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“search the scriptures” John 5:39
[All quotations are taken from the New King James Version]
There is a word which has ‘taken off’ in worldwide usage during the last ten years - ‘deliver’. During the 1930s and 1940s, we in America had only two things delivered to us - mail and milk. While I was growing up, my parents’ house had a built-in ‘milk chute’, to which deliveries were made by a dairy truck, and a mailbox. In time came the delivery of fast-food items, starting with pizza. Now there seems to be no limit to the type and quantity of food which delivery services will bring to your door. In more recent years, North America’s populace has lost interest in travelling to stores to select and buy non-food items of interest. Thus, the United States Postal Service (USPS) as well as the long-existing United Parcel Service (UPS) have ramped up their deliveries. In addition, FEDEX and Amazon Prime have joined the competition. Recently, the latter has been experimenting with drone delivery of various items to our front doors.
Interestingly, the scriptures have much to say about the subject of ‘deliverance’. A striking example in the Old Testament is that involving Joseph, who was raised to second-in-command over Egypt. After revealing his identity to his brothers, he declared, ‘And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all of his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt’, Gen. 45. 7, 8 [my emphasis].
Then, after Joshua and the Israelite men invaded Canaan and dealt with the resisting Canaanites, Joshua chapter 21 verse 44 records, ‘The Lord gave them [the nation of Israel] rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand’. There are two verses which summarize what God accomplished throughout all the Old Testament years. Psalm 22 verses 4 and 5 state, ‘Our fathers trusted in You [Lord]; they trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were delivered; they trusted in You, and were not ashamed’.
During His earthly walk, our Lord Jesus, after berating the residents from towns in Galilee for their lack of belief in Him and His words, said, ‘All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him’, Matt. 11. 27; cp. Luke 10. 22. There were, and are, no secrets between the Father and the Son.
Finally, it is significant regarding the number of times the word ‘deliver’ or ‘delivered’ occurs in relation to our Lord’s passion. On the way to Jerusalem for the last time, He told His disciples, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again’, Mark 10. 33, 34. During the last week of His earthly ministry, our Lord announced the same thing to His followers. ‘You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified’, Matt. 26. 2. Possibly, it was during that same week that Judas Iscariot consummated a deal with the Jewish religious rulers to betray Jesus to them. Matthew chapter 26 verses 14 and 15 read, ‘Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?” And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver’.
I believe that the Father’s delivering up His Son for us all, Rom. 8. 32, was ratified after His Son endured an agonizing night of anticipation in prayer to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, after celebrating the Passover and instituting the Lord’s Supper earlier. After much inner struggle, the Son proceeded onwards to the accomplishment of His Father’s objective. Soon afterwards, as our Lord awakened the sleeping eleven disciples, He surrendered Himself to Judas Iscariot and those sent from the High Priest to arrest Him. We may recall that they led Him away and delivered Him to Annas first, for he, a former high priest, was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. There He was accused of many things but there was no corroboration to these charges. He was also struck in the face while blindfolded.
John chapter 18 verse 24 reads, ‘Then Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest’. There He continued to be tried illegally by the latter and his cronies. Mark chapter 15 verse 1 states, ‘Immediately, in the morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council; and they bound Jesus, led Him away, and delivered Him to [Pontius] Pilate [the Roman governor]’. Then Luke states the reasoning behind this delivery, ‘the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified’, 24. 20.
During His trial before the governor, John chapter 18 verses 35 and 36 record Pilate questioning Him, saying, ‘Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here’. Speaking later, the Lord Jesus says, ‘You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin’, John 19. 11; compare verse 16 for its accomplishment. After this verbal exchange, Pilate hoped that the scourging of our Lord which he ordered would cause the Jewish crowd to feel pity for Jesus and enable him to free Him. Instead, after the crowd felt no pity for Him even standing before them in a beaten and bloody state, Luke chapter 23 verse 25 states, ‘And he [Pilate] released to them the one they requested [namely, Barabbas], who for rebellion and murder had been thrown into prison; but he delivered Jesus to their will’. Pilate acquiesced to their wishes to have Jesus crucified. Then, while on the cross, the chief priests also mocked Him, along with other religious figures. They shouted, ‘He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, I am the Son of God’, Matt. 27. 42, 43. It is interesting to recall verse 14 of the Messianic Psalm 69 which records the Son of David crying out, sometime during His passion, ‘Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink; let me be delivered from those who hate me, and out of the deep waters’.
After this desire on the part of our Lord was fulfilled, and our Lord arose, angels were there to declare what transpired to those followers who came to our Lord’s tomb. Luke chapter 24 verse 7 records the angels saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again’. After our Lord’s ascension, Peter spoke boldly on the day of Pentecost, ‘Him [the Lord Jesus Christ], being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death’, Acts 2. 23. Also, Romans chapter 4 verse 25 expands the thought, telling us that our Lord ‘was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification’.
Finally, as we close this meditation on the Lord’s deliverance, let us remember Romans chapter 8 verse 32, which reads, ‘He [the Father] who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all [to ignominy, torture, and death], how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?’
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