Union With Christ

I've been talking about the various defenses of the OSAS teachings, how the arguments don't hold up and what we need is a teaching from scripture for any reason to hold such views. I dealt with a supposed go-to verse explaining how it ignores the context and centers eternal security at the wrong point of redemption. At this point, I consider myself done with the Calvinist teaching of eternal security. However, the idea that we can abandon the faith and continue in grace still needs more hashing out. Unlike Calvinism, this view turns salvation into a narrow point of time in the life of a Christian. But salvation is holistic including our entire lives, being a state in which we constantly receive forgiveness. It is through faith that we have union with Christ and receive his forgiveness, because in faith itself Christ is present. This is the Biblical witness:

Romans 8:5-11
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

You either have Christ within you or not. You have faith or you don't. There isn't two ways about it. "So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-" (Ephesians 3:17a). "The righteous shall live by faith" (Romans 1:17).

The author to the Hebrews is quite clear what this means:

Hebrews 10: 38,39
"But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him, But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls."

Scripture speaks of our salvation in three parts:
*Saved (II Timothy 1:9)
*Being Saved (I Corinthians 1:18