John 20:28

20:26-29 That one day in seven should be religiously observed, was an appointment from the beginning. And that, in the kingdom of the Messiah, the first day of the week should be that solemn day, was pointed out, in that Christ on that day once and again met his disciples in a religious assembly. The religious observance of that day has come down to us through every age of the church. There is not an unbelieving word in our tongues, nor thought in our minds, but it is known to the Lord Jesus; and he was pleased to accommodate himself even to Thomas, rather than leave him in his unbelief. We ought thus to bear with the weak, Ro 15:1,2. This warning is given to all. If we are faithless, we are Christless and graceless, hopeless and joyless. Thomas was ashamed of his unbelief, and cried out, My Lord and my God. He spoke with affection, as one that took hold of Christ with all his might; My Lord and my God. Sound and sincere believers, though slow and weak, shall be graciously accepted of the Lord Jesus. It is the duty of those who read and hear the gospel, to believe, to embrace the doctrine of Christ, and that record concerning him, 1Jo 5:11.

John 20:28 . Grotius, following Tertullian, Ambrose, Cyril and others, is of opinion that Thomas availed himself of the offered test: surely it is psychologically more probable that the test he had insisted on as alone sufficient is now repudiated, and that he at once exclaims, Ὁ Κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου . His faith returns with a rebound and utters itself in a confession in which the gospel culminates. The words are not a mere exclamation of surprise. That is forbidden by εἶπεν αὐτῷ ; they mean “Thou art my Lord and my God”. The repeated pronoun lends emphasis. In Pliny’s letter to Trajan (112 A.D.) he describes the Christians as singing hymns to Christ as God. Our Lord does not reject Thomas’ confession; but ( John 20:29 ) reminds him that there is a higher faith than that which springs from visual evidence: Ὅτι ἑώρακάς με … καὶ πιστεύσαντες . Jesus would have been better pleased with a faith which did not require the evidence of sense: a faith founded on the perception that God was in Christ, and therefore He could not die; a faith in His Messiahship which argued that He must live to carry on the work of His Kingdom. The saying is cited as another instance of the care with which the various origins and kinds of faith are distinguished in this gospel.

28. Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God—That Thomas did not do what Jesus invited him to do, and what he had made the condition of his believing, seems plain from Joh 20:29 ("Because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed"). He is overpowered, and the glory of Christ now breaks upon him in a flood. His exclamation surpasses all that had been yet uttered, nor can it be surpassed by anything that ever will be uttered in earth or heaven. On the striking parallel in Nathanael, see on [1922]Joh 1:49. The Socinian invasion of the supreme divinity of Christ here manifestly taught—as if it were a mere call upon God in a fit of astonishment—is beneath notice, save for the profanity it charges upon this disciple, and the straits to which it shows themselves reduced.

My Lord, to whom I wholly yield and give up my self; and my God, in whom I believe. It is observed, that this is the first time that in the Gospel the name of God is given to Christ; he was now by his resurrection declared to be the Son of God with power, Revelation 1:4 . So as Thomas did not show more weakness and unbelief at the first, than he showed faith at last, being the first that acknowledged Christ as God over all blessed for ever, the object of people’s faith and confidence, and his Lord, to whom he freely yielded up himself as a servant, to be guided and conducted by him.

John 20:28 . Αὐτῷ , unto Him ) Therefore it was Jesus whom he called Lord and God , and that too, his Lord and his God: which is in consonance with the language which is recorded in John 20:17 : nor do these words form a mere exclamation. The disciples had said, τὸν Κύριον , the Lord , John 20:25 : now Thomas, being recalled to faith, not merely acknowledges Jesus to be Lord, as previously he had himself acknowledged, and that He was risen again, as his fellow-disciples were affirming; but even confesses His Godhead in a higher sense than any one had yet confessed. Moreover, the language is abrupt through the suddenness of the feeling excited in him, in this sense, “My Lord and my God,” I believe and acknowledge that Thou art my Lord and my God: and the absolute appellation has the force of an enunciation. A similar Vocative occurs twice in John 20:16 , also in Hosea 2:23 , “I will say, thou, my people, and they shall say, Thou, my God.” Artemonius in Part i. ch. 24, with which comp. the pref. p. 20 and p. d. 2, brings forward a new explanation, whereby Thomas is made to call Jesus Lord , and the Father who exists in Him inseparably, God : but in that case Thomas would not have addressed both titles unto Him ( αὐτῷ ); but would have been addressing the one to Jesus, the other to the Father, by a sudden apostrophe, [When the language is suddenly turned to another person present or absent, differently from what was the intention of the speaker at the beginning.

Append.] which by no means accords with the admiring astonishment of Thomas. If this had been the intention of Thomas, John would not have added, αὐτῷ , unto Him . Thomas had not before expressly rejected faith in God the Father, but he had, in the case of Christ: therefore now it is not in the Father that he declares expressly his believing again, but in Christ. [This confession moreover is approved of in the following verse.—V. g.]

