In my previous post (John’s Gospel & the Worship of Jesus, Pt. 1), I demonstrated that John’s Gospel affirms that Jesus is to be worshiped as God in the flesh. In this second part, I will prove that John depicts Jesus as the human incarnation of the uniquely begotten Son of God, who is worthy of the same worship that the Father receives.

Honoring the Son

The Lord Himself plainly stated that it is the Father’s express will for everyone to give the Son the exact same honor that is to be given to the Father:

“For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”
(John 5:22–23)

Earlier, our Lord had proclaimed that the honor the Father is to receive is worship performed in the Spirit and in truth—according to the manner revealed by the Spirit in the Word:

“But a time is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
(John 4:23–24)

Since the Son is to receive this same honor, the Son must also be worshiped in spirit and truth.

Note the logic:

• A. The Son is to be given the same honor that the Father receives.
• B. True worship of the Father is performed in spirit and truth (i.e., by the regenerating and energizing work of the Holy Spirit in accordance with the Spirit’s revelation in the Word).
• C. Therefore, since the Son is to receive the exact same honor, believers must worship him in spirit and truth as well.

This demonstrates that Father and Son are essentially coequal—a fact further confirmed by their mutual glorification of one another (John 8:49–59; 13:31–32; 17:1–2, 5).

The Hearer of Prayers

Another way John portrays Jesus as receiving the worship due to God alone is by presenting him as the object of prayer:

“And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
(John 14:13–14)

Jesus explains that his disciples will do greater works than he did because, once he has gone to the Father, they will pray directly to him, invoke his name, and he himself will personally perform the miracles from heaven.

This is precisely what the Hebrew Scriptures say YHWH alone does:

“O you who hear prayer, to you all flesh shall come.”
(Psalm 65:2)

Remarkably, Jesus not only answers prayer and grants forgiveness of sins like YHWH, but he also bestows eternal life on all who believe in his name (John 3:16–18; 4:42; 6:35–44, 50–58; 12:47).

The Divine Son of Man

Closely related to Jesus’ worthiness of worship is his self-identification as the “Son of Man”—a direct allusion to the divine figure in Daniel 7:13–14 who comes on the clouds of heaven, receives everlasting dominion, and is served with the worship (Aramaic pelach; Greek Septuagint latreuō) that belongs to God alone (John 3:10–15; 6:62; 12:23, 32–34; cf. Dan 7:13–14, 27).

The Greek version of Daniel explicitly uses latreuō—the very same verb Jesus says must be rendered only to God (Luke 4:8, citing Deut 6:13). Early Christian writers such as Justin Martyr correctly understood Daniel’s “one like a son of man” as the object of the same divine worship (latreuousa) given to God (Dialogue with Trypho 31).

Since Jesus as the Son of Man receives pelach/latreuō, this reinforces that in John’s Gospel he is worshiped as God Almighty.

The God Whom Isaiah Saw

John goes further and identifies Jesus as the very glorious divine Being whom Isaiah saw enthroned in the temple (John 12:35–46, quoting Isa 6:10). The Evangelist explicitly states that Isaiah “saw his [Jesus’] glory and spoke of him” (John 12:41)—meaning the pre-incarnate Jesus is the “Lord” high and lifted up whom Isaiah beheld (Isa 6:1–10).

Seeing YHWH’s Glory

John also has John the Baptist present himself as the forerunner who prepares the way for YHWH’s personal coming (John 1:19–28, quoting Isa 40:3–5). Yet the Baptist explicitly identifies the coming YHWH as Jesus Christ (John 1:14–15, 29–36). In other words, Jesus is YHWH God who has become flesh.

The Lord God of Believers

The climax of the Gospel is therefore Thomas’s confession upon seeing the risen Jesus eight days after the resurrection:

Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou)
(John 20:28)

The Greek is unambiguous: Thomas addresses Jesus directly. This confession echoes Psalm 35:23 (“my God and my Lord”) and is paralleled in early Christian liturgical formulae that apply the same divine titles to Jesus (Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1, 11).

