What is God's salvation and calling based on according to this teaching?
God’s salvation and calling rest not on human works, merit, or anything earned, but on His own purpose and the counsel of His own will. Scripture says He saved and called us with a holy calling according to His own purpose, having predestinated believers according to the purpose of Him who works all things after His will.
Les explains that the word “purpose” in Ephesians 1 is key: believers obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will. Then in 2 Timothy 1:9, Paul writes to Timothy, a Gentile believer, and says God saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. Our merit doesn’t mean a thing; He didn’t call us as people who earned something. The call goes out to every son of Adam. But He has not called us according to our works, but according to His own purpose. If you’re a child of God, it’s because it was in the purpose of God. You were saved for a purpose and a reason. Every one of us were. Believers were already in the mind of God before He ever created Adam, and so we have a distinct purpose.
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,