28 . And Thomas answered ] Omit ‘and.’ This answer and Christ’s comment, ‘because thou hast seen ,’ seem to shew that S. Thomas did not use the test which he had demanded. In accordance with his desponding temperament he had underrated the possibilities of being convinced. My Lord and my God ] Most unnatural is the Unitarian view, that these words are an expression of astonishment addressed to God . Against this are (1) the plain and conclusive ‘said unto Him ;’ (2) the words ‘my Lord,’ which manifestly are addressed to Christ (comp. John 20:13 ); (3) the fact that this confession of faith forms a climax and conclusion to the whole Gospel. The words are rightly considered as an impassioned declaration on the part of a devoted but (in the better sense of the term) sceptical Apostle of his conviction, not merely that his Risen Lord stood before him, but that this Lord was also his God. And it must be noted that Christ does not correct His Apostle for this avowal, any more than He corrected the Jews for supposing that He claimed to be ‘equal with God’ ( John 5:18-19 ); on the contrary He accepts and approves this confession of belief in His Divinity.

(28) Thomas answered and said unto him. —It is implied that he did not make use of the tests which his Master offered him, but that he at once expressed the fulness of his conviction. This is confirmed by the words of the next verse, “Because thou hast seen Me.” My Lord and my God.—These words are preceded by “said unto him,” and are followed by “because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed;” and the words “my Lord” can only be referred to Christ. (Comp. John 20:13.) The sentence cannot therefore, without violence to the context, be taken as an exclamation addressed to God, and is to be understood in the natural meaning of a confession by the Apostle that his Lord was also God.

My Lord and my God - In this passage the name God is expressly given to Christ, in his own presence and by one of his own apostles. This declaration has been considered as a clear proof of the divinity of Christ, for the following reasons: 1. There is no evidence that this was a mere expression, as some have supposed, of surprise or astonishment. 2. The language was addressed to Jesus himself - "Thomas ...said unto him." 3. The Saviour did not reprove him or check him as using any improper language. If he had not been divine, it is impossible to reconcile it with his honesty that he did not rebuke the disciple. No pious man would have allowed such language to be addressed to him. Compare Acts 14:13-15; Revelation 22:8-9. 4. The Saviour proceeds immediately to commend Thomas for believing; but what was the evidence of his believing? It was this declaration, and this only. If this was a mere exclamation of surprise, what proof was it that Thomas believed? Before this he doubted. Now he believed, and gave utterance to his belief, that Jesus was his Lord and his God. 5. If this was not the meaning of Thomas, then his exclamation was a mere act of profaneness, and the Saviour would not have commended him for taking the name of the Lord his God in vain. The passage proves, therefore, that it is proper to apply to Christ the name Lord and God, and thus accords with what John affirmed in John 1:1, and which is established throughout this gospel.

John 20:28-29 . The doubts of Thomas, whose faith did not now require actual contact (hence also merely ἑώρακας , John 20:29 ), are converted into a straightforward and devoted confession; comp. John 11:16 . ὁ κύριός μου κ . ὁ θεός μου ] is taken by Theodore of Mopsuestia (“quasi pro miraculo facto Deum collaudat,” ed. Fritzsche, p. 41) as an exclamation of astonishment directed to God . So recently, in accordance with the Socinians (see against these Calovius), especially Paulus. Decisively opposed to this view is εἶπεν αὐτῷ , as well as the necessary reference of ὁ κύρ . μου to Christ. It is a confessionary invocation of Christ in the highest joyful surprise, in which Thomas gives the fullest expression of profound emotion to his faith, which had been mightily elevated by the conviction of the reality of the resurrection, in the divine nature of his Lord. The powerful emotion certainly appears in and of itself little fitted to qualify this exclamation, which Ewald even terms exaggerated for the dogmatic conception; but this is outweighed (1) by the account of John himself, who could find in this exclamation only an echo of his own θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος , and of the self-testimonies of Jesus concerning His divine nature; (2) and chiefly by the approval of the Lord which follows.

Erasmus aptly says: “ Agnovit Christus utique repulsurus , si falso dictus fuisset Deus.” Note further (1) the climax of the two expressions; (2) how the amazed disciple keeps them apart from one another with a solemn emphasis by repeating the article[270] and the μου . This μου , again, is the outflow “ex vivo et serio fidei sensu,” Calvin. John 20:29 . The ὁ κύριός μ . κ . ὁ θεός μου was the complete and highest confession of Messianic faith , by the rendering of which, therefore, the above μὴ γίνου … πιστός was already fulfilled. But it was the consequence of the having seen the Risen One, which he should not have required to do, considering the sufficient ground of conviction which lay in the assurance of his fellow-disciples as eye-witnesses. Hence the loving reproof (not eulogy , which Paulus devises, but also not a confirmation of the contents of faith as conferred by Thomas, as Luthardt assumes, which is first implied in μακάριοι , κ . τ . λ .) for him who has attained in this sensuous way to decisive faith, and the ascription of blessedness to those who, without such a sensuous conviction, have become believers,—this is to be left as a general truth, and not to be referred to the other disciples , since it is expressed in a general way, and, in accordance with the supersensuous and ethical nature of faith, is universally valid .