In this paper we present a new method of measuring the relative distance of two point objects in three-dimensional space by using phase-shifting digital holography. In our system the reference beam of a spherical wave is used instead of a plane wave. The system is computer simulated and built on an optical table for experiments. It is shown from computer simulations and experiments that the relative distance can be measured without the exact information on the reference beam used in the hologram record. It is shown from experiments that the relative distance between two point objects separated by 0.5 cm in the distance of about 300 cm from the CCD can be measured with an error less than 10％.