The apostle uses the perfect tense: "who has saved us." Past tense. Done. Complete.

Believers in Christ Jesus are saved. Not hopefully saved. Not probably saved. Not might-be-saved-someday. They are already saved. We're not talking about people in some hopeful waiting room who might eventually make it through the door. No! Salvation is not a blessing to enjoy on your deathbed or a song to sing in heaven. It's a reality to obtain, receive, promise, and enjoy now.

Listen to how complete this salvation is! You are perfectly saved in God's eternal purpose. He ordained your salvation, and what God ordains is finished. You are saved because the price has been paid in full. "It is finished!" was the cry of the Savior before he died. The debt is settled. The transaction is complete. You are also perfectly saved in your covenant head—for as you fell in Adam, so you live in Christ.

And this complete salvation comes with a holy calling. Watch how this works: those whom the Savior saved on the cross are, in due time, effectually called by the power of God the Holy Spirit unto holiness. They leave their sins behind. They endeavor to be like Christ. They choose holiness—but here's the key—not out of any compulsion, but from the stress of a new nature that leads them to rejoice in holiness just as naturally as they once delighted in sin.

Did God choose them because they were holy? Did he call them because they were already good? Never! He called them that they might be holy. The holiness you see in any believer is the beauty produced by his workmanship in them. Every excellence you spot in a Christian is as much the work of God as the atonement itself.

Thus is brought out very sweetly the fullness of the grace of God! Salvation must be of grace, because the Lord is the author of it—and what motive but grace could move him to save the guilty? Salvation must be of grace, because the Lord works in such a manner that our righteousness is forever excluded.

Such is the believer's privilege—a present salvation. Such is the evidence that he is called to it—a holy life.