DELIVERER

This title of our Lord comes near the end of that section of Romans, chapters 9-11, which addresses the painful and perplexing issue of Israel’s unbelief. In Romans chapter 11, Paul clearly shows that God is far from finished with Israel: their ‘fall’ is neither complete, nor irretrievable. However, in contrast to the present age when there is ‘a remnant according to the election of grace’, Paul foresees beyond this a climactic end-time salvation for ‘all Israel’.

Verse 26 is a quotation from Isaiah 59. 20; ‘And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD’. In the Greek Septuagint rendering, the redeemer comes out of Zion. The ‘Deliverer’ is literally ‘the delivering One’. Although the context is quite different, the same term is found in 1 Thessalonians, ‘Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath’, 1.10 NIV

The original Hebrew word is goel, the kinsman-redeemer or avenger. He, who amidst poignant and agonising realisation will be revealed as Israel’s Deliverer, Zech. 12. 10; 14. 3-4, will certainly deal with all opposing powers. However, the essence of the ‘deliverance’ will be spiritual - the removal of ‘ungodlinesses’ (literally) and ‘sins’, and the resultant enjoyment of new covenant blessings. Israel will discover a fountain that has cleansed the penitent for centuries, Zech. 13. 1. Moreover, the ‘Deliverer’ will be found to be a near kinsman, Rom. 1. 3, who, at His first advent, they rejected, compare Acts 7. 35 for an instructive illustration in Moses.

Unlike our faithful God, far too many Christians are practically indifferent to Jews. We who already enjoy the blessings of the new covenant, 1 Cor. 11. 25, should recognise our vast spiritual debt to this privileged people, and should pray and work, even now, that they might be saved. May we have faith to believe that, despite age-long rebellion and unbelief, the inscrutable ways of God with Israel will yet be triumphantly vindicated. Recognising the divine strategy towards this ultimate goal of blessing for both Jew and Gentile, the apostle bowed his heart in a profound act of worship, Rom. 11. 33-36.