What does the Bible say about deliverance?
Answered from the commentary of W. W. Fereday, The Christian's Friend, H. Forbes Witherby and 22 others
Deliverance in Scripture is God's own work for people who cannot free themselves. By nature men are slaves of sin and hopeless captives of Satan, and no one has power to escape by any strength or ingenuity of his own. God's deliverance rests on redemption through the death and resurrection of Christ. Exodus pictures it in two stages: the blood of the passover lamb sheltered Israel from judgment, and then God's power at the Red Sea brought them out of Egypt and destroyed their oppressors. Only on the far shore could they sing, "The Lord is my strength and song" (Exodus 15:2), for they were then redeemed and not merely sheltered. For the same reason forgiveness and escape from judgment are not themselves deliverance: forgiveness concerns sins, while deliverance concerns sin and its power. The believer has died with Christ, so sin still dwells in him but its rule is broken, and he may reckon himself as free of its dominion as a dead man. This deliverance reaches every enemy that held the soul, namely sin, the world and Satan. The Father has delivered believers from the authority of darkness and translated them into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Colossians 1:13), so Satan remains their enemy but is no longer their master. Christ's casting out of demons with a word showed this ahead of time: He was stronger than the strong man and came to set his captives free, and those miracles were a partial display of what will be universal in the world to come.
Souls usually come into the enjoyment of this through the cry of Romans 7:24, "who shall deliver me?" At that point the soul has found it has no strength, stops asking how it can deliver itself, and looks outside itself to a Deliverer, thanking God through Jesus Christ. The deliverance is then known by "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:2), with Christ, not self, as the object before the soul. Jesus is also the Deliverer from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Most of these writers take that wrath chiefly as the judgments coming on the earth, from which believers will be taken before it falls, while granting that the word can reach to eternal judgment as well. The body itself waits for its redemption at His coming.
In the troubles of life the Lord is "my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer" (2 Samuel 22:2). His word is "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee" (Psalm 50:15). The afflictions of the righteous are many, but He delivers them out of them all (Psalm 34:19). He does this in His own time and way, and He may delay so that His people judge what brought them low and learn to wait patiently for Him. Nor does He always deliver from suffering itself. Paul's thorn was not taken away, and he received grace to bear it instead. Paul's execution became his deliverance into the heavenly kingdom (2 Timothy 4:18). The three Hebrews were sure God could deliver them, yet declared that even "if not" they would not bow (Daniel 3:17-18).
The warnings that follow from this are plain. It is a mistake to be more taken up with escaping a difficulty than with the Lord's purpose in allowing it. It is equally a mistake to turn to human help instead of to God. The Lord also taught His disciples to pray "deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6:13). That prayer expresses distrust of self and dependence on Him to be kept from the evil one, who can always be met through the One able to succour those who are tempted.
Verses: Exodus 15:2, Romans 8:2, Daniel 3:18, Psalms 34:17, Psalms 34:19, Psalms 50:15, Psalms 18:2, Psalms 91:14, Psalms 91:15, 2 Samuel 22:2, Psalms 34:4, Psalms 107:6, Psalms 32:7, Psalms 40:17, Psalms 70:5, Psalms 144:2, Colossians 1:13, Colossians 1:14, Galatians 1:3, Galatians 1:4, 2 Corinthians 1:10, 2 Timothy 4:18, 2 Peter 2:9, Romans 7:24, Romans 7:25, Romans 11:26, 1 Thessalonians 1:10, Matthew 6:13, Luke 4:18, Exodus 3:7, Exodus 3:8, Exodus 6:6, Exodus 14:13, Exodus 14:14, Daniel 3:17, Daniel 6:27, Joel 2:32, Isaiah 43:2, Jeremiah 1:8, Psalms 33:18, Psalms 33:19, Psalms 37:39, Psalms 37:40, Psalms 97:10, Psalms 116:8, Psalms 107:20, Psalms 31:1, Psalms 31:2, Psalms 71:2, Psalms 140:1, Proverbs 11:8, Hebrews 2:14, Hebrews 2:15, John 8:36, Acts 26:17, Acts 26:18
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
Christian deliverance has various aspects; and the death of Christ, by which deliverance is effected, is variously applied in its relation to these. Thus, besides deliverance from guilt, we are said to be "made free from sin" (Rom. 6:18); "delivered from the law" (Rom. 7:6); delivered "from this present evil world" (Gal. 1:4). Freedom from the first, viz. sin, is said to be effected by accounting ourselves dead, inasmuch as Christ has died unto sin once, and we with Him; from law, by our becoming dead to the law, finally and absolutely - the link being broken by the (dead) body of Christ. These two deliverances partake of the nature and character of liberation from that in relation to which there has been a condition of bondage; of which the believer becomes conscious by the possession of a new nature, and groans for deliverance, as Israel in Egypt from the tyranny of Pharaoh. Of these two subjects Romans treats in fullest detail, and the manner of deliverance, both doctrinal and experimental.
The present salvation of God which reaches man through the gospel, is the power of God in operation to free man from every force which holds his soul in bondage, whether it be Satan (Col. 1:13), the world (Gal. 1:4), or sin (Rom 7:24); that being delivered and supplied with new divine power in the gift of the Holy Spirit, he may be able to serve God acceptably in the midst of a hostile world.
