John 20:28
John 20:2828Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!”
The Watchtower acknowledges Thomas spoke these words but interprets them as either an emotional outburst (akin to "Oh my God!") or as a split address: "my Lord" to Jesus and "my God" to Jehovah in heaven. Either reading allows JWs to retain their position that no creature should be called God and that Thomas was simply expressing astonishment, not identifying Jesus with Jehovah.
Even the NWT preserves the decisive grammar: "In answer Thomas said to him: 'My Lord and my God!'" Three words in their own translation close every JW exit. "In answer" — Thomas is responding to Jesus' invitation to touch his wounds, not exclaiming randomly into the air. "Said to him" — eipen autō, dative singular, addressed directly to Jesus. The Greek construction ho kurios mou kai ho theos mou places both nouns under one address, governed by one autō. Jesus then commends Thomas's faith ("blessed are those who believe") rather than correcting blasphemy — and an angel in the same book (Rev 22:8-9) does correct the very same act. is the climactic purpose statement of the entire Gospel: Thomas's confession is the apex of John's Christology, not a misunderstanding to be quietly walked back.
The NWT preserves accurately and the KIT interlinear is faithful: "the Lord of me and the God of me." There is no translation problem — the divergence is purely interpretive, redirected through Watchtower commentary rather than the text. The verse is therefore one of the most powerful doorstep texts available because no NWT defence is possible at the level of the Greek; the JW must redirect to emotional outburst or split-address theories that the grammar will not bear.