If he is omniscient, how come the Son of God has to receive a revelation in Rev 1:1?

A question you would rarely come across. I had only ever seen it in polemics by Jehovah's Witnesses against standard Christian beliefs. But recently, it has resurfaced in Muslim polemics against Christian beliefs. So there is a slim chance you might come across it.

Regular readers will be pleased to know a short answer will do!

The controversial suggestion is that the verse is a giveaway about omniscience. It isn't. It's about something else altogether - a scene set in heaven that is carefully staged for effect.

The basics: to understand what the first verse of the book of Revelation means, the best way to start is to read the rest of the book of Revelation. Here's a short summary. The book tells us a vision. In God's heaven, there is a scroll, a revelation scroll. So everyone wants to know what is written on it. In a quite spectacular scene, the shocking fact emerges that no-one on in heaven is worthy to even open God's scroll... except one. Who is that one? It's the Lamb of God. (That's Jesus to you and me.) So the Lamb takes God's scroll and opens it. And all manner of spectacular visions appear, images of traumas the world will endure. And the ultimate promise is that God and his Lamb (Jesus) will make everything right again, and make a brand new heaven and earth.

So, a key scene there is the scroll, the revelation scroll, full of secrets. The Lamb of God takes it to open it, as a demonstration to all the witnesses that only one is worthy to receive it. 

The witnesses need to see and hear it. That's the point of the book. It’s staged for their benefit. That's what Revelation 1:1 tells us:

"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place." 

The revelation is in the scroll. It's the scroll that God gives to Jesus. The revelations in it are for the witnesses to hear. And the reason for staging this is made very clear: the Lamb takes God’s scroll simply in order to answer the question: “who is worthy to open it?” 

It’s a public demonstration of the Lamb’s status. God needs to give the scroll to the Lamb, so that the explanation is heard, the explanation for why only the Lamb is worthy. 

Otherwise, the scroll could just have been given directly to John or the angel. The verse again (in full):

"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John..."

The scene is staged as a display of how great the Lamb is, not how inferior his knowledge. The idea that it could be about omniscience is a woeful mis-reading. It's one of the least effective attacks on Christian belief that I've seen. It’s doubtful that anyone would veer towards such a view unless they were motivated on some level to down-rate Jesus.

So that was the answer. Now let's enjoy the passages a bit more.

That opening verse is a synopsis of the scene to come.

 

That "revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him" occurs in chapter 5, which gives the following account of it. When it's given to him, it's simply a scroll.

(By the way, here you see something common in the book: the author hears one thing and sees another. He hears it's a lion, but when he looks, it's a lamb. The book does this a lot.)

Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb...

And the spectacular scene goes on. So there you have it. The revelation scroll is in God's right hand, and the Lamb takes it. Later when the Lamb opens it, its spectacular visions are witnessed by all. 

 And that's what Revelation 1:1 prefigures:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John...

It's pointless insisting it's about who is/isn't omniscient when it's really about the drama of the scene, the drama of who is worthy. I can't imagine that when John wrote this scene, that he would ever having imagined that people would try to turn this into an Omniscience Indicator! I suppose one of the problems the biblical writers face, like all writers, is that you can't write anything without people trying to make it into something else.