John 20:17 - ‘My God and Your God’

[Jesus.defender]

John 20:17 - ‘My God and Your God’

‘I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.’

Watchtower teaching: The JW book Reasoning from the Scriptures,$p.212, says, ‘To the
resurrected Jesus, the Father was God, just as the Father was God to Mary Magdalene’.

JWs argue that because Jesus referred to ‘My father’ and ‘my God’, Jesus cannot be Almighty God Himself.

The Bible teaching: Why did Jesus call the Father ‘my God’? Does this imply that Jesus is not God? No, not at all. Christ had only a divine nature before the incarnation. After His birth as a man, He took on a human nature. Therefore, it is in Christ’s humanity that He acknowledged the Father as ‘my God’.

Key verse: ‘Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God.’ Heb 2:17

Since Christ came as a man and since some of man’s proper duties are to worship God, pray to God and address God as ‘My Father’ and ‘My God’, then it was perfectly correct for Jesus (speaking as a man) to address the Father in prayer and to call Him ‘My God’.

Question: Why didn’t Jesus just say, ‘I am ascending to our Father and our God?’

Answer: Jesus always carefully distinguished His relationship with the Father from humans’
relationship with the Father.

Key: Jesus was God’s Son by nature, but Christians are God’s sons by adoption.
Jesus never spoke of the Father as ‘Our Father’ but as ‘the Father’ or ‘My Father’ (The Lord’s Prayer is how Christians (Our) should pray.)

Question: ‘Why did Jesus always say ‘the Father’ or ‘my Father’ but never ‘our Father’?

Conclusion: Because Jesus is God’s Son by nature, He is truly God.

Because Jesus is also truly a man by nature, He can call the Father ‘my God’.