No monotheistic Jew could utter such words of a mere creature. By accepting and blessing Thomas’s confession, Jesus confirms that he is indeed the uniquely begotten Son who is one with the Father in essence, glory, majesty, and honor. Thomas’s declaration is the ultimate expression of honoring the Son just as the Father is honored (John 5:23).

Conclusion

John’s Gospel repeatedly and deliberately presents Jesus as the proper recipient of the worship, honor, prayer, and divine titles that belong to YHWH alone. To refuse such worship to the Son is, according to Jesus himself, to refuse worship to the Father who sent him.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB).

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ADDENDUM – The Expositors

John 5:23

In these verses Jesus’ equality with God is revealed with the result (v. 23, hina) that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Here their complete equality is expressed in terms of people’s proper attitude toward Jesus: the very same honor given to the Father is to be given to the Son. Again the Jewish idea of agent is used and transcended (see note on 5:21). An agent was to be received as the one who sent him would be received. But here God is the one sending, and no one sent by God in the Old Testament ever claimed equal honor with God! Unless Jesus is wholly and completely God this verse promotes blasphemy. Indeed, the last part of the verse makes the point even more strongly: failure to honor the Son is failure to honor the Father. Honoring God, which was at the heart of the Jewish religion, is said to be dependent on honoring Jesus as the Son of God.

This keynote section states clearly the scandal of particularity that some Christians find discomforting today. The complex language of these verses shows the struggle to guard the truth of monotheism while claiming that Jesus is God. The concerns of monotheists such as Jews and Muslims are legitimate, and this Gospel reveals that God is indeed One, though not in the way these other religions understand. This Gospel encourages monotheists to understand their truth in light of what has now been revealed by the Son of God about himself and the Holy Spirit. This Gospel, however, offers no encouragement to Christians who wish to say that Jesus is not the unique Son of God with exclusive and ultimate authority over every person on earth. All judgment has been given to him, and all are to honor the Son just as they honor the Father. John allows for no syncretism, for that would deny the uniqueness and exclusivity of Jesus. (Rodney A. Whitacre, John, vol. 4, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series [Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 1999], pp. 129–130)

5:23. The reason why the Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son is now disclosed: it is so that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. Whatever functional subordination may be stressed in this section, it guarantees, as we have seen, that the Son does everything that the Father does (cf. notes on vv. 19–20); and now Jesus declares that its purpose is that the Son may be at one with the Father not only in activity but in honour. This goes far beyond making Jesus a mere ambassador who acts in the name of the monarch who sent him, an envoy plenipotentiary whose derived authority is the equivalent of his master’s. That analogue breaks down precisely here, for the honour given to an envoy is never that given to the head of state. The Jews were right in detecting that Jesus was ‘making himself equal with God’ (vv. 17–18). But this does not diminish God. Indeed, the glorification of the Son is precisely what glorifies the Father (cf. notes on 12:28), just as in Philippians 2:9–11, where at the name of Jesus every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, and all this is to the glory of God the Father. Because of the unique relation between the Father and the Son, the God who declares ‘I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another’ (Is. 42:8; cf. Is. 48:11) is not compromised or diminished when divine honours crown the head of the Son.

Granted that the purpose of the Father is that all should honour the Son, it is but a small step to Jesus’ conclusion: He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him. In a theistic universe, such a statement belongs to one who is himself to be addressed as God (cf. 20:28), or to stark insanity. The one who utters such things is to be dismissed with pity or scorn, or worshipped as Lord. If with much current scholarship we retreat to seeing in such material less the claims of the Son than the beliefs and witness of the Evangelist and his church, the same options confront us. Either John is supremely deluded and must be dismissed as a fool, or his witness is true and Jesus is to be ascribed the honours due God alone. There is no rational middle ground.

