"My Lord and My God": When Thomas Said What No 1st Century Judean Should Say

Most of us know the story. Thomas doubts. Thomas demands evidence. Thomas gets his evidence. And then, overwhelmed by the sight of the risen Jesus, he blurts out something like, "Oh my Lord! Oh my God!"

We imagine it as a gasp of astonishment, the sort of thing you might say when you drop your phone in the toilet or see something utterly unexpected. An exclamation. A reaction. Not a theological statement.

But that reading, natural as it might feel to modern ears, misses what actually happened in that room. And if we're going to understand what Thomas said, and why Jesus accepted it without correction, we need to step back into the world of first-century Jewish monotheism and hear those words the way they would have been heard.

When we do that, the scene becomes far more radical than we usually imagine.

The Words Thomas Actually Said

The Greek is precise. Thomas doesn't say "Lord!" or "God!" as separate exclamations. He says:

Ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou

"The Lord of me and the God of me."

This isn't casual speech. It's formal address. The definite articles matter. The possessive pronouns matter. The structure matters. Thomas is not expressing surprise. He is making a confession, and he is directing that confession to Jesus (YHWShA) himself.

If we were to render this back into the Hebrew that would have shaped Thomas's thinking, he would be saying:

Adonai sheli v'Elohim sheli

"My Adonai and my Elohim."

Now, here's where things get interesting. These are not generic terms of respect. In Jewish usage, Adonai was the substitute word spoken aloud when the text read YHWH (יהוה). And Elohim, when used with the definite article as Thomas uses it, referred to the God (Alohim) of Israel, the Creator, the one and only.

Thomas is addressing Jesus with the precise vocabulary reserved for YHWH alone.

The Available Options

It's worth pausing to consider what options were available to first-century Jews when trying to make sense of an exalted figure.

Some Second Temple Jewish texts spoke of principal angels like Michael or the Angel of YHWH as worthy of honor. The book of Daniel describes "one like a son of man" coming on the clouds and receiving dominion and glory. Philo of Alexandria wrote about the Logos, the divine Word, as an intermediary between God and creation. There were debates about whether Enoch or Moses had been so exalted that they sat on thrones in heaven.

These were all ways of trying to articulate how Israel's God (YHWH) could interact with the world while remaining transcendent. High Christology, in other words, had precedent. Jews could conceive of exalted intermediaries without violating monotheism.

But notice what Thomas does. He doesn't call Jesus "a god" or "the highest angel" or "the divine Logos acting as mediator." He calls him "my Lord and my God" using the precise vocabulary reserved for YHWH alone. He's not fitting Jesus into existing categories of exaltation. He's identifying Jesus with the God of Israel himself.

That's the move that changes everything.

More Than Elohim

Here's where the vocabulary gets even more precise, and where scholars like Michael Heiser have helped us see what's actually being claimed.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the word elohim is used not just for YHWH but for members of the divine council, the spiritual beings who serve in God's heavenly court. Psalm 82 opens with "God (Elohim) takes his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods (elohim) he holds judgment." These elohim are real spiritual beings, but they are creatures, subordinate to YHWH.

So when Thomas calls Jesus "my God" (ho theos mou), he could theoretically be acknowledging Jesus as an exalted divine being, an elohim. Except for one problem: he also calls him "my Lord" (ho kyrios mou), the title reserved for YHWH alone.

Thomas isn't saying Jesus is an elohim. He's saying Jesus is the Elohim, the God of Israel, YHWH himself. The use of both titles together makes the identification unmistakable. This isn't subordination or exaltation of a creature. This is recognition that the Creator has entered creation.

Jewish scholars in the Second Temple period debated what was called "the two powers heresy," the idea that there might be two divine powers in heaven. Some texts spoke of YHWH's visible manifestation, his Angel, his Word, his Glory, as distinct from his transcendent essence. These weren't separate gods, but distinctions within the one God of Israel.

Thomas's confession suggests he's landed on something the debates were circling around. The God of Israel has indeed made himself visible. But not as an angel or a metaphor. As a man.

The Problem of Shoah

In first-century Jewish culture, there was a category of speech that terrified faithful Jews. It was called shoah, and it meant treating the Divine Name as worthless, emptying it of meaning, or misusing it carelessly.

The third commandment, "You shall not take the name of YHWH your God in vain," wasn't primarily about casual swearing. It was about treating the Name with the reverence it deserved. To speak the titles of God flippantly, as an exclamation of surprise or frustration, would have been precisely the kind of violation the commandment prohibited.

We've already seen how Paul addressed the Damascus Road voice as kyrios, meaning YHWH, and how that shaped his entire theology. Thomas is doing something remarkably similar, but in a different context. He's not encountering a blinding light. He's standing face to face with his resurrected teacher, and he's calling him by the titles of Israel's God.

