If you've ever heard of public auctions, you very well know that the item goes to the highest bidder, even if they cannot afford it, they made the mistake of outbidding and must live with their decision and choice of what he bought and the consequences. Salvation is the reverse: Salvation doesn't go to the highest bidder, though, if you will, because you couldn't possibly bid high enough to pay your ransom price--Christ alone paid the price we couldn't afford or handle, as we were in the red and hopelessly in debt with a debt, we couldn't possibly pay--in effect we were bankrupt!
But Christ volunteered to pay our debt of sin and didn't have to do it, or it wouldn't be mercy, but justice! God owes no one salvation, and it is not a payoff for having faith as "good work." Nothing we did qualified us for salvation--we can not prepare ourselves for it in a "pre-salvation work", nor meet God's standards. Unless we realize our condemnation, we're not ready for grace.
What is meant by the lowest bidder, who will get saved? First of all, our righteousness is God's gift to us, not our gift to God, and our righteousness is as filthy rags per Isaiah 64:6. If you will recall the sinner's prayer in Luke 18:13, where the publican prays for God to be merciful to him, a sinner. Actually, he meant "the sinner," because he loathed his sin and didn't try to justify himself or compare himself to anyone else and think he was better than them.
Unlike the Pharisee who thanks God he is not a woman, Gentile, nor slave, and that God should give him kudos for all his self-righteousness, such as fasting twice a week, and giving of a tithe of everything he owned, while neglecting (cf. Mat. 23:23) the heavier duties of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness--which are the virtues of the redeemed and putting the essence of the law of Moses into action. All that really matters, according to Paul in Gal. 5:6 is faith being worked out in love. Why? Love is the fulfillment of the law! Did the Pharisee have this attribute?
The lowest bidder seeks no lame excuse for his sin, but comes clean with God and renounces his pet sin as well as his private ones. We must all disown our old way of life and seek a new life in Christ. Whenever we justify ourselves and compare ourselves we are not wise (cf. 2 Cor. 10:12). Now maybe you recall Jesus saying the prostitutes were closer to the kingdom of God than the Pharisees; they knew how empty their lives were with no meaning or purpose, and the possibility of a new life sounded appealing to them and especially being forgiven and set free (recall the woman caught in adultery!).
In speaking of low bids, we must realize our slavery to sin ("a man is a slave to whatever overcomes him," says Rom. 6:16). "Some people are enslaved to whatever defeats them," (cf. 2 Pet 2:19). It's a lot like quitting smoking: you don't know your addiction till you try to stop! Sin is like that: you don't know how bad you are till you tried to be good, and you can't be good till you realize how bad you are! This is like a catch-22. In the end, what we do in essence is to throw ourselves into God's hands and sue Him for mercy in the heavenly courts.
The lowest bidder is like Paul thinking of himself as the "chief of sinners," and also of John Bunyan, who wrote Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. This is because the closer we are to God and His kingdom, the more clearly we sense and see our own personal sin, and don't look at the other guy or accuse him. We must acknowledge that only God is good and that we are depraved through and through and can do nothing to please God of ourselves: John 15:5, ESV, says, "... [F]or apart from Me you can do nothing." Paul says in 1 Cor. 4:7 that we are the product of grace all the way: "What do you have that you didn't receive?" It is the goody-goodies that are more distant from the kingdom of God, being do-gooders and having self-righteousness that is an abomination to God.
We come to God as we are, but we don't stay that way--we are changed from the inside out by a work of grace to change our hearts (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17). If we think we came to Christ of our own power, we probably left Him that way too! God must woo us and enable us to come to Him (cf. John 6:44, 65). God can take any heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh according to Ezek. 36:26. No one is too far from salvation to be saved and faith is something anyone can have as a gift--it's the only way to be saved by grace and not by merit. For we don't deserve it, cannot repay it, and did not earn it, to begin with--it's all grace from start to finish so that God alone gets the glory (in Latin, Soli Deo Gloria!).
We are bad sinners, but not too bad to be saved, in other words--God's grace can reach anyone! We are all in the same boat, drowning sinners in the sea of evil, and God rescues us by grace, and we owe it all to Him. Recall the pertinent praise song: "All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife..." In conclusion, what does it take to be saved? The qualification for salvation is to realize you aren't qualified! We have nothing to offer God for salvation, but He wants us despite ourselves. He seeks those who are lost and not righteous (cf. Luke 19:10; Matt. 9:13).
All in all, we must acknowledge our feet of clay and uselessness before God's plenipotence or omnipotence, and Jesus sees through our veneer (we are not basically good, but inherently evil); our radical corruption permeates to the core and we have no island of righteousness to please God (indeed, we are as bad off as we can be, though, because of His restraint, not as bad as we can be!). Man does have a high opinion of himself, but God's estimation of man is total depravity through and through. Soli Deo Gloria!