Such a statement also betrays a strong salvation-historical perspective (as the church Fathers of the first three centuries understood). Jesus is not saying that Abraham, Moses and David were not truly honouring the Father because they failed to honour the Son who had not yet been sent. Rather, he is focusing on the latest development in the history of redemption: the incarnation of the Word, the sending of the Son. Just as there were many who did not listen to the prophets of old, leaving but a remnant who faithfully obeyed Yahweh’s gracious disclosures, so now with the coming of the Son there will be some who think they honour God while disowning God’s Word, his gracious Self-Expression, his own Son. But they are deluded. Now that the Son has come, the person who withholds the honour due the Son similarly dishonours the Father (cf. 14:6; Acts 4:12). The statement not only makes an unyielding Christological claim, but prepares the way for the obduracy motif that dominates ch. 12. (D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary [Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991], pp. 254–255)

John 14:13–14

14:13–14. The reason why the ‘greater things’ are done consequent upon Jesus’ going to the Father (v. 12) is now clarified further: the disciples’ fruitful conduct is the product of their prayers, prayers offered in Jesus’ name. Whether this prayer is directed to the Father or to Jesus (cf. ‘You may ask me’, v. 14–but cf. Additional Note, below), it is offered in Jesus’ name, and he is the one who grants the request (I will do it, v. 14). This demonstrates that the contrast in v. 12 is not finally between Jesus’ works and his disciples’ works but between the works of Jesus that he himself performed during the days of his flesh, and the works that he performs through his disciples after his death and exaltation. Glorified with the glory he had with the Father before the world began (17:5), the Son is no longer limited by the pre-death humanness that characterized his ministry. At that point redemption is won, the kingdom of God is triumphantly invading the nations with saving and transforming power, the locus of the covenant community stretches outward from its Jewish confines to embrace the world, and the disciples themselves are empowered and equipped to engage in far-reaching ministry. The latter turns on the gift of the Holy Spirit, which gift is about to be introduced into the discussion (vv. 15ff.).

In the post-Easter situation, the Son’s mediatorial role extends even to the prayers of his followers. Prayers in his name are prayers that are offered in thorough accord with all that his name stands for (i.e. his name is not used as a magical incantation: cf. 1 Jn. 5:14), and in recognition that the only approach to God those who pray enjoy, their only way to God (cf. vv. 4–6), is Jesus himself (cf. H. Bietenhard, TDNT 5. 258–261, 276). Such prayer is never abstracted from the Father; for the Son’s purpose, even as he answers the prayers of his followers, is to bring glory to the Father (v. 13). During his ministry on earth, the Son’s consistent aim, and his achievement, was to bring glory to his Father (5:41; 7:18; 8:50, 54). That was, no less, the Son’s purpose in completing his mission by going to the cross (12:28)—which was simultaneously the means by which the Son would be supremely glorified (12:23). Now in the splendour of his exaltation, the Son’s purpose does not change: he enables his own to do ‘greater things’ in order that he may bring glory to the Father.

Additional note

14:14. This verse is omitted by a minority of witnesses, some of them important, including a substantial number of ancient versions. Nevertheless the verse is almost certainly original. Reasons why it was omitted may have included the following: (1) A copyist’s eye may have inadvertently dropped from the first word of v. 14 (ean) to the first word of v. 15 (ean), an accidental error called ‘haplography’. (2) Alternatively, a copyist might have thought, wrongly, that the verse contradicts 16:23, and decided to drop it. (3) Someone may have omitted it on the ground that it was too repetitive of truth already expressed in v. 13a. Amongst the witnesses that support the verse are a minority that drop the me in the first clause, thereby giving the impression that the prayer is addressed to the Father in Jesus’ name, rather than to Jesus in Jesus’ name. Textual evidence favours the inclusion of the pronoun. The seeming awkwardness of ‘ask me in my name’ is paralleled elsewhere (Pss. 25:11; 31:3; 79:9). In any case, it is very doubtful that the Evangelist would be interested in drawing overly fine distinctions in the proper object of prayer, since he can happily refer to the gift of the Spirit as the result of the Son’s request to the Father (vv. 16, 26), or as the Son’s own emissary (15:26; 16:7). Cf. notes on 15:6–7, 16. (Carson, The Gospel according to John, pp. 496–498)

