The following excerpt is taken from the theological work titled The Trinity: Evidence and Issues, authored by Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski, published by World Publishing, Iowa Falls, IA, 1996, Chapter 17: “God the Son: Our God and Lord Jesus Christ,” p. 341-44.
In order that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thes. 1:12)
ὅπως ἐνδοξασθῇ τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν, καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐν αὐτῷ, κατὰ τὴν χάριν τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
Most English versions follow the KJV in making a distinction between God and Christ by adding the article “the” in front of the word “Lord.” Thus, in most translations it reads, “our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” But the Greek text is quite straightforward that the θεός “God” referred to is none other than Jesus Christ:
τοῦ θεοῦ ἠμῶν καί κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστου
our God and Lord Jesus Christ
There are three different issues:
1. Does the Granville Sharp rule apply to this text?
2. Did Paul have in mind one or two persons?
3. Did he call Jesus θεός as well as κυρίος?
The Granville Sharp rule states that when two nouns of the same case are separated by the word καί, with the first noun having the article in front of it, but the second noun without the article, only one person is in view and is, thus, being described by both nouns. In contrast, when both nouns have a definite article, then two persons are in view. There are many New Testament passages which would not make any sense whatsoever if this rule was not observed.137
But does this rule apply when the nouns in question are names or titles such as θεός? Some commentators have answered in the negative.138 But there are many passages whose interpretation would be impossible unless we applied Sharp’s rule to them. For example, in Luke 20:37 the word θεός appears once with the article and then two times without the article.
The God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob
τὸν θεὸνἈβραὰμ καὶ θεὸν Ἰσαὰκ καὶ θεὸν Ἰακώβ.
The absence of the article before the second and third occurrence of the word θεὸν in reference to “God of Isaac” and “God of Jacob” means that there is only one God in view, “the God of Abraham.” Thus, the God of Isaac and Jacob was not a different God from the God of Abraham. Clearly Sharp’s rule is needed to interpret this text.
For this reason, most Greek grammarians have stated that Jesus is called both God and Lord in 2 Thessalonians 1:12.139 We, thus, arrive at an interesting situation where the grammarians disagree with the majority of commentators who mainly for theological reasons do not want to follow a strict grammatical interpretation of the Greek text.
As A.T. Robertson points out, Winer “bases his objection on doctrinal grounds, a matter that does not per se concern the grammarian.”140 Examples of modern commentators allowing their theology to control the meaning of a text instead of the context or grammar are not hard to find.141
It should be the other way around. If we do not allow the grammar of the text to dictate our theology, we will end up arguing in a circle. Princeton’s B. B. Warfield explains:
It will probably be allowed that in strictness of grammatical rule, rigidly applied, this should mean, “according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ,” or if we choose so to phrase it, “according to the grace of our God, even the Lord Jesus Christ.” All sorts of reasons are advanced, however, why the strict grammatical rule should not be rigidly applied here. Most of them are ineffective enough and testify only to the reluctance of expositors to acknowledge that Paul can speak of Christ as God.… This “exegetical uncertainty” is in each case imposed upon the passage by reluctance to take it in the sense which it most naturally bears, and which is exegetically immediately given.… The reason is distinctly circular which denies to each of these passages in turn its natural meaning on the ground of lack of supporting usage, when this lack of supporting usage is created by a similar denial on the same ground of its natural meaning to each of the other passages. The ground of the denial in each case is merely the denial in the other cases. Meanwhile the usage is there, and is not thus to be denied away. If it may be, any usage whatever may be destroyed in the same manner. In these circumstances there seems no reason why the ordinary laws of grammar should not determine our understanding of 2 Thess. 1:12.141
Warfield is not the only scholar who believes that 2 Thess. 1:12 calls Jesus both God and Lord. Note the following comments:
A.T. Robertson: Here strict syntax requires, since there is only one article with theou and kuriou that one person be meant, Jesus Christ, as is certainly true in Titus 2:13; 2 Pet. 1:1.143
Schmiedel: grammar demands that one person be meant.”144
Lenski: Those who think that two persons are referred to, God and Christ, are sometimes governed by dogmatical interests, namely by their claim that Christ is never called God, at least not in such a direct way. For us no dogmatical interest is involved; it makes no difference whether Christ is here called God or not, elsewhere he is called God and is shown to be God. We thus have only a linguistic interest, and this is strongly in favor of one person, for one article (τοῦ) unites both nouns.145
Lange: Since the article stands before θεοῦ and not before κυρίου, it is altogether most natural with Hofmann, to refer θεοῦ also to Christ without this being, as Hilgenfeld supposes, a mark of spuriousness; for not merely Tit. 2:13, but also Rom. 9:5 speaks to our Christ in loftier terms than are agreeable to our modern critics (Compare John 20:28; 2 Pet. 1:1, 11). The distinction between God and Christ is not to be sustained by an appeal to texts like vv. 1 and 2, since there the article is wanting also before θεῶ, and θεοῦ146
Even the liberal theologian Bultmann had to bow before the grammar of the text and admit that it calls Christ God!147 Dr. Kenneth Wuest, one of the best Greek scholars of the twentieth century, renders the phrase in his Expanded Translation as: “our God, even the Lord Jesus Christ.”148
If this text, like Romans 9:5, were found in a non-biblical manuscript with someone else being called “God and Lord,” there would be no controversy. This passage is clearly a New Testament witness to the deity of Christ.
137. Acts 15:23; Acts 26:30; 1 Cor. 3:8, etc.
138. William Hendriksen, I and 2 Thessalonians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), 164, n. 117.
139. H. Cremer, Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek (Edinburgh: Clark, 1883), 3rd ed., 281; Robertson, Grammar, 785–786; Moulton, Einleitung, 134; Schmiedel, 158.
140. Robertson, Grammar, 786.
141. Meyer, 587–588.
141. Meyer, 587–588.
143. Robertson, Word Pictures, 4:46.
144. Robertson, Grammar, 786.
145. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles (Minneapolis: Augsburg: 1964), 398.
146. Lange, 2:120.
147. Bultmann, 1:129
148. Kenneth Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 485. This refutes the claim that no English translation has “God” modifying Jesus. (Harris, 265).
KenTheExegete 
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