In this episode of “Offending the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” our response to DefendingJehovahsWitnesses.Blogspot.com, we are going to cover their “explanation” of John 20:24.

DefendingJehovahsWitnesses.Blogspot.com is a front of JW.org, the official website of the Watchtower Society. Instead of being honest and admitting that the Governing Body is purposely trying to respond to criticisms of their organization, the website is hosted by “Elijah Daniels” who otherwise cannot be found on Google or contacted. Their website does not allow comments, so we respond here as a means to make people aware of the lies taught by the Governing Body of the organization.

For those unaware of the immediate context of the article here it is:

Jesus’ statements before and after Thomas’ exclamation (“my Lord and my God!”) show not only that Jesus wanted Thomas to believe that he had been resurrected to life but that he could not possibly be God.

Huh? Where did “Elijah Daniels” get that from? I literally don’t see it.

Jesus’ command to Thomas to literally touch his wounds and actually see his hands proves that he meant, “See, I am the same person you saw die, but now I am alive … be believing that I have been resurrected to life” (NOT, “see, these wounds prove I am God … be believing that I am God”).

Okay…That is besides the point, but it does not disprove what Thomas said. However, it does mitigate against the JW position that Christ’s body supposedly did not raise from the dead.

Likewise, after Thomas says “My Lord and my God,” Jesus reaffirms that Thomas now believes (as did the other disciples after seeing – Jn.20:20) that Jesus has been resurrected (NOT that he is God)…

If Thomas’ statement truly meant that he believed that Jesus was God, surely John would have shown Thomas prostrating himself before “God” and worshiping him (but he doesn’t)…This may be, then, one of those places where the idioms of an ancient language are not completely understood by modern translators.

In short, “Elijah Daniels” is saying Thomas is saying “my God” in astonishment as if he were blaspheming.

Perhaps “Son of God” has a meaning lost to modern Jehovah’s Witnesses, but not to Jesus’ contemporaries. John quipped in His own Gospel Jesus “was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18). Another quip, made by Jesus Himself went like this:

The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’ (John 10:33-36)?

The context is clear. Jesus does not backpedal. He quotes Ps 82 as evidence that if wicked earthly judges can be called “gods”and this is not blasphemous, that calling Him God is fitting because He is “the Son of God.”

Hence, the idiom “my God” is not something lost upon modern interpreters, but rather “Son of God” is! My God means what it id then as it means today, while some misinterpret that being the Son of God connotes inferiority in essence. I wonder how many people here think they are inferior in essence to their own parents, because they are someone’s child. Of course, no one does.

It appears that only Christ gets accused of being inferior  by some, not because He was created (Micah 5:2 mitigates against this)  but because He is God’s only-begotten son as if being a son of anyone makes one less than the father. Clearly, “Son of God” was interpreted in the past to mean complete equivalency with God the Father and it only makes sense, especially in light of John 1:1 and John 5:18 to carry for this interpretation into the present.