@Friend:
You are right Robby but it still can refer to a literal God in a machine, or something Godly with so much power that it can change the way things should be. This notoriously happens in a poorly ended Stephen king book, where the bad guy actually wins and then a hand of some God drops down and stops the evil guy. Something like that anyway I don't like King much so I didn't memorise the details.
Anyway you rightly say, it technically isn't a deus ex machina. Now that I think about it there is one particular incident that comes close, but a benevolent God like the ones in Dragonball (who may be goofy, perverted and/retarded but essentially have kind hearts) would allow external power (Shenron) to power up the hero, in the grounds that the hero still fought a hard battle and the whole universe was at stake.
Nothing about the phrase has to do with this literalist bullshit.
Not since Ancient Greece.