How do Jehovah's Witnesses explain Thomas's exclamation, "My Lord and my God"? In John 20, Jesus is resurrected and is showing Thomas the wounds in his hands, to prove that he is risen.  In John 20:28–29, we see Thomas's response:


  28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”


This passage is often used as evidence of Jesus's divinity, since Jesus does not rebuke Thomas for calling him "God" like the angel does in Revelation 19:10, for example.  

Since Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that Jesus is God, how do they explain Thomas's exclamation, and Jesus's response?
If you look up the apostle Thomas in the Watchtower Online Library at JW.org, you can find three links that address the topic of John 20:28: a section on Jesus Christ from their book Insight, a section on Jesus Christ from their book Reasoning, and an Awake! magazine article called &quot;Those Who Are Called 'Gods.'&quot; I'll quote from all three sources in this answer.
Insight indicates that there are two permissible explanations of the passage:

Some scholars have viewed this expression as an exclamation of astonishment spoken to Jesus but actually directed to God, his Father. However, others claim the original Greek requires that the words be viewed as being directed to Jesus. Even if this is so, the expression &quot;My Lord and my God&quot; would still have to harmonize with the rest of the inspired Scriptures.

The first explanation is neither elaborated upon nor mentioned anywhere else, but it's consistent with hogarth45's anecdotal answer. The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses seems to favor the latter explanation, that Thomas is calling Jesus &quot;my God&quot; in a way that doesn't jeopardize their beliefs about Jesus and God. They point out parallels between this use of the word &quot;god&quot; and other Biblical uses where they also don't believe Jehovah is the referent:

Insight mentions that in many cases of appearances of angels, the Bible &quot;spoke of that angelic messenger as though he were Jehovah God&quot; because &quot;the angelic messenger was acting for Jehovah as his representative.&quot; Note, however, that Nicene Christians often interpret these same passages as instances of pre-incarnate appearances of Jesus.
They point out that earlier in John, Jesus approvingly quoted Psalm 82, which calls &quot;powerful men&quot; gods, and &quot;Christ occupies a position far higher than such men.&quot;
Citing John 1:1 (NWT), they say that Jesus is &quot;divine&quot; or &quot;godlike&quot; or &quot;a god.&quot; JWs even believe that, in Isaiah 9:6, &quot;Mighty God&quot; is a title appropriately given to Jesus, while noting carefully that it is not &quot;Almighty God.&quot; He is even referred to as &quot;the only-begotten god&quot; in John 1:18.

All three sources also note that the context (John 20) includes two other significant mentions of the relationship between Jesus and God which, they say, demonstrate that he is not the Almighty God. Reasoning gives the most extensive treatment:

Shortly before Jesus' death, Thomas had heard Jesus' prayer in which he addressed his Father as &quot;the only true God.&quot; (John 17:3, RS) After Jesus' resurrection Jesus had sent a message to his apostles, including Thomas, in which he had said: &quot;I am ascending ... to my God and your God.&quot; (John 20:17, RS) After recording what Thomas said when he actually saw and touched the resurrected Christ, the apostle John stated: &quot;These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.&quot; (John 20:31, RS) So, if anyone has concluded from Thomas' exclamation that Jesus is himself &quot;the only true God&quot; or that Jesus is a Trinitarian &quot;God the Son,&quot; he needs to look again at what Jesus himself said (vs. 17) and at the conclusion that is clearly stated by the apostle John (vs. 31).