Our Ransom | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 19, 1864

Our Ransom.

"FOR ye have sold yourselves for naught, and ye shall be redeemed without money."—BIBLE.

How direct, simple, and beautiful, is this passage from the Bible. Where, out of the Scriptures, shall we look for one of equal truth and beauty? It contains one of the saddest truths that ever forced itself upon the heart, and a promise more precious than gold to poor, sin-burdened humanity. Truly we have sold ourselves for naught. We have forfeited our future interests, fraught with the weight of an eternal duration, for the trifling good of earth-born life. We have sold them for earthly possessions. Houses and lands, costly apparel and gay equipage, have looked brighter to our blinded vision than the "incorruptible inheritance."

The crown of honor, too, has attracted our gaze. For the sake of gaining this how have we employed our energies, and pushed our way on, dreaming that there was no brightness or joy, out of the charmed circle of the world's favor. Perhaps, for this we have turned aside the principles of truth, and narrowed down our minds to suit the customs and practices of men, forgetting that it was written in the Book of eternal truth, "Man looketh upon the outward appearance, but God looketh upon the heart."

Ease, too, allures many to her inglorious bowers, and casts upon her victims such a fatal charm that the realities of the future are insufficient to awaken their dull perceptions. "O, let me sleep," says the ensnared one,—"yonder path, that you say is the way of duty, is rugged and unpleasing. Let me dream on, for my dreams are very beautiful; this bower is pleasant and sunny, and the music of this place is far more agreeable than the scenes of strife and toil to which you would call one." Thus the victim slumbers, dreading to meet the responsibilities apportioned to him, and thus he dies, with the problem of life unsolved, the good that he might have done undone, and the crown of life unwon.

Society, with its present associations, allures many from the right way, and leads them to forfeit their soul's best interests. It ruins the physical health, by its foolish customs and exactions, develops envy, vanity, and superfluousness, in the heart, and fails to give the soul that preparation it needs to fit it for its appearance before the tribunal of God. "And ye shall be redeemed without money." The Bible says not ye shall be redeemed without cost, but without money. Something far more precious than gold was given for the ransom of men, even the life of the Son of God. Not only did He die for us, but He lived for us. He came as a mortal, partook of our nature, our hopes, sorrows, fears, temptations, privations, and sufferings. He had sorrows over and beyond what man suffered, and one source of his sorrows arose from his knowledge of the hearts of men. Did grief pierce the heart of any, even though they were the most unworthy and unnoticed, His sympathy was moved in their behalf. He knew the malice and hatred that actuated the scribes and pharisees as they surrounded Him, apparently interested in His teaching. He knew better than any could tell the prejudice and unbelief with which He had to contend. Our Father often hides from us that knowledge which would give us pain, and leads us in a path unknown to ourselves; but everything was known to the eye of Jesus, and though this knowledge added to His sufferings, it prepared Him to make a more perfect sacrifice for us. All through his life He was preparing the way for our salvation by his words and acts; and when He closed His eyes in death, it was as a victim, upon whom rested the wrath of an offended God. This was the price that was paid for us. We cannot comprehend it. Ever since that sacrifice was made on Calvary, men have repeated the story of his life and death, yet the theme is new. Faith in the merits of that death is the one bright star that leads the Christian on through this vale of tears, and finally brings him conqueror up to the Throne of God. High and low, old and young, rich and poor, must exercise faith in that one name, in order to gain entrance to the pure and glorious inheritance of the eternal world.