If Thomas were merely gasping in astonishment, if these were just words of shock rather than theological identification, we would expect one of two responses from Jesus. Either a rebuke for taking the Name in vain, or at minimum a clarification. "No, no, Thomas. I'm not God. I'm the Messiah, God's appointed king."

We get neither.

Instead, Jesus accepts the address and validates it. "Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Jesus doesn't correct Thomas. He commends him for arriving at the truth.

Paul Wasn't Alone

This is where the pieces start to fit together. Paul's Damascus Road encounter wasn't an isolated misunderstanding that he later corrected. And Thomas's confession wasn't a one-off moment of religious enthusiasm. These are two independent witnesses to the same reality, separated by geography and circumstance but arriving at the same conclusion.

When Paul addressed the heavenly voice as kyrios and learned it was Jesus, he didn't conclude he had been mistaken about encountering YHWH. He concluded that Jesus belonged within the identity of Israel's God. When Thomas addressed the risen Jesus as "my Lord and my God," he was making the same identification.

Both men were trained in Jewish monotheism. Both would have understood the weight of what they were saying. And both were affirmed, not rebuked, for their confession.

This matters because it shows us something crucial. The early Christian claim about Jesus was not a later theological development, the result of Gentile influence or philosophical speculation. It was there from the beginning, rooted in encounters with the risen Jesus and expressed in the categories available to first-century Jews steeped in Scripture.

Redefining the Shema

To grasp what Thomas was doing, we need to understand what faithful Jews confessed daily. The Shema, from Deuteronomy 6:4, was the bedrock of Jewish identity:

"Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH is one."

This wasn't just a mathematical statement about divine singularity. It was a covenant declaration. Israel's God was utterly unique, set apart from all the so-called gods of the nations. The Shema meant that YHWH alone deserved worship, YHWH alone had created the world, and YHWH alone would rescue his people and judge the earth.

Now here's what makes Thomas's confession so remarkable. He's not abandoning the Shema. He's discovering that the "one" of the Shema is more complex than anyone had imagined. The God of Israel has made himself known in human form, and that human form is Jesus of Nazareth.

This is why Paul, writing to the Corinthians, could take the Shema itself and rewrite it christologically: "For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist" (1 Corinthians 8:6).

Paul has split the Shema into two lines and assigned both Father and Son to it. This isn't ditheism. It's the discovery that Israel's one God is both Father and Son, both the source and the agent of creation and redemption.

Thomas arrives at the same conclusion from a different angle. Standing before the risen Jesus, he confesses what Paul had already been teaching. The God of the Shema has a human face.

The Gospel's Theological Arc

John's Gospel is carefully constructed. It opens with one of the most audacious theological statements in all of Scripture: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The prologue identifies Jesus as the divine Word made flesh, the one through whom all things were created, the embodied presence of YHWH himself.

But John doesn't stop with the prologue. He spends the entire Gospel building toward a moment when someone will recognize and confess what the prologue announced. And that moment comes with Thomas.

Thomas's confession, "My Lord and my God," is the climax of the entire narrative. It's the bookend to the prologue. What John announced theologically at the beginning, Thomas confesses personally at the end. The Gospel begins with the Word being God and ends with a disciple addressing Jesus as God.

This isn't accidental. John is showing his readers that the story of Jesus is the story of YHWH becoming flesh, dwelling among us, and revealing himself through a human life, death, and resurrection.

"But Wait," Someone Might Say

Of course, one can challenge the historicity of this account. Perhaps the scene was invented by the early church to bolster their developing Christology. Perhaps Thomas's words are theological retrojection, placed on his lips by a later editor who wanted to make explicit what was only implicit in Jesus's ministry.

To be sure, these are the sorts of questions scholars ask, and they deserve serious consideration.

But here's what makes the skeptical reading difficult to sustain. If the early church were inventing stories to support a high Christology, why include Thomas's doubt in the first place? Why not simply have all the disciples immediately worship Jesus? The inclusion of Thomas's skepticism, his demand for physical evidence, his absence from the first appearance, none of this serves obvious apologetic purposes.

What it does serve is historical plausibility. Real people don't all respond the same way to extraordinary claims. Some believe immediately. Others need time and evidence. The Gospel accounts reflect this diversity of response in ways that invented propaganda typically doesn't.

Moreover, the very earliness of the high Christological claims makes the "later development" theory problematic. Paul's letters, written within 20-25 years of Jesus's crucifixion, already assume that Jesus is included within the identity of Israel's God. The worship of Jesus as divine isn't a second-century innovation. It's there from the beginning, embedded in the earliest Christian texts we possess.