The works founded upon the “going” of Jesus to the Father (14:12) can, therefore, only involve the post-Easter mission of the church. To gain some insight in this matter we turn briefly to Luke. In writing the introduction to his exciting Book of Acts, in which he details the powerful works involving the early Christians, Luke also reminds us of a similar crucial perspective. In the introduction to Acts he asserted that the “former book,” namely, the Gospel of Luke, detailed “all that Jesus began to do and teach” until his exaltation to heaven (Acts 1:1–2). The implication of the statement in Acts is not that Jesus ceased to work at that point but that Luke’s second volume implied that Jesus continued to work through the early Christians. Accordingly, when Peter heals Aeneus, Peter says, “Jesus Christ heals you” (Acts 9:34). Moreover, when the pre-Christian Saul/Paul is on the way to persecute the Christians in Damascus and he is struck blind, he hears the voice saying, “Why do you persecute me?” When he asks who the voice is, the reply comes, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Saul was in fact persecuting Christians, but the voice identified the persecuted one as Jesus (Acts 9:1–5). The conclusion can only be that for Luke, Jesus was still active in mission; but although he was with God, he was now working in and through the church.

Although John does not express himself in the same way as Luke, there is a commonality of viewpoints. John’s postresurrection perspective is enunciated in the words of Jesus to the disciples, “I will do whatever you ask in my name” (14:13). These words, as Brown argued, suggest a prayer context because asking either God or the departed Jesus can hardly be accomplished in a face-to-face conversation. But the coordinating idea here with Luke is that Jesus continues to act, which is expressed in the future verb “I will do” (poiēsō).

But even more significant is the implication of v. 14. The construction here is a conditional sentence, which is not fully evident in the NIV but is much clearer in the KJV, RSV, NRSV, and others. The setting is once again to be seen as referring to a pattern of prayer, and Jesus promises to act in response to prayer (“ask”). What is most intriguing is that the most likely reading of the Greek text here would have the prayer addressed not to the Father but to Jesus.

In dealing with this anomaly of praying to Jesus, some manuscripts simply omit the entire verse whether purposefully or accidently. It if were accidental, it would be a variant of sight whereby the scribe’s eye moved accidentally from ean (“if”) of v. 14 to ean of v. 15. If it were purposeful, the copyist may have considered the verse to be either inconsistent with the focus of asking in v. 14 or theologically inconsistent with a church tradition concerning the one to whom prayer should be addressed. The other variant in 14:14 is merely the deleting of the Greek me. (“me”), which would deal with the theological idea of praying to Jesus and assume the praying is to God. Both these variants, however, are suspect. The most likely reading of the text here that can explain the presence of the other readings and has the weight of the strongest manuscript history would be “if you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.” Although such a translation seems to be both a little clumsy and at variance with the way systematic theologians might wish to discuss prayer from a theocentric perspective, the style is a typical Semitic redundancy that here has been applied to asking me in my name. Such a writing style of asking God for the sake of his name is found elsewhere in the Bible (cf. Pss 25:11; 31:3), and it agrees with the Johannine idea that the Holy Spirit will be sent in the name of Jesus (cf. 14:26).

This meaning of the expression here of asking me in my name, as H. Bietenhard has suggested, probably means praying both “according to his will” and “with the invocation of his name.”

Excursus 16: John’s Gospel on the Trinity

The fact that John can here speak of praying both to Jesus (14:14) and to the Father in Jesus’ name (cf. 15:16 and 16:23) would not likely trouble this Gospel writer because he would clearly see an intertwining of the two ideas in his thinking about God (cf. 1:1 and 20:28). The problem for Western Christians is that we usually define things by mean of distinction whereas the Semitic mind defines things by description or in picture-thinking. The overlap of Jesus and God in the statements of John may trouble us, but John was apparently not troubled. Therefore the Semite had no trouble in his Trinitarian formulation of speaking of God as the one who is, was, and is to come, the Spirit as the seven spirits, and Jesus as the firstborn from the dead (Rev 1:4–5)—and in that order. But we have come to speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and in that order.

