The Deity of Christ and the Inadequacy of Watchtower Doctrine

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to a succession of people, first to the women at the tomb, then to Peter and Cleopas on the road to Emmaus, and then to the disciples locked, hiding, in a secret chamber. Somehow, the Apostle Thomas was absent at each of these occasions, and expressed doubt of their authenticity: "Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord.' But he said to them, 'Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe'" (John 20:24-25). It took a week for Thomas's desire to be fulfilled: "Eight days later, His disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then He said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.' Thomas answered Him, 'My Lord and my God!' Jesus said to him, 'Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed'" (John 20:26-29). 

We see a couple of things in the interaction between Jesus and Thomas here. For one thing, Jesus gives no rebuke to Thomas for his doubting. However, more importantly, He makes no rebuke for Thomas's addressing Him as Lord and God. Surely if a mere creature were to receive such adulation, it would be great sin not to object. Yet Jesus receives Thomas's words without refusal or rebuke! 

In dealing with this passage, Jehovah's Witnesses claim that Thomas was just making an emotional outburst, as a person today might exclaim, "Oh, my God," upon receiving some shocking news. However, they offer no proof that there was any such custom among First-Century Jews. Moreover, they cannot explain why Jesus makes no objection, given the Watchtower's claim that He was but an incarnate angel. In other biblical occasions, angels made very vocal objections to any such intimations: "I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, 'You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God'" (Revelation 22:8-9). On the contrary, John explicitly tells us that the comment was to Jesus, not just an exclamation to no one in particular.

Why the difference? The Jehovah's Witness has no rational answer. But the Christian does.

"The death of Jesus was glorious, not because it was His death, but because it could be the death of no other. A [mere] creature might as well have undertaken to create us as to save a world. The work itself demands the interposition of God; and any theory  which fails to represent the death of Christ as an event which, in its own nature, as clearly proclaims His divinity as His superintending care and preservation of all things, cannot be the Gospel which Paul preached at Rome, at Corinth, at Athens, and which extorted from Thomas, upon beholding the risen Savior, the memorable confession, 'My Lord and my God'!"(James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity", emphasis in the original).