MyGodMyGod
MyGodMyGod
Jesus is a Godly Figure—The
Image of God –The only begotten Son –Worshipping His Father is only Possible
through Him.
Open John 20:28---and Theology.htm
Thomas
is a good example. The account is found at John 20:27, 28.
'Jesus said to Thomas: “Put your finger here and look at my hands. Put your
hand into my side. Stop doubting and believe!” Thomas answered: “My Lord and my
God!” (John
Thomas was excited and he simply blurted out an unsubstantiated declaration. If
you suddenly saw a recently departed member of your family stand in front of
you what would you say? You might call out, “Oh my God, it's you! I thought you
were dead!” No attempt is being made to trivialize this. However, when you read
the entire context of the Bible you see that Jesus Christ is not God and that
Thomas did not speak in harmony with the context.
MY LORD
Teachers
of the Trinity doctrine will argue that the Godship
of Jesus Christ is proved by the words of the apostle Thomas in John 20:28.
Thomas had told the other apostles that he
would not believe that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead until Jesus
materialized before him and let him put his finger in the print of the nails by
which he had been fastened to the stake and until he thrust his hand into
Jesus’ side, where a Roman soldier had jabbed him with a spear to make sure of
Jesus’ death. So the following week Jesus reappeared to the apostles and told
Thomas to do as he had said, to convince himself. “And
Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.” (AV) In the
original Greek text this expression literally reads, word for word: “The Lord
of me and the God of me.”
So the trinitarians
argue that Thomas’ expression “the God” spoken to Jesus proved that Jesus was
the very God, a God of three Persons. However, Professor C. F. D. Moule says that the article the before the noun God
may not be significant so as to mean such a thing. Regardless of that fact, let
us take into account the situation back there to be sure of what the apostle
Thomas meant.
Less than two weeks previously Thomas had
heard Jesus pray to his heavenly Father and say: “This is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”
(John 17:3, AV) On the fourth day after that prayer, or on his day of
resurrection, Jesus sent a special message to Thomas and the other disciples by
means of Mary Magdalene. “Jesus saith unto her, Touch
me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say
unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your
God. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and
that he had spoken these things unto her.” (John 20:17, 18, AV) So from
Jesus’ prayer and from this message through Mary Magdalene, Thomas knew who his
own God was. His God was not Jesus Christ, but his God was the God of Jesus
Christ. Also his Father was the Father of Jesus Christ. Thus Thomas knew that
Jesus had a God whom he worshiped, namely, his heavenly Father.
How,
then, could Thomas in an ecstasy of joy at seeing the resurrected Jesus for the
first time burst out with an exclamation and speak to Jesus himself as being
the one and only living, true God, the God whose name is Jehovah? How could
Thomas, by what he spoke, mean that Jesus was himself “the only true God” or
that Jesus was God in the Second Person of a Trinity? In view of what Thomas
had heard from Jesus and had been told by Jesus, how can we read such a meaning
into Thomas’ words: “My Lord and my God”?
Jesus would have reproved Thomas if Jesus had
understood that Thomas meant that he, Jesus, was “the only true God” whom Jesus
had called “my God” and “my Father.” Certainly Jesus would not take a title
away from God his Father or take away the unique position from God his Father.
Since Jesus did not reprove Thomas as if addressing him in a wrong way, Jesus
knew how to understand Thomas’ words, Scripturally.
And so did the apostle John.
John
was there and heard Thomas exclaim: “My Lord and my God.” Did John say that the
only thing for us to conclude from Thomas’ words was that Jesus was God, “the
only true God” whose name is Jehovah? (Ps. 35:23, 24) Here would have been an
excellent place for John to explain John 1:1 and say that Jesus Christ, who was
the Word made flesh, was God himself, that he was “God the Son, the Second
Person of the Blessed Trinity.” But is that the conclusion that John reached?
Is that the conclusion to which John brings his readers? Listen to the
conclusion that John wants us to reach:
“Jesus saith unto
him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they
that have not seen, and yet have believed. And many other signs truly did Jesus
in the presence of his disciples, which are not
written in this book: but these are written, that ye might believe.” That we
might believe what? “That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing ye might have life through his name.”—John 20:29-31, AV.
In
his life account of Jesus John wrote the things to persuade us to believe, not
that Jesus is God, that Christ is God, or that Jesus is “God the Son,” but that
“Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” The trinitarians
designedly twist things by saying “God the Son.” But we take John’s explanation
the way that he words it, namely, “Christ, the Son of God.” We follow John to
the same conclusion that he reached, that Jesus is the Son of the One whom Jesus calls “my Father” and “my God,” in this same
twentieth chapter of John. Hence Thomas was not worshiping “God the Father” and
“God the Son” at one and the same time as equals in a “triune God.”
Thomas worshiped the
same God whom Jesus Christ worshiped, namely, Jehovah God, the
Father. So if Thomas addressed Jesus as “my God,” Thomas had to recognize
Jesus’ Father as the God of a God, hence as a God higher than Jesus Christ, a
God whom Jesus himself worshiped. Revelation 4:1-11 gives a symbolic
description of this God, the “Lord God Almighty,” who sits upon the heavenly
throne and who lives forever and ever; but the next chapter, Revelation 5:1-8,
describes Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God who comes to the Lord God Almighty on
his throne and takes a scroll out of God’s hand. This illustrates the meaning
of Jesus’ words to Thomas and the other apostles: “I go unto the Father: for my
Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28, AV) Jesus thus recognized his
Father as the Lord God Almighty, without an equal, greater than his Son
Thomas answered: “My Lord and my God.” (John 1:18;
http://www.webspawner.com/users/newsimplifiedbible/nsbjohn20thru21.html
John 1:18; No man has ever seen God. The only begotten God-like one who is closest to the Father (in the bosom of the Father) tells us about him. (Psalm 8:5)
(John 10-36- “do you say to the one whom the Father
sanctified and sent into the world, you blaspheme? And this because I said, I
am the Son of God. (Psalm 82:1, 6)(John
John 20-17 Jesus said: “Do not touch me for I am not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers, and say to them, I ascend to my Father
There are Two Main Beginnings to
Understand—Jesus’ Rev 3-14 -Prov
and the World(s) Heb 11-3 –John 1-3 –