Thomas... My Lord and my God

Runningman said:
Wow. God made Jesus both Lord and Christ. I don't know how this is unclear to them.

Acts 2
36Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
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My theory and also why nobody can answer me is their whole religious concept is about Jesus being God. That's all they know and so if you take that away from them they have nothing.
 
Fred said:
Because the truth of Deuteronomy 6:4 (as well 6:13) is taught even after the resurrection of Christ.
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“Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone,” where echad is translated “alone,” is one of the strongest texts against the Trinity. The Bible affirms that God is “one,” not “three-in-one” or some other plurality. This has been the rallying cry of Jews down through the ages who have stood aggressively against any form of polytheism or pantheism.
 
Peterlag said:
“Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone,” where echad is translated “alone,” is one of the strongest texts against the Trinity. The Bible affirms that God is “one,” not “three-in-one” or some other plurality. This has been the rallying cry of Jews down through the ages who have stood aggressively against any form of polytheism or pantheism.
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Thus the teaching of Deut. 6:4 still applies to us today - the same with Deut. 6:13.
 
Peterlag said:
My theory and also why nobody can answer me is their whole religious concept is about Jesus being God. That's all they know and so if you take that away from them they have nothing.
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It's religious fundamentalism or dogmatism. A psychological phenomenon when religious beliefs override reality because beliefs are considered infallible or unquestionable, even in the face of conflicting evidence from reality. 🤷‍♂️

This is how they "see" the "Trinity" in the Bible when it isn't actually talked about, described, or explained.
 
Peterlag said:
Everything I could find on Thomas...

“My Lord and my God.” A very likely way to understand John 20:28 is that Thomas had realized the power of God working in Jesus, and in saying “my Lord and my God” he was pointing out that Jesus did, in fact, reveal God in a unique and powerful way. In seeing the resurrected Jesus, Thomas clearly saw both the Lord Jesus, and the God who raised Jesus from the dead, and he stated that fact. Jesus always taught that he only did what God guided him to do, and said that if you had seen him you had seen the Father. In that light, there is good evidence that here in John 20:28, “doubting Thomas” was saying that in seeing Jesus he was also seeing the Father.

We have to remember that Thomas’ statement occurred in a moment of surprise and even perhaps shock. Only eight days earlier, Thomas had vehemently denied Jesus’ resurrection even though all the other apostles and disciples, including the women, emphatically stated that they had seen Jesus alive. Thomas could no longer deny that Jesus was alive and that God had raised him from the dead. The Father had worked in Jesus and raised him from the dead. Thomas, looking at the living Jesus, saw both Jesus and the God who raised him from the dead.

When Thomas saw the resurrected Christ, he became immediately convinced that Jesus was raised from the dead. But did he suddenly have a revelation that Jesus was God? That would be totally outside of Thomas’ knowledge and belief. Jesus had never claimed to be God (despite Trinitarian claims that he had) and in fact quite the opposite. From the cross he called out to the Father, “My God, My God” (Matt. 27:46); then after his resurrection he still called God, “my God” (John 20:17).

In the other places in the Bible where the apostles speak about the resurrection of Jesus, they do not declare, “This proves Jesus is God!” Rather, they declare that “God” raised the Lord Jesus from the dead” (Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15; 4:10, 5:30, 10:39-40, 13:30, 33, 37; Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 6:14; 15:15; Gal. 1:1; Col. 2:12; 1 Pet. 1:21). From all those examples we can safely conclude that the apostles, including Thomas, saw God at work in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The apostles understood Jesus’ resurrection to be an act of God, and a demonstration of His power (Eph. 1:19-20).

There are many Trinitarian authorities who admit that there was no knowledge of Trinitarian doctrine at the time Thomas spoke. For example, if the disciples believed that Jesus was “God” in the sense that many Christians do, they would not have “all fled” just a few days before when he was arrested. The confession of the two disciples walking along the road to Emmaus demonstrated the thoughts of Jesus’ followers at the time. Speaking to the resurrected Christ, whom they mistook as just a traveler, they talked about Jesus. They said Jesus “was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God… and [they] crucified him. But we were hoping that he was the one who was about to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:19-21). The disciples thought Jesus was the Messiah, a “prophet,” and the Son of God, but not God Himself.

Are we to believe that somehow Jesus taught the Trinity, something that went against everything the disciples were taught and believed, but there is no mention of Jesus ever teaching it anywhere, and yet the disciples somehow “got” that teaching? That seems too incredible to believe. There is no evidence from the gospel accounts that Jesus’ disciples believed him to be God, and Thomas, upon seeing the resurrected Christ, was not birthing a new theology in a moment of surprise.
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Thomas mentioned what he said,
- my Lord and my God

The apostles worked miracles.

People then saw God working through them just as Thomas saw God working in Jesus.

But no one ever said to one of the apostles, my Master, my God.

Jesus was Thomas' master, his king.

Did anyone ever say that of the apostles?

Paul, my God

Peter, my God

Your OP is an attempt to explain away what Thomas spoke plainly.

He believed that Jesus was God otherwise he would not have called Him God.
 
Titus said:
Thomas mentioned what he said,
- my Lord and my God

The apostles worked miracles.

People then saw God working through them just as Thomas saw God working in Jesus.

But no one ever said to one of the apostles, my Master, my God.

Jesus was Thomas' master, his king.

Did anyone ever say that of the apostles?

Paul, my God

Peter, my God

Your OP is an attempt to explain away what Thomas spoke plainly.

He believed that Jesus was God otherwise he would not have called Him God.
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The Thomas statement that I believe was not calling Jesus God, but rather a moment of surprise recognizing Jesus standing in front of him and God that did that miracle. The bigger picture here is that the cry of Thomas is not a teaching on the trinity. There's no teaching on the trinity anywhere in the Bible. No whole paragraph or chapter teaching that we should believe or confess that Jesus is God.
 

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