Romans 8:24

For we are saved Lit., and better, we were saved; at the time of our deliverance from darkness into light.

by hope "Hope" has the article in the Gr. If our English Version is retained, the meaning will be that our conversion was effected, in one sense, by the discovery of "the hope laid up in heaven" for the justified. But the connexion of salvation with faithis so marked and careful in N. T. doctrine that it seems far more likely that the true version (equally proper in grammar) is, we were saved in hope; i.e. when we believed we accepted a salvation whose realization was future, and could therefore be enjoyed only in the hope we felt in view of it. "Salvation" here is used (as e.g. 1 Peter 1:5,) for the crown of the saving process; final glory.

hope that is seen i.e. "the hoped-for object, once seen, (as present,) ceases ipso factoto be hoped for."