<p>20:28 <em>Thomas answered and said to him: My Lord and my God</em>- Although Thomas&rsquo; exaltation &ldquo;My Lord and my God&rdquo; may appear an off-the-cuff gasping out of praise, can I suggest there was far more to it than that. I suggest he was alluding to or quoting Ps. 35:23: &ldquo;Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, my God and my Lord&quot; . The Lord Jesus had indeed arisen and stirred up in resurrection, and Thomas realized that it was to his judgment. When we look closer at the Psalm, it seems to reveal something of the thoughts of the Lord Jesus. He had desired God to awake to <em>his</em> need. And now Thomas shares those same thoughts, through his relationship to Jesus. And this is a very Johannine theme; that the relationship between Father and Son is to be shared by the believers, on account of the way they relate to the risen Lord Jesus. Or perhaps Thomas had Ps. 91:2 in mind: &quot;I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge, my fortress, my God; in him will I trust&rdquo;. When Thomas addressed Jesus as&nbsp;&ldquo;My Lord and my God&rdquo;, he was likely alluding to the way the Emperors Domitian especially, according to Seutonius demanded to be called &quot; <em>Dominus et Deus noster</em>&quot; - Our Lord and our God. Thomas was saying something radical- he was applying to the Lord Jesus the titles which those living in the Roman empire were only to apply to Caesar. And our exaltation of the Lord Jesus should be just as radical in practice.&nbsp; Further, note that Yahweh Elohim is usually translated in the Septuagint '<em>Kyrios, ho theos mou</em>'-&nbsp; Lord, my God&rdquo;. Am I going too far in thinking that Thomas saw in the risen Jesus the fulfilment of the Yahweh Elohim name? He would thus have been fulfilling the Lord's prophecy in Jn. 8:28: &quot;When you lift up the Son of man, then you will realize that I Am...&rdquo;. Finally the disciples were grasping that &quot;All men may honour the Son just as they honour the Father&quot; (Jn. 5:23). Thomas&rsquo; expression of praise was thus blasphemy to both Jews and Romans. A true perception of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus leads us to a unique position which cannot be accepted by any who are not truly of Him.&nbsp;</p><p>Again and again we have to emphasize that we read the Biblical documents at a great distance from the culture in which they were first written. It was quite understandable for a person to carry the name of their superior, without being that superior in person. And so it was and is with the Lord Jesus. To give just one of many possible confirmations of this: &quot;In 2 Esdras 5:43-46... God's spokesman, the angel Uriel, is questioned by Ezra as though he were both Creator and Judge which God alone is. Ezra uses the same style of address to Uriel (&quot;My lord, my master&quot;) as he uses in direct petition to God. This practice of treating the agent as though he were the principal is of the greatest importance for New Testament Christology i.e. the study of who Christ is&quot;. The acclamation of Thomas &quot;My Lord and my God&quot; must be understood within the context of first century usage, whereas Paul says, many people were called Lord and &quot;god&quot; (1 Cor. 8:4-6). If we're invited by our manager &quot;Come and meet the president&quot;, we don't expect to meet the President of the USA. We expect to meet the president of the company. The word &quot;president&quot; can have more than one application, and it would be foolish to assume that in every case it referred to the President of the USA. And it's the same with the words &quot;Lord&quot; and &quot;God&quot; in their first century usage. Hence a Jewish non-Trinitarian like Philo could call Moses &quot;God and king of the whole nation&quot; (<em>Life Of Moses</em> 1.158)- and nobody accused him of not being monotheistic Significantly, there is in the New Testament the Greek word <em>latreuo</em> which specifically refers to the worship of God- and this is always 21 times applied to God and not Jesus. The worship of Jesus that is recorded is always to God's glory, and is recorded with the same words especially <em>proskuneo</em> used about the worship of believers (Rev. 3:9, Daniel (Dan. 2:46 LXX), kings of Israel etc. (1 Chron. 29:20 LXX)).</p>