Five-minute study · Day 348 · John 20
John 20:28
A word worth stopping on: Lord κύριος kyrios
'And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.' The Greek words are ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou. My Lord and my God. This is the highest declaration of who Jesus is in the entire Gospel of John, and it comes from the man who doubted the longest. Thomas had refused to believe the resurrection until he could put his fingers in the nail holes. Jesus appears, offers his hands, shows his side. Thomas does not touch. He speaks. Two titles: kyrios, the word the Greek Old Testament uses to translate the divine name YHWH, and theos, God. Thomas is not saying Jesus is godlike. He is saying Jesus is God. The Gospel of John opened with 'the Word was God' (1:1). It reaches its climax here, in the mouth of a skeptic, standing in front of the wounds.
Word study: Lord
- Greek
- κύριος
- Pronounced
- kyrios
- Strong's
- G2962
- Definition
- Lord, master, sir. Used as a title of respect, as a term for a slave-owner, and as the standard Greek translation of the Hebrew divine name YHWH in the Septuagint.
Kyrios appears over 700 times in the New Testament. BDAG identifies three primary ranges: (1) owner, master (of slaves, of property); (2) a title of respect, 'sir'; (3) a divine title, applied to God the Father and to Jesus Christ. The word's power in the New Testament depends on its use in the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures completed by the 2nd century BCE. The translators used kyrios to render the tetragrammaton YHWH, the personal name of God revealed to Moses. When a first-century Greek-speaking Jew heard kyrios applied to Jesus, the resonance with YHWH was immediate.
Brown's commentary on John XIII-XXI (Anchor Bible) identifies Thomas's confession as the theological apex of the Fourth Gospel. Brown notes the literary architecture: the Gospel opens with the Prologue's declaration that the Word was God (1:1). It reaches its narrative conclusion with Thomas declaring Jesus to be 'my God' (20:28). The inclusio is deliberate. What the narrator stated in the third person in chapter 1, a human character confesses in the second person in chapter 20. The theology has moved from proposition to encounter.
Brown further observes that Thomas adds the possessive pronoun: not 'the Lord' or 'the God' in the abstract. He says 'my Lord and my God.' The confession is personal. It echoes Psalm 35:23 ('my God and my Lord') with the order reversed. Thomas is not reciting a creed. He is responding to a person standing in front of him with holes in his hands. The confession comes without touching the wounds. John 20:27 records Jesus offering his hands and side, but verse 28 moves directly to the declaration. Thomas sees and believes. The sight of the risen, wounded Jesus produces the highest Christological statement any human being speaks in the Gospel.
Historical context · 1st century CE
Emperor Worship and the 'Lord and God' Title
The Roman emperor Domitian, who ruled from 81 to 96 CE, demanded to be addressed as dominus et deus noster, 'our lord and god.' The Roman historian Suetonius records this in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars (Domitian 13): 'He even insisted on being regarded as a god and took great pride in being called "master and god."' The title was enforced through the imperial cult, the network of temples and priests across the Roman Empire dedicated to emperor worship. Refusal to offer incense to the emperor's image or to acknowledge his divine titles could be prosecuted as treason.
Brown notes that the Gospel of John was likely composed in its final form during or shortly after Domitian's reign. The original audience would have heard Thomas's words against this political background. When Thomas says 'my Lord and my God' to Jesus, the confession carries a double weight. Theologically, it identifies Jesus with YHWH. Politically, it denies the emperor's claim to the same title. There is one kyrios and one theos, and he is not sitting on a throne in Rome. He is standing in a locked room in Jerusalem with wounds in his hands.
The tension between Christian confession and imperial worship became the primary engine of persecution in the late first and early second centuries. Pliny the Younger, writing to Emperor Trajan around 112 CE, describes his method for testing accused Christians: he required them to invoke the gods, offer wine and incense to the emperor's image, and curse Christ. Those who performed these acts were released. Those who refused were executed. The confession 'Jesus is Lord' (kyrios Iesous), which Paul calls the fundamental Christian declaration in Romans 10:9, was a political act as much as a theological one. To say kyrios of Jesus was to deny it of Caesar. Thomas's two words, spoken in a room in Jerusalem, would echo through decades of persecution as the confession that cost believers their lives.
For reflection
Thomas saw the wounds and said 'my God.' The evidence he needed was not a display of power. It was a display of scars. Jesus did not appear in glory to convince Thomas. He appeared with holes in his hands. What does it mean that the proof of the resurrection still bears the marks of the crucifixion?
Thomas called Jesus 'my Lord and my God.' The possessive pronoun carries the weight. Thomas is standing in front of the person who died for him and claiming that person as his own. The possessive pronoun closes the distance.
Sources: BDAG; Brown, "John XIII-XXI" (AB)