The Jewish people often view us former Gentiles who have been grafted into the Commonwealth of God’s Israel as benighted idolaters because we worship Jesus/Yeshua.

From their perspective and Torah training, which forbids idolatry, I can certainly understand their repulsion! What awes me about the Thomas story after the Resurrection of Jesus is that upon examining the wounds of the Lord, Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and My God!”

What could turn an Israelite like Thomas into one who would worship a Man, Jesus, as Lord and God? I believe it was the indisputable proof of putting his hands into the nail prints, and especially when Thomas reached inside the wound in Yeshua’s side where the Lord’s heart had been ruptured by the Roman soldier’s spear. These living wounds undeniably proved not only that Jesus had died, but that He was now clearly alive. Only sinless Diety could have conquered death, and so in that moment, Thomas was floored and freely worshipped!

Pulpit commentary on John 20:28: “Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” This is the first time that any of the disciples had ever drawn this lofty conclusion of love and reason. They had called him “the Son of God,” “the Lord,” as a Being of quite immeasurable claims; and John, in the prologue, after years of meditation, declared that “the Logos which was God” and “with God,” and the Creator of all things, and “the Light and Life,” had “become flesh,” and flashed forth” the glory of the only begotten Son,” even in his earthly life; but it was reserved for the most depressed and skeptical mind of them all, the honest doubter, the man who needed immediate and irresistible evidence, infallible proofs, triumphant, invincible demonstrations – it was reserved for Thomas to say TO HIM, and to say unrebuked, uncondemned, by the risen Lord, “MY LORD AND MY GOD!” Herein is condensed into one burning utterance from the worried heart of humanity the slowly gathering conclusion which had been steadily inwrought in the mind of his disciples by all the teachings of the Savior. It was at last spontaneous and exultant. These words are the climax of the entire Gospel.