There is a freedom in Johannine picture-thinking that irritates our mind-set and has led to a number of church arguments. For example, in the next section on the Holy Spirit the text of 14:16 reads, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor [Paraclete].” This text has been used by the Western church to argue that the Holy Spirit must be the third “persona” of the Trinity and that the Holy Spirit must have proceeded from the Father and the Son. Accordingly, the Western creed reads “and the son” (filioque). But the Eastern church has consistently argued that the filioque clause is totally unnecessary. The arguments over this expression have been intense with bishops deciding to excommunicate each other from their fellowships.

Although theological formulations are intensely important, one still has to wonder whether the argument was really worth it, especially since it could be argued that the pre-Chalcedonian formulation of the Trinity in Rev 1:4–5 might not fully support such precision, to say nothing of the fact that the order of the Trinitarian formulation in 1 Pet 1:2 is exactly the same as that in the opening words of Revelation.

Matthew’s order of the Godhead is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (28:19), but the fact that there are different patterns in the New Testament should warn us against an absolutist approach to the subject. The reality of the Godhead is clear. Yet there is no question that the early Christians were struggling to describe the relationship between the members or persona of what we today call the Trinity. So we must be exceedingly careful in our theological formulations not to treat some inspired biblical statements as illegitimate because they do not fit our Western style of formulations. We must always remember that God is bigger than our formulations, and we will never pour the ocean of God’s truth into the teacups of our minds or completely encapsulate truth in our neat little formulations about God. On the other hand, it should not stop us from trying to describe this divine reality as long as we maintain our humility concerning our attempts at comprehending the incomprehensible (cf. Paul at Rom 11:33–36).

14:14 (Cont.) Having thus introduced the intense feeling of loss by the disciples, John has in this final subsection sought to give his readers a sense of hope in the promise of the coming power that will be experienced through the believer’s relationship to Jesus. But the invitation to pray for “anything” (14:14) in this context is not, in fact, to be understood as “anything” in the absolute sense because the guiding principle of the believer’s prayer must be the same principle that Jesus followed throughout his life. That principle was the glorification of the Father in and through everything done by the Son (14:13). To read this promise of Jesus concerning asking in any other way would be a complete misunderstanding of the promise.

Jesus lived in the will of the Father, and the Christian is duty bound to live in the will of Jesus. Appropriate praying/asking here, therefore, must follow the same model Jesus exemplified. Mere reciting of the name of Jesus must not be understood as a mantra of magical power that provides the petitioner with his heart’s desire. A “name” in the Semitic context carries a special sense of the nature of the name bearer. Accordingly, from Adam and Eve through Abram/Abraham to Jacob/Israel and Joshua/Jesus, names are purposive designations of important realities. So to pray in the name of Jesus implies that in the praying one recognizes the nature of the name the praying person is using.¹³⁷

In discussing the subject of prayer in this manner as a crucial aspect of the believer’s reliance on divine power, the stage is thus set for the introduction of the next major section of the Farewell Cycle—namely, Part I of the texts related to the Paraclete, or the Holy Spirit. (Gerald L. Borchert, John 12–21, vol. 25B, The New American Commentary [Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002], pp. 116–119)

John 20:28

Jesus Appears to Thomas (20:24–29) John now tells us that Thomas had not been present on that first day of the resurrection (v. 24). The disciples tell him they have seen the Lord, but he does not believe them. Perhaps they have only seen a ghost (cf. Mt 14:26 par. Mk 6:49). In fact, Luke tells of a meeting between Jesus and the disciples at which the disciples think they are seeing a ghost (Lk 24:37). So to convince them he is not a ghost, Jesus invites them to touch him and he eats a piece of broiled fish (Lk 24:39–43). Perhaps Thomas is simply saying he needs to see the same evidence that they have seen (Westcott 1908:2:353).

John’s description of Thomas touching the wounds is quite dramatic (v. 25). Thomas wants to shove his hand into Jesus’ side! On the assumption that the disciples have told Thomas about Jesus’ wounds, some have taken Thomas’s statement as evidence that Jesus’ wound was large enough for one to put one’s hand in and that it was not closed over. But more likely Thomas is simply being dramatic, as he was earlier in the Gospel (11:16). Similarly, the language he uses when he says he will not believe is very emphatic (ou mē pisteusō).