The question isn't whether early Christians worshiped Jesus as divine. The historical evidence for that is overwhelming. The question is why they did so, and whether their reasons were cogent. And that leads us back to resurrection.

The Imperial Challenge

There's another layer here that first-century readers would have caught immediately. In the Roman world, the emperor was claiming divine honors. Domitian, who ruled during the period when John's Gospel was likely written, insisted on being addressed as Dominus et Deus, "Lord and God."

This wasn't just political language. It was religious language, the language of worship and ultimate allegiance. The empire demanded what belonged to YHWH alone.

When Thomas addresses Jesus as "my Lord and my God," he's not just making a theological statement about Jesus's identity. He's making a political statement about where ultimate authority lies. Caesar claims these titles. Thomas gives them to Jesus. The risen Messiah, not the Roman emperor, is the true sovereign of the world.

This wouldn't have been lost on John's original audience. Confessing Jesus as Lord and God was both theologically radical and politically dangerous. It meant giving to Jesus what the empire demanded for itself.

The First Day of the New Week

John tells us this encounter happened "on the first day of the week." That detail matters more than we might think.

In Jewish reckoning, the Sabbath was the seventh day, the day of rest after creation. But here we have something happening on the eighth day, the day after the Sabbath, the first day of a new week. And what John wants us to see is that this is nothing less than the first day of the new creation.

The resurrection isn't just a miracle that proves Jesus was special. It's the beginning of the world made new. Death, the great enemy that entered through Adam's rebellion, has been defeated. And in the person of Jesus, a new humanity has been launched.

This is why Thomas's confession matters so profoundly. He's not just acknowledging a resurrected corpse. He's encountering the firstfruits of the new creation, the prototype of what God intends for the whole cosmos. And the one who has inaugurated this new creation is none other than the Creator himself, now walking among his creatures in resurrected flesh.

Thomas sees the future. And the future has a face.

What Thomas's Confession Means

Put it all together and the logic becomes clear. Thomas isn't expressing surprise. He isn't blurting out an exclamation. He's making a formal, deliberate confession of faith, and he's doing so using the vocabulary reserved for YHWH alone.

Notice what convinces Thomas. Not just that someone is alive. But that the one who is alive bears the wounds of crucifixion. The risen Jesus isn't a ghost or a replacement body. He is the crucified one, transformed and glorified, but still bearing the marks of what he endured.

This matters immensely. The resurrection doesn't erase the cross. It validates it. The wounds are proof that the one who died for the sins of the world is the one who has conquered death. Suffering and glory are held together in the body of Jesus.

And this is what Judaism had always hoped for but hardly dared imagine. That YHWH himself would bear the wounds of his people's suffering, that the God who called Abraham would carry in his own flesh the price of covenant faithfulness.

The wounds in Jesus's hands and side are the signature of divine love written in flesh.

The one standing before Thomas, bearing the wounds of crucifixion yet alive from the dead, is not a prophet or a holy man or even an exalted angel. He is the God of Israel revealed in human flesh.

This is why Jesus accepts the confession. This is why John places it at the climax of his Gospel. And this is why the early Christians, despite their fierce commitment to Jewish monotheism, had no qualms about worshiping Jesus alongside the Father.

They weren't abandoning monotheism. They were discovering that the one God of Israel had made himself known in Jesus of Nazareth.

The Invitation Before Us

I remember a conversation with a colleague who insisted that Thomas's words were just first-century hyperbole, the ancient equivalent of "Holy cow!" I asked him what he thought Jesus should have said in response if that were the case. He paused. "I suppose Jesus would have corrected him." Exactly. And yet Jesus doesn't correct him. He commends him.

We can debate the historicity of the account. We can analyze the Greek grammar and the theological implications. But at the end of the day, Thomas's confession forces a question that can't be avoided.

Either Thomas was right, and the risen Jesus is the embodied presence of YHWH, or Thomas was wrong, and Jesus should have corrected him. There's no comfortable middle ground. No way to soften the claim into something less radical.

The question, it turns out, hasn't gone away. And the answer, for anyone willing to examine the evidence honestly, points in one direction.

Thomas stood in that room, face to face with a mystery that shattered every category he thought he understood. The teacher he had followed was dead. And yet here he stood, alive, bearing the wounds of death but radiating the life of the age to come. What do you say in such a moment?

Thomas said the only thing that made sense. He worshiped.

And perhaps that's what the story invites us to do as well. Not to resolve every intellectual puzzle or answer every skeptical objection, but to encounter the risen Jesus and respond to what we find. The voice still speaks. The wounds still testify. And the confession Thomas made in that upper room remains the confession the story invites us to make.

Who do you say that I am?

The question echoes across the centuries. And the risen Christ, wounded and glorious, still waits for an answer.