Free The Forgotten Trinity by James R. White Page B

and stood in
their midst and said, "Peace be with you." Then He said to
Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and
reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing" (John 20:26-27).
    Thomas surely was struck to his heart when the Lord immediately
turned His attention to him and demonstrated that the words he had
spoken were known to the risen Lord. How will Thomas respond? He
has been invited to believe. We are not told if he actually put forth his
hand to dispel his skepticism. All we are told is what he said, and how
the Lord responded:
    Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed?
Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed" (John 20:28-
29).
    Thomas's answer is simple and clear. It is directed to the Lord Jesus,
not to anyone else, for John says, "he said to Him." The content of his
confession is plain and unambiguous. "My Lord and my God!" Jesus
is Thomas's Lord. Of this there is no question.4 And there is simply no
reason-grammatical, contextual, or otherwise-to deny that in the
very same breath Thomas calls Jesus Christ his "God."'
    Jesus' response to Thomas's confession shows not the slightest discomfort at the appellation "God." Jesus says Thomas has shown
faith, for he has "believed." He then pronounces a blessing upon all
who will believe like Thomas without the added element of physical
sight. There is no reproach of Thomas's description of Jesus as his Lord
and God. No created being could ever allow such words to be addressed
to him personally. No angel, no prophet, no sane human being, could
ever allow himself to be addressed as "Lord and God." Yet Jesus not
only accepts the words of Thomas but pronounces the blessing of faith
upon them as well.

    What could be clearer? Should not such a passage banish all doubt?
Should we not be able to simply cite this verse and see every person
who denies the deity of Christ repenting of their error in its glaring
light? Of course, such is wishful thinking. Man finds ways around
everything, and the most common means of avoiding the weight of
this passage is to move the conversation back a few verses:
    Jesus said to her, "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, `I
ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God'"
(John 20:17).
    Why cite this passage? Because the truth I noted at the beginning of
this chapter really is frequently ignored! The idea is simple: if Jesus can
speak of His "God," then He can't really be God, but must be something less (i.e., a creature) who is called "God" but only in a "sort of"
fashion. Remember the maxim: Difference in function does not indicate
inferiority of nature. Here the Father is described as Jesus' "God." Since
this is so, Jesus must be some inferior being, and therefore, John 20:28
can't mean what it so obviously says.6 Note how one writer has expressed it:
    Such a confession, as in the case of Thomas, is qualified not
only by the context (John 20:17), but also by the whole of Scripture. The use of later Chalcedonian christology does not come into
play in verses such as John 20:17, either. Here Jesus, in the same
state Thomas addressed him, says that the Father is his God, again differentiating between the two in terms of theos, as well as acknowledging the Father's superiority over him, as his God.'

    And just here we see the circularity of the arguments of those who deny
the deity of Christ: why can't Thomas mean what he said? Because, of
course, the Father is different than the Son. It was the Son who became
Incarnate, and since the Son, as the perfect man, acknowledged the
Father as His God, He, himself, can't be fully deity. The argument assumes that God could not enter into human form. Why? Well, what
would the God-man be like? If one of the divine persons entered into
human