Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

LIBERATION

Liberation is expressed in Hebrew by the verbal root nṣl, “deliver,” and plṭ, “rescue,” along with yšʿ, “save,” and pdh, “ransom.” God’s merciful liberation occurred especially in the Exodus (Exod. 3:8; 12:27; 18:4, 8-10; 1 Sam. 10:18), but also elsewhere. The Lord delivered the Israelites in the desert (Ps. 107:6), David (2 Sam. 22:18), Jerusalem (Isa. 31:5), Jeremiah (Jer. 1:19), Ezra (Ezra 8:31), and the psalmist (Ps. 34:4[MT 5]; 91:3; Ezek. 34:12). Awareness that God liberates because of divine mercy is often explicit: “according to your mercies” (Neh. 9:28; cf. Jer. 42:11-12), because of “steadfast love” (Ps. 33:18-19; 86:13), God’s name (79:8-9), covenant (106:43-45), or promise (119:170).

Though the foundation of God’s liberating action is divine power and mercy, there is a corresponding demand for faith and righteousness on the part of those who seek deliverance. When the Israelites sinned they were often abandoned to their enemies, but were rescued after they had returned to the Lord (Judg. 3:9, 15; 1 Sam. 7:3; 12:10; Ps. 106:43-45). Ezekiel, in stressing the importance of personal responsibility, taught at times that God delivers only the righteous (Ezek. 14:14, 16, 18, 20). Prov. 11:6 states that “the righteousness of the upright saves them” (cf. 10:2). The Lord rescues the righteous (Ps. 34:19[20]), those who trust in him (22:4[5]), fear him (33:18-19), love him (91:14), as well as the poor and oppressed (82:3-4; 119:134), who are being treated unjustly. Yet God delivers also from sin (Ps. 39:8[9]; 79:9).

The focus of liberation in the NT is religious and eschatological, the definitive rescue from the power of Satan and sin by God through his Son, Jesus. The Greek verbs that express liberation, rhýomai, “to rescue,” and exairéō, “deliver,” are used sparingly in the NT, though sṓzō, “save,” is quite common. We have been “rescued from the hands of our enemies” (Luke 1:74) by Jesus, who was sent “to proclaim release to the captives” (4:18; cf. Isa. 61:1) through his gift of salvation from sin. In the Lord’s Prayer we petition, “deliver us from evil” (Matt. 6:13; Luke 11:4), i.e., from the terrors associated with the last days of the world under the power of “the evil one” (another possible translation). Paul states that the risen Jesus “rescues us from the wrath that is coming” (1 Thess. 1:10) on judgment day, a thought echoed in 2 Pet. 2:9. It was God who had already “rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). Paul believed the Jewish people would be saved at the end, in fulfillment of the prophecy that “out of Zion will come the Deliverer. . .” (Rom. 11:26; cf. Isa. 59:20-21).

Though most NT liberation texts focus on the victory of Jesus with consequences for eternity, several passages speak of divine rescues in this life (Acts 7:10; 12:11; Rom. 15:31; 2 Tim. 3:11; 4:17). Both aspects, the material and the spiritual, safety in this world and in the next, constitute God’s work of liberation.

Joseph F. Wimmer

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

LIBERATION

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)