John 20:28

John 20:28 reads as follows:

• John 20:28: Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

"my God." This could not be referring to God the Father, since earlier that same day Jesus said to Mary Magdalene that he was to ascend to "my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17). If Jesus was to ascend to his God and the disciples' God, then Jesus could not be "the God", that is to say he could not be God the Father.

Son of God. The disciples understood through revelation that he was the son of God as evidenced by the great confession Peter made weeks or months earlier (Matthew 16:16). There is no doubt, therefore, that the disciples understood Jesus to have divine attributes.

God in the generic sense. "God" could have been used in the Old Testament generic sense of Elohim. Meaning that he was a representative of God. For example, in Exodus 7:1, Moses was to be Elohim to Pharaoh, "See, I have made you Elohim to Pharaoh." Another example is when Jacob wrestled with Elohim (Genesis 32:22-32) when in fact he wrestled with an angel (Hosea 12:4). If viewed this way, then Jesus, like Moses, was Elohim to Thomas. That is, in Thomas' mind, Jesus was representing God and was his channel (i.e. or door, or way) to God.

Two entities. Another possibility is that Thomas was speaking of two entities. The transliterated Greek text reads, "the Lord of-me and the God of-me" or "article, noun, pronoun; and article, noun, pronoun." This construction is used many times when two different things are being referred to (cp. Matt. 12:47; Mark 3:33; Luke 8:20; John 4:12; and Acts 2:17). However, this is not an absolute rule and pattern, since there are many cases where this is either unclear or simply an amplification for emphasis.