Testing claims to revelation

How can we know that the Bible is a true revelation of God?

1. It is consistent with what we already know to be true

"If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams." (Deuteronomy 13:1-3)

For the non-Christian they should come to see that the message of the Bible makes sense of what they already know, and integrates with the knowledge we have already gained about science, history, morality etc. That is not to say that it should not transform how we understand what we already know, and question whether we really knew something to be true in the first place, but we are not inviting people to enter a dream world.

If like me you have recently been challenged by Mormons asking why the Book of Mormon could not also be revelation from God, then at least one thing you would want to ask is: does the Book of Mormon agree with the beating heart of the Bible which we already know to be true? In it's denial of Christ alone, I had to say the answer was 'no'.

2. What it warns and promises does happen

"if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken" (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

In line with this type of evidence standard Christian apologetic would point to OT prophecies fulfilled in Christ, but not go much further. However, I would say this is one the most important evidences there is.

When Jesus says that people will know the truth of the Gospel by the lives disciples lived, when Paul tells the Galatians that they know they have heard the truth because they received the Holy Spirit, and when 1 John says to his readers that they know they received the truth from him if they love their brothers, the evidence is this one. The Gospel promises to bring salvation, and that salvation breaks into our life in healings and other miracles, but most of all in the new life of supernatural loving service for one another and love for God.

So actually the transformed lives of people (whether drug-addicted convicts, middle-class doctors or persecutors of the church) is testimony to the truth of the Gospel. It is objective and we can raise it with confidence, although to some people resurrection life will actually look like death rather than life, but if so then they are not then rejecting the evidence but the promise (2 Corinthians 2:15-16).