A week later, the next Sunday after the resurrection, the disciples (including Thomas) were again in a locked room (v. 26). Jesus’ appearances on Sundays, along with the timing of the resurrection itself, contributed to the church’s making that the primary day of worship (cf. Beasley-Murray 1987:385). The expression John uses is literally “after eight days,” since Jews counted the beginning and the ending of a period of time. This term itself was taking on special meaning at the time John is writing. In Barnabas (from about A.D. 96–100) the eighth day represents “the beginning of another world” (15:8). The author links it with Jesus’ resurrection: “That is why we spend the eighth day in celebration, the day on which Jesus both arose from the dead and, after appearing again, ascended into heaven” (Barnabas 15:9).

Faith throughout the Gospel is depicted as progressive, renewed in the face of each new revelation of Jesus. The other disciples have moved on to the next stage, but Thomas has not been able to. To not move on when Jesus calls us to do so is to shift into reverse and move away. Both believing and unbelieving are dynamic—we are growing in one direction or the other. Thus, when Jesus appears in their midst he challenges Thomas to move on ahead in the life of faith, to stop doubting and believe (v. 27). The actual expression used may capture the dynamic quality, since ginomai often has the sense of “becoming” and the present tense “marks the process as continually going on” (Westcott 1908:2:355). Translated woodenly this reads, “Stop becoming unbelieving and get on with becoming believing” (mē ginou apistos alla pistos). To get Thomas moving in the right direction again Jesus offers him the chance to feel his wounds. His offer echoes Thomas’s own graphic language from verse 25, suggesting that Jesus was actually present when Thomas was making his protest or that he could at least perceive what was going on, an ability Jesus had even before he was raised from the dead (cf. 1:48).

John does not say whether Thomas actually did touch Jesus’ wounds. The impression is that he did not, for John says, “Thomas answered and said to him …” That is, Thomas’s confession is an immediate response to seeing Jesus and hearing his offer. Furthermore, in Jesus’ response to Thomas he mentions seeing but not touching (v. 29).

Thomas’s confession of Jesus as my Lord and my God is yet another climax in this Gospel. Jesus has invited him to catch up with the others in their new stage of faith, and he shoots past them and heads to the top of the class. His confession is climactic not only as part of the Gospel’s story line, but also as an expression of the core of John’s witness to Jesus in this Gospel. Thomas confesses Jesus as God when he sees that the crucified one is alive. It is in the crucifixion that God himself is made known, for he is love, and love is the laying down of one’s life (1 Jn 4:8; 3:16). But God is also life. In John, this God is revealed perfectly in the death of the Son, but this death would be nothing without the life. When Thomas finds death and life juxtaposed in Jesus he realizes who the one standing before him really is.

Thomas has accepted the revelation, but he gets no commendation from Jesus. Rather, Jesus looks ahead to those who will believe through the witness of these disciples who have seen (cf. 15:27; 17:20): blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (v. 29). This beatitude, like others Jesus had spoken, is a shocking reversal of common expectations (cf. Mt 5:3–12; Lk 6:20–26). It suggests that if seeing is believing, as it was for Thomas, believing is also seeing. What matters is the relationship established by faith. But this faith is not a vague or general feeling, nor is it merely an intellectual assent to a position. It is openness and acceptance and trust directed toward God in Jesus. In John, as in the rest of the New Testament, the concern is not simply with various conceptions of God or various ideas, but with events in history that demand an interpretation and a response. If John is the “spiritual Gospel,” as Clement of Alexandria said (Eusebius Church History 4.14.7), it is so not in the sense of being nonmaterial or ahistorical, for in John there is no sharp dichotomy between spirit and matter, though the two are not confused with one another. Rather, this Gospel is spiritual in the sense that it interprets historical events in the light of divine reality. As E. C. Hoskyns and Noel Davey have said, “The Fourth Gospel persuades and entices the reader to venture a judgment upon history” (Hoskyns and Davey 1947:263). Thomas’s confession was such a judgment, and now Jesus challenges all who come after to venture a judgment upon this history, that is, upon his person, his presence through the Spirit in this particular community and through the life he offers. Peter later describes such believers: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Pet 1:8–9). (Whitacre, John, vol. 4, pp. 484–486)

