JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

The most natural reading of the passage is to unite the doxology with the preceding
words as a relative clause referring to Christ. This is how the New International Version
translates this passage. It reads:
194
"Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!"
● "My Lord and my God!" (Jn 20:28).
This is the worshipful response of Thomas as he was personally confronted by Jesus.
Jesus had appeared to the disciples when Thomas was absent. Thomas is portrayed initially as a
thoroughgoing skeptic as he refused to believe that Jesus had risen and appeared physically in
the same form in which He was crucified on the cross (physically). When Thomas was told about
the appearance, he had stubbornly replied,
"Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of
the nails, and place my hand in His side, I will not believe" (v. 25).
Notice the plural "nails." This contradicts the claim by the Jehovah's Witnesses that Jesus
was impaled on a torture stake whereby His hands and thus arms were stretched (crossed over
with overlapping wrists) above His head. Also the breaking of the legs would only expedite
death. If His arms were outstretched (as depicted by the traditional, historic crossbeam) it would
have put pressure on His diaphragm and thus hasten suffocation. This would deny that Jesus was
crucified on a cross. If He was impaled on a stake they would have used only one nail.
Then the Lord appeared to all the disciples once more and asked Thomas to make the test
he had wanted to make. Jesus said:
"Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in
My side" (v. 27).
Overcome by Christ's presence, Thomas immediately fell to the ground and worshiped
Him, saying,
"My Lord and my God!" (v. 28).
Lord and God! Adonai! Elohim!
And Jesus accepted that designation. He did not deny it.
Jehovah's Witnesses have tried to circumvent the clear meaning of this text by arguing in
their Emphatic Diaglott (v. 28) that the literal translation is, "The God of me, or my God."14
Since it is in possession of the definite article ("the"), to use Jehovah's Witnesses' own
argument, it must therefore mean "the only true God" (Jehovah), not "a god." The New World
Translation states,