and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead-- Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.
which delivered us from the wrath: "Delivered" speaks of rescue and reminds us of how great is the peril from which we are delivered (the wrath or judgment to come) and how great is the power of Him who rescues us. "Delivered" is in the present tense and may be the apostle’s way of saying that deliverance is continuous. "He delivers us from evil each day (Matthew 6:13) and will complete the deliverance at the end of time" (Crouch 25). Jesus is even now delivering us from future wrath as the divine enabling helps us overcome sin in our lives. Stott says, "God’s wrath is neither an impersonal process of cause and effect (as some scholars have tried to argue), nor a passionate, arbitrary or vindictive outburst of temper, but his holy and uncompromising antagonism to evil, with which he refuses to negotiate" (42). Vincent suggests that wrath sometimes stands "for the punishment which wrath inflicts" (Vol. IV 20).