Revelation, 1-2 in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE
LITERATURE
I. The Nature of Revelation.
1. The Religion of the Bible the Only Supernatural Religion:
The religion of the Bible is a frankly supernatural
religion. By this is not meant merely that, according to it,
all men, as creatures, live, move and have their being in
God. It is meant that, according to it, God has intervened
extraordinarily, in the course of the sinful world's
development, for the salvation of men otherwise lost. In
Eden the Lord God had been present with sinless man in such
a sense as to form a distinct element in his social
environment (Gen 3:8). This intimate association was broken
up by the Fall. But God did not therefore withdraw Himself
from concernment with men. Rather, He began at once a series
of interventions in human history by means of which man
might be rescued from his sin and, despite it, brought to
the end destined for him. These interventions involved the
segregation of a people for Himself, by whom God should be
known, and whose distinction should be that God should be
"nigh unto them" as He was not to other nations (Dt 4:7; Ps
145:18). But this people was not permitted to imagine that
it owed its segregation to anything in itself fitted to
attract or determine the Divine preference; no consciousness
was more poignant in Israel than that Yahweh had chosen it,
not it Him, and that Yahweh's choice of it rested solely on
His gracious will. Nor was this people permitted to imagine
that it was for its own sake alone that it had been singled
out to be the sole recipient of the knowledge of Yahweh; it
was made clear from the beginning that God's mysteriously
gracious dealing with it had as its ultimate end the
blessing of the whole world (Gen 12:2,3; 17:4,5,6,16; 18:18;
22:18; compare Rom 4:13), the bringing together again of the
divided families of the earth under the glorious reign of
Yahweh, and the reversal of the curse under which the whole
world lay for its sin (Gen 12:3). Meanwhile, however, Yahweh
was known only in Israel. To Israel God showed His word and
made known His statutes and judgments, and after this
fashion He dealt with no other nation; and therefore none
other knew His judgments (Ps 147:19 f). Accordingly, when
the hope of Israel (who was also the desire of all nations)
came, His own lips unhesitatingly declared that the
salvation He brought, though of universal application, was
"from the Jews" (Jn 4:22). And the nations to which this
salvation had not been made known are declared by the chief
agent in its proclamation to them to be, meanwhile, "far
off," "having no hope" and "without God in the world" (Eph
2:12), because they were aliens from the commonwealth of
Israel and strangers from the covenant of the promise...
Link: https://bible-history.com/isbe/R/REVELATION,+1-2/