The Nature of Divine Revelation

Many Christians believe that the Book of Revelation speaks to them today, that the revelations received by the prophet John are a blueprint for their future. The most important reason for this belief is the claim that these revelations came to John from God through Jesus Christ (Revelation 1: 1-2). These revelations are seen as the word of God (1:2) which is viewed as eternally valid and communicated perfectly to God’s special representatives.

In The Case Against Evangelical Christianity, I examine the question of the nature of divine revelation at length. There is no evidence in history that such a word of God exists. Consider a few problems from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Millions of Christians believe that God spoke directly to Moses when giving him the Ten Commandments. Read chapter 34 in Exodus. If you do, you will learn that God in fact gave Moses two separate and different sets of Ten Commandments. The question is: which set represents the word of God?

The classical prophets—Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel—were commissioned by God to speak his word. In my book, I list the predictions they make when speaking God’s word, and then compare these predictions with known historical events. The prophets were correct in their predictions less than ten percent of the time. Something must have happened in their receiving that word from God. The word of God was somehow lost.

The same problems exist in the New Testament. Most Christians believe that Jesus spoke for God, that he was in fact the incarnation of God. The central theme of Jesus’ preaching was the coming of the kingdom of God. As I pointed out in several blogs on the Synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke), Jesus announces that the kingdom is imminent, that God will intervene to bring in the kingdom within the lifetimes of his listeners. Paul makes the same assertion. How does one explain the two thousand year delay? Was God really speaking through Jesus in announcing the imminent coming of his kingdom? Does Paul speak the word of God when he makes the same mistake?

Sadly, many claims to speak with divine authority have had profoundly negative consequences. As I pointed out in my blog entitled “The Jewish Conflict in John,” the gospel of John blames “the Jews” for the death of Jesus. This is not historically accurate. The Romans crucified Jesus. This false claim, a claim that many Christians believe to be the word of God, has resulted in two thousand years of anti-Semitism. The apostle Paul is well known for his attacks against homosexuality, and his views about the secondary status of women in the church. When viewed as the word of God, these views of Paul have had negative consequences that continue to influence the policies of some churches. Did God speak to Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and grant him the right to have several wives? Does God speak to Osama bin Laden?

Confusion over the nature of divine revelation has turned religion into a source of human problems rather than a solution. Revelation is about an encounter of love—period. It has no content. There is no such thing as “the word of God.” The word of God expressed in the Book of Revelation indicates that the events prophesized would take place soon, within the first century (1: 1-3, 22: 11, and 22: 16-21). The fact that these events have yet to take place as predicted lends further evidence to the idea that there is no such thing as the word of God.