is the only God, beside Him there is no other** Isaiah 45:5**; therefore Yahuah the Father is the only true God, leaving no room for a second or third person** 1 Corinthians 8:6**.**
1 --- The Confession, and the Trap of Reading It Alone
When Yahushua rose from the dead, Thomas was not in the room. He told the others plainly that he would not believe until he could see the nail marks and touch the wound for himself. Eight days later Yahushua stood before him and offered him exactly that (John 20:27). Thomas looked at the risen Messiah and answered with the words this study is about.
John 20:28
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
The claim built on this verse is short. Thomas called Yahushua “my God.” Yahushua did not correct him. Therefore, the reading goes, Yahushua must be God.
Everything in that claim rests on one quiet move: the verse is lifted out of its chapter and read all by itself. Put it back where John set it, and the chapter answers from every side --- from a lesson Yahushua had already taught Thomas by name, from a promise about the day of His rising, from His own words a few verses earlier, and from the reason John says he wrote the book at all.
2 --- A Teaching Yahushua Gave to Thomas Himself
Long before this morning, Yahushua had already explained how to understand what people saw when they looked at Him. And the lesson began with a question from Thomas --- the very man who would later speak in verse 28.
John 14:5—7
Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?… if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
Read what Yahushua tells Thomas: to know Him is to know the Father, and from that point on Thomas has seen the Father. Philip, still not following, asks to be shown the Father outright. Yahushua answers him plainly.
John 14:9—10
…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father… the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
Hear it carefully. Yahushua does not say, “I am the Father.” He says the Father dwells in Him and works through Him, so that to see the Son at work is to see the Father at work in Him. He had taught the same thing earlier to the crowds.
John 12:44—45
…He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.
But how can any man see the Father, when John says plainly that no one ever has? Yahushua and John answer the same way: the Father is made known in the Son.
John 1:18
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
The Son declares the Father. His words are the Father’s words (John 12:49), and His works are the Father’s works done through Him (Acts 2:22). So by the time we reach Thomas in chapter 20, this is already settled ground: to see Yahushua is to see Yahuah the Father revealed in Him. Thomas had been taught it to his face.
3 --- “At That Day Ye Shall Know”
In the same conversation, Yahushua adds a promise --- and pins it to a particular day.
John 14:19—20
…because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
“Because I live” points to His rising. “That day” is the day He stands alive again. And on that day, Yahushua says, they will finally know what He has been teaching them --- that He is in the Father and the Father in Him.
Now turn back to the scene with Thomas. It is that day. The risen Messiah is standing in front of him; the doubting is over. What Thomas does next is not the discovery of a new God --- it is the promised knowing, arriving exactly when Yahushua said it would. The man who asked the question in chapter 14 now knows the answer in chapter 20.
4 --- The Risen Messiah Names His Own God
There is one more thing the lone-verse reading never mentions, and it sits only eleven verses earlier, in this same chapter, on this same morning. The risen Yahushua speaks to Mary.
John 20:17
…I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
The risen Messiah calls the Father “my God.” Sit with that. Before Thomas ever opens his mouth, John 20 has already named who “my God” is --- the Father. Yahushua says it of Himself.
And that breaks the claim in half. If saying “my God” of someone makes that one God, then Yahushua’s own “my God” in verse 17 would mean He worships a God above Him. The same chapter, the same risen Lord, the same words --- and they point upward, to the Father.
It also answers why Thomas erupts at all. He is staring at a crucified man made alive, and Scripture is plain about whose power did it: the Father raised Him (Galatians 1:1; Acts 2:24; Acts 2:32). The living proof in front of Thomas is the Father’s own act --- the Father at work in the Son, exactly as chapter 14 had promised. Thomas is not crowning a rival to Yahuah. He is bowing before the unmistakable work of the only true God.
5 --- The Words Thomas Chose
A second argument is sometimes built on the Greek of the verse, so it is worth being precise --- and honest --- about what the grammar does and does not prove.
Thomas’s words repeat both the article and the possessive: “the Lord of me, and the God of me.”
ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου
ho kurios mou kai ho theos mou
the Lord of me and the God of me --- article and possessive repeated for each title.
This cuts in two directions. First, it is not the construction that fuses two titles onto a single person --- the joined, single-article form that the deity claim leans on in other verses. Thomas keeps the titles apart, each with its own article and its own “of me.” So this verse cannot be used to weld “Lord” and “God” into one figure.
Second, John does write the joined form when he means one --- and he does it in this very chapter. In verse 17 the risen Yahushua speaks of His Father and His God under a single article for one and the same Father. The two verses sit eleven lines apart, and they are not built the same way.
Here is the honest limit, and it is still enough. The grammar by itself does not count heads; it neither proves nor disproves a single subject. What it does is strip away the claim that Thomas’s words can only mean “Yahushua is God.” They stand wide open to addressing two: his Lord, the risen Son before him, and his God, the Father at work in Him. The teaching of the chapter is what tells us which.
6 --- What the Scene Is For
Two more lines settle it, and both come straight from the text around the confession.
First, the answer to “Yahushua did not correct him.” Look at what He actually says next.
John 20:29
…Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
His reply is about seeing and believing --- the theme of the whole scene. Thomas believed once he saw; later believers will believe without seeing. That is the point Yahushua draws out. He says nothing to ratify a title; He marks the difference between sight and trust.
Second, John tells us in plain words why he wrote the book --- in the very next breath.
John 20:31
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
Not “that ye might believe Jesus is God.” John writes so the reader will believe Yahushua is the Messiah, the Son of God. If Thomas’s confession had just declared Yahushua to be God, this was the place to say so. Instead, one breath later, John names Him the Son of God.
Conclusion
The Verdict
Thomas demanded to see. What met him was the Father’s own power, standing alive where death had been --- the very Son in whom he had been told the Father dwells and works. No wonder the words poured out of him.
He was not crowning a second God. He was naming the only God there is --- Yahuah the Father, made known in the risen Son --- and his Lord, the Son who had risen by the Father’s hand. The chapter that records his cry had already named his God, and that God was the Father.
Eleven verses before Thomas said “my God,” the risen Messiah said it first --- and His God was the Father.