20:28. The historicity of both the confession itself and the incident as a whole has come under grave suspicion. The issues are too complex to be addressed in detail here, but a few observations should be made. Are we to think that the church made up a story that pictures one of the Twelve as incredulous to the point of unreasonable obstinacy (v. 25), and that reports the Lord’s public reproof of that apostle (vv. 27, 29)? Even if the narrative has an apologetic purpose, that is scant reason for assessing it as unhistorical: it is surely as justifiable to conclude that the account was chosen precisely because it was so suitable. At least one part of the story (v. 25) finds a parallel elsewhere (Lk. 24:39); and the portrait of Thomas is in thorough agreement with what we learn of him from 11:16 and 14:5. The speed with which Thomas’ pessimistic unbelief was transformed into joyful faith is surely consistent with the experience of the other witnesses (e.g. vv. 16, 20).

If it be objected that this Christological confession is too ‘high’ or ‘developed’ at this early date, several points must be observed: (1) The view which insists on this point does so on the basis of a slow evolutionary development of the rise of Christological titles, and this reconstruction, so far as the sources go, is not unassailable (cf. Introduction, § III). (2) Thomas, like most Jews, was doubtless familiar with Old Testament accounts of believers who conversed with what appeared to be men, only to learn, with terror, that they were heavenly visitors, possibly Yahweh himself. Moreover it is arguable that as Judaism developed after the Exile, the reaction against idolatry and the punishments it attracted generated a view of God that made him more and more transcendent, but correspondingly less personal; and into the vacuum left by this shift rushed a mounting number of intermediaries, angels and other ill-defined beings (Carson, esp. pp. 41–121). Within two hundred years of this Thomas episode, and probably much earlier, one of these could actually be referred to as ‘little Yahweh’. This is not to suggest that Johannine Christology is indistinguishable from the angelology of Judaism. Christianity, by definition, is messianic. But it does suggest that Thomas was not devoid of categories to begin to make sense of the resurrection of Jesus. (3) The use of kyrios (‘lord’) for both common courtesy (e.g. v. 15) and in addressing God himself facilitated the development of Christological understanding. (4) In any case, kyrios is an early post-resurrection title (e.g. Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:9–11), and because it is used of God himself in the lxx, in many of its occurrences it cannot be considered less elevated than theos (‘God’). (5) It is hard to see why my Lord, an exceedingly rare pairing of words, should be ruled out of court, when the Aramaic marana (‘our Lord’) was early used as an invocation even in Greek-speaking churches (1 Cor. 16:22; cf. notes on Jn. 16:20).

Finally, if the Evangelist is none other than the apostle John, or even if the Evangelist is someone else who derives his information from the apostle John, then we are dealing with eyewitness testimony. Thomas’ utterance cannot possibly be taken as shocked profanity addressed to God (if to anyone), a kind of blasphemous version of a stunned ‘My word!’ Despite its popularity with some modern Arians, such profanity would not have been found in first-century Palestine on the lips of a devout Jew. In any case, Thomas’ confession is addressed to him, i.e. to Jesus; and Jesus immediately (if implicitly) praises him for his faith, even if it is not as notable as the faith of those who believe without demanding the kind of evidence accorded Thomas. Nor are Thomas’ words most easily read as a predicative statement addressed to Jesus: ‘My Lord is also my God.’ The overwhelming majority of grammarians rightly take the utterance as vocative address to Jesus: My Lord and my God!—the nouns being put not in the vocative case but in the nominative (as sometimes happens in vocatival address) to add a certain sonorous weight.

The repeated pronoun my does not diminish the universality of Jesus’ lordship and deity, but it ensures that Thomas’ words are a personal confession of faith. Thomas thereby not only displays his faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but points to its deepest meaning; it is nothing less than the revelation of who Jesus Christ is. The most unyielding sceptic has bequeathed to us the most profound confession.

