Titus 3:5

He saved us. "We could not save ourselves, so He acted to give us a way out of our doom!" See Romans 8:1-4 and notes. It was not because. We could not place an obligation on Him! But because. His own mercy, based on his love (1 John 4:8-10), is the reason why he saved us! Through. God requires us to reach out through faith to seize the sacrifice of Christ! Salvation is not achieved, but seized!!! God saves those who respond to his act in Christ. The washing. Ephesians 5:26 points this to the birth of "water and the Spirit" (John 3:5-7 and notes). By which. This is the point of contact. The Holy Spirit. He is the proximate contiguous source of our life. See John 3:6 and note. Gives us. Galatians 3:27; 2 Corinthians 5:17. The Expositor's Greek Testament says: "The verse may be paraphrased as a statement of fact thus: - God saved us by Baptism, which involves two complementary processes, (a) the ceremony itself which marks the actual moment in time of the new birth, and (b) the daily, hourly, momently renewing of the Holy Spirit, by which the spiritual life is supported and fostered and increased. And the moving cause of this exceeding kindness of God was not any merits of our own, but His mercy." [On (b), see note on 1 Corinthians 6:11.]