At the news of the goodness of God, the people adore Him; but the struggle against the power of evil is another matter. Satan will not let the people go, and God permits this resistance, for the exercise of faith, and for the discipline of His people, and for the brilliant display of His power where Satan had reigned. We have to learn, and perhaps painfully, that we are in the flesh and under Satan's power; and that we have no power to effect our own deliverance, even with the help of God. It is the redemption of God in Christ's death and resurrection, realised in the power of the Spirit given when He had accomplished that redemption and had sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, that delivers; for forgiveness, and escape from judgment, is not deliverance. One refers to sins and God's righteously passing over them, the other to sin and its power.
The Red Sea is the type of the death of Christ, in its application to all our spiritual enemies, sin, the world, and Satan. By the death of Christ the believer is completely and for ever delivered from the power of sin. He is, alas! conscious of the presence of sin; but its power is gone. He has died to sin, in the death of Christ; and what power has sin over a dead man? It is the privilege of the Christian to reckon himself as much delivered from the dominion of sin as a man lying dead on the floor. What power has sin over such an one? None whatever. No more has it over the Christian. Sin dwells in the believer, and will do so to the end of the chapter; but its rule is gone. Christ has wrested the sceptre from the grasp of our old master, and shivered it to atoms. It is not merely that His blood has purged our sins; but His death has broken the power of sin.
Exodus means "Going out." Deliverance is its great theme. Here we find Israel grown to a great nation, but under bondage to the Egyptians as slaves. After much trouble and anguish, and after God's sending many dreadful plagues upon Egypt, Israel is liberated. First in chapter 12, the blood of the lamb sprinkled on the doorposts and lintel of the houses was typical of our redemption from the guilt of our sins by the blood of Christ. Secondly, the parting of the Red Sea and Israel's safely crossing before the Egyptians were trapped and drowned is a type of our redemption by the power of God from the bondage of sin and of the world, a redemption accomplished through the death and resurrection of Christ.
And more than that, "He hath delivered us (not a gradual deliverance, but a deliverance accomplished) from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." And the deliverance takes place as well as the translation into His kingdom, when we believe on Christ. There is a power of darkness. Satan is the ruler of darkness and to this power of darkness the unsaved sinner belongs. We are by nature the complete subjects of this power and also the children of wrath (Eph. 2:1-3). As such we are in a helpless condition and if deliverance is to take place it must come from the side of God. And it has come for all believers. All who are in Christ are no longer under the authority of Satan, the prince of the power of the air, they are taken from his domain and rule and are translated into another kingdom, the kingdom of the Son of his love.
(Vv. 9, 10). Salvation is another great blessing that follows from being justified. There is wrath coming on the ungodly, but the believer can say, "We shall be saved from wrath by Him". The Lord Jesus is "our deliverer from the coming wrath" (1 Thess. 1:10). He will take us out of the scene of judgment before the judgment falls.
It is not self-righteousness, but the conscious delight in good of the divine nature, proper divine joy in its nature; only in our case it must have an object, God Himself, and this is tested in us by suffering for God. Hence the true case is - for the enemy hated God - "For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." To test it fully, and make it real suffering for God, the blessings which belong to His power must not be there. Hence the upright are left for the time to the oppression of the enemy. This, while it searches the heart, if there be any false way, makes it here suffering for what God is; and on the cry for mercy, in due time, brings in the answer from Him; for He cannot leave what answers to His nature - integrity towards Him - needlessly in the power of evil. And so it ever is; though our joy may be in another world altogether, yet, as a rule, God as to His covenant, delivers in this.
In the first place they asserted that their God was able to deliver them. They exalted His power. In the second place they did not hide the fact that for reasons of His own He might not deliver them. And then, in the third place, they stated with the utmost decision that were He not pleased to deliver, they would not forsake their God by worshipping the king's golden image, in the honour of gods that were false. 'We will not serve thy gods,' was their decisive word; and in result they were greatly honoured by their God.
Verse 26. We have a solemn picture of the consequence of Christ's rejection by the world! Christ comes and finds them utterly under the power of the devil. A man of the Gadarenes was possessed, but He delivers him, thus shewing that the Lord had complete power over the enemy. With a word from Christ the demons were off. "The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil." What was the effect of His thus casting out Satan? Why, the whole multitude of the country round about "besought him [Christ] to depart from them." These Gadarenes, who had borne with the demons because they could not help it, will not bear with Christ, and they beg Him to depart! Man would be glad to bind Legion if he could, for he does not like the effects of the devil's power; but man's will is against Christ; he has a deliberate determined hatred to Christ. The Lord came to the world full of love and power, to deliver from the consequences of sin; but man rejected Him, cast Him out; and God will not stay where the will is determined against Him. When the Gadarenes request Christ to depart, He immediately went up into a ship and returned back again. And mark, the world in which we live is just going on as having quietly rejected Christ. But does God give them up, though Christ is gone away for a season? No, He did not give them up, but sent amongst them this man, whom He had healed, to tell them what great things God had done for him. This is what the disciples did in the world, and the delivered remnant also are to tell the world what great things God has done for them.
Verses
- Exodus 15:2My strength and song is Jah, and he is become my salvation This is my God, and I will glorify him; My father's God, and I will extol him.
- Romans 8:2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death.
- Daniel 3:17–1817If it be [so], our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver [us] out of thy hand, O king. 18But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image that thou hast set up.
- Psalms 34:17[The righteous] cry, and Jehovah heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
- Psalms 34:19Many are the adversities of the righteous, but Jehovah delivereth him out of them all
- Psalms 50:15And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
- Psalms 18:2Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I will trust; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.