The thoughtful reader of this Gospel immediately recognizes certain connections: (1) Thomas’ confession is the climactic exemplification of what it means to honour the Son as the Father is honoured (5:23). It is the crowning display of how human faith has come to recognize the truth set out in the Prologue: ‘The Word was God …; the Word became flesh’ (1:1, 14). (2) At the same time, Jesus’ deity does not exhaust deity; Jesus can still talk about his God and Father in the third person. After all, this confession is set within a chapter where the resurrected Jesus himself refers to ‘my Father … my God’ (v. 17). This is entirely in accord with the careful way he delineates the nature of his unique sonship (5:16–30). (3) The reader is expected to articulate the same confession, as the next verse implies. John’s readers, like Thomas, need to come to faith; and this is what coming to faith looks like. Clearly this has critical bearing on how vv. 30–31 are interpreted.

20:29. The editors of the Greek text (NA²⁶) take the first part of Jesus’ response to Thomas as rebuke cast as a question: ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed?’ So also Lindars (p. 646), who compares 1:50 and 16:31. But the point of the latter passages is that the people involved do not really believe, whereas here Thomas has truly come to faith. It is better to understand the first part of Jesus’ response as a statement (and to that extent a confirmation of Thomas’s faith)—one that prepares the way for the beatitude that follows: blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

The Fourth Gospel reports only one other beatitude (13:17), and, like most beatitudes (e.g. Mt. 5:3–12), both strike a note of admonition. The word makarios (‘blessed’) does not simply declare ‘happy’ those who meet the conditions, but pronounces them accepted by God. Thomas, like all the witnesses of the resurrection, ‘saw and believed’, to use the language applied to the beloved disciple (v. 8)—though all the latter saw, at least until the Sunday evening (vv. 19–20), were the grave-clothes, not the resurrected Lord. But Jesus here foresees a time when he will not provide the kind of tangible evidence afforded the beloved disciple and Thomas; in short, he will ascend to his Father permanently, and all those who believe will do so without the benefit of having seen their resurrected Lord. That is as true today as it was for those who first believed after the ascension. This does not (or should not) mean that our faith is diminished or our joy truncated: ‘Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls’ (1 Pet. 1:8–9).

The major commentaries cite the saying of Rabbi Simeon ben Laqish (c. ad 250), who reportedly said (Tanḥuma § 6 [32 a]: cf. SB 2. 586):

The proselyte is dearer to God than all the Israelites who stood by Mount Sinai. For if all the Israelites had not seen the thunder and the flames and the lightnings and the quaking mountain and the sound of the trumpet they would not have accepted the law and taken upon themselves the kingdom of God. Yet this man has seen none of all these things yet comes and gives himself to God and takes on himself the yoke of the kingdom of God. Is there any who is dearer than this man? (tr. Barrett, p. 574)

Yet for Rabbi Simeon the contrast is stark, while Jesus’ words in v. 29 are cautious and balanced. Thomas’ faith is not depreciated: rather, it is as if the step of faith Thomas has taken, displayed in his unrestrained confession, triggers in Jesus’ mind the next step, the coming-to-faith of those who cannot see but who will believe—and so he pronounces a blessing on them. Within the context of the Fourth Gospel as a whole, however, ‘but for the fact that Thomas and the other apostles saw the incarnate Christ there would have been no Christian faith at all. Cf. 1:18, 50f.; 2:11; 4:45; 6:2; 9:37; 14:7, 9; 19:35’ (Barrett, p. 573). The witness theme in the book has not been lost to view; later believers come to faith through the word of the earlier believers (17:20). Blessed, then, are those who cannot share Thomas’ experience of sight, but who, in part because they read of Thomas’ experience, come to share Thomas’ faith. For us, faith comes not by sight, but from what is heard (or read!), and what is heard comes by the word (i.e. the declaration) of Christ (Rom. 10:17). Indeed, that is why John himself has written, as he proceeds to make explicit. (Carson, The Gospel according to John, pp. 657–660)

Further Reading

• Honoring Jesus as God