To explain briefly, we are “rebels without a cause” in the sense that we are merely rebels against God and we have no reason to be such other than the fact that we are born dead in sin. In Adam, we all die. In Adam, we all sinned. We sin against a gracious God every day. We are sinners by nature and by choice and we cannot do anything but sin unless God changes our hearts. There is nothing anyone who is not saved can do to please God, not even believe (Rom. 8:8).

Of course, faith is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8-9). That’s what Horton means when he talks about “Grace before Time.” Before the foundation of the world, God chose to redeem a people for Himself out of every people group on earth (Eph. 1:3f). No one who was chosen by God deserved to be given saving grace. Then again, that’s what grace is: God giving a man something he does not deserve or earn.

It was Christ who made God’s grace in salvation possible in terms of people actually being saved. Guilty sinners could never do anything to save themselves and the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Christ, who had no sin of His own, died as a substitute for guilty sinners by virtue of their sin being credited to His account. He suffered the wrath of God in the place of deserving sinners. He averted God’s wrath from His chosen ones and took their sin away. And, because He had no sin of His own, death could not hold Him, He was raised up, and those who believe on Him have life by virtue of His righteousness credited to their accounts. That’s the great salvation transaction. That’s the only way a guilty sinner can be made right with Holy God: the righteousness of Christ imputed to him. Christ paid the price for His own. Those who don’t belong to Christ are paying for their sins in an eternal Hell.

The Scripture is clear that “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14).” If man is dead in sin, hates God, cannot please God, is unwilling to receive the things of the Spirit of God, and is unable to understand the things of God, who can he be saved? Christ Himself said that with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible (Matt. 19:25). This helpless man is saved by “intoxicating grace.” God begins to show a man his sinfulness and his need for a Savior, by grace. He brings that man from spiritual death to spiritual life, by grace. He opens his eyes to see (Jn. 3:1f). He gives a man a new nature, a new will, a new heart, a new desire, a new sight. He gives him the gifts of repentance and faith. God lovingly and graciously gives a man what he cannot get for himself and once he has it, he willingly flies to Christ in repentance and faith.

The good news is that once a man has been truly graced by God, he has that grace forever. There are “no lost causes.” If a man could lose his salvation by sinning or by walking away, that would mean that salvation was not by grace but by works, either initially or continually. No, salvation is by grace. A man who has saving grace will walk in good works. But, he is not saved nor is he kept saved by those works. He is kept in a state of grace, not by his works, but by grace. God is the One who will keep us to the end (1 Pet. 1:5). That’s grace.