Without Money and Without Price by Francis M. Wilcox

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 25, 1909

Without Money and Without Price

By Francis M. Wilcox

Man does not naturally possess righteousness. Of himself, or through his own efforts, he can not obtain it. It does not come by the power of the will, or as the result of physical exercise. It is the gift of God through the merits of Jesus Christ.

The sinner, lost and undone, finds himself without hope. He has violated God's law, and is a rebel against the divine government. The Spirit of God appeals to his heart. His conscience is awakened, he sees a better way, and desires release from his thralldom of iniquity. But he is powerless of himself to secure his liberty. He cries out in his anguish, “What must I do to be saved?”

It is then he sees a hand reached out to succor; he hears the gracious invitation, “Come unto me.” He responds to the call. Weak and poor and sinful, in his rags and wretchedness, in his shame and confusion, he throws himself at the feet of his Rescuer. He can not undo the past; he can not make himself better. He must come, if he comes at all, just as he is; and he is not disappointed. Divine mercy accords to him a welcome. It accepts the penitent tear, the changed purpose in the life, and freely forgives all the past. And more, it changes the past in God's reckoning, imputing for the misspent years, the life of Christ; so that when God looks back over the life of sin, he sees not the wickedness of an unregenerate life, but the life of his own Son, which has been imputed to the believer.

Then in response to the repentant soul's desire,—a desire which God has created by his Spirit,—he changes the heart of the penitent, implanting a love for right, and a hatred for the wrong. Sin appears unlovely and undesirable, and the soul reaches out after a holier and nobler existence. Christ enters the heart through faith, and is held in the life by the exercise of abiding trust and obedience.

This implanted life in the soul is cherished. By the yielding of self, the denial of sin, the exercise of prayer and faith, its enlargement is permitted and promoted. Its continued growth is marked by the development of Christian graces; and the sinner, poor and wretched as he was, and of himself still is, is transformed by divine mercy into a child of God, into the character of the Master.

At no point in the transforming process does the credit belong to the human factor. He is powerless to help himself at every stage. He can only will to do right, can only yield to God, and permit God to work in and for him. Even the desire after a better life, which prompts the choice, does not originate in the human heart, but is created by the Spirit of God.

No man can earn God's favor, or merit his approbation. Eternal life will be the gift of God to every soul. Those who enter heaven will be taken there through the merits of their Saviour, and the only part they will have acted, will be in consenting to be saved, and in co-operating with the heavenly agencies in the accomplishment of that result. F. M. W.