As is clear from verse 8, who refers to God. For saved see 1 Tim 1.15. For the idea of God as Savior, see 1 Tim 1.1.

Called here has the concepts of “summon,” “designate,” “commission.” Very often “to call” is translated by using a word that means “to summon someone by means of speech.” In the present context, however, what is in focus is designating or commissioning someone to a particular position or task.

The expression holy calling occurs only here in the whole New Testament. The concept of holy is difficult to analyze and to translate. The term itself may include the following aspects: (1) When applied to God, holiness emphasizes God’s moral perfection, his perfect goodness, and consequently his dislike of anything evil. It is this character of God that becomes the basis for the “holiness” of Christians, who are separated from sin and evil, and are instead consecrated to God. (2) Holiness may also be understood in an ethical sense; to be holy then is to be conscious of being related to a holy God and acting out this relationship in terms of moral integrity and complete dedication to everything that is good and acceptable to God. In this sense one may translate “called us to be completely dedicated to him,” “called us to live in complete dedication to him.” (3) Holiness can mean separation from worldly relations and being consecrated to God. In this sense people are holy because they are chosen by God to belong to him. This is reflected in Good News Translation: “called us to be his own people.” This last interpretation is probably the more likely one and is recommended by this Handbook.

The saving act of God and his call for us to be his own special people are not dependent on anything that we have done (literally “our works,” for which see 1 Tim 2.10) but on two things: God’s purpose and God’s grace. The word for purpose comes from a verb that means “to plan in advance” in order to achieve a particular intention, and it is possible to express purpose in this way, namely, “but because he planned to do this in advance.”

For grace see 1 Tim 1.2. This grace is identified as given to us in Christ Jesus, and also is described as given ages ago. He gave us translates a singular aorist passive participle of the verb “to give” (literally “was given to us”). The word translated in can also be “by,” in which case the implicit agent is Christ Jesus, or more likely “through” or “by means of” (Good News Translation), in which case the implicit agent is God (as in Revised Standard Version). Ages ago is literally “before eternal times,” a Semitic idiom that refers to the period when there was as yet no time, hence before all eternity (so Good News Translation “before the beginning of time,” also Jerusalem Bible, New International Version; compare New English Bible “from all eternity”).

Another problem is the antecedent of which he gave us. A literal translation of the text would mean that what was given includes both purpose and grace. However, two things argue against this conclusion. First, as already noted, the aorist participle is singular, and secondly, it is not natural to speak of purpose as being given. Accordingly it must be concluded that the antecedent of which he gave is grace alone, and this is made explicit in some translations (Good News Translation, New International Version; compare Phillips “he planned to give us … the grace to achieve this purpose”).

Alternative translation models for this verse are
• He [God] freed us from sin and designated us to be his own people. He did this not because of the good deeds which we have done but because he planned to do this in advance. And before time began he planned through Christ Jesus to show his kindness to us.

Or:
• … And before time began God planned that Christ Jesus would show his kindness to us.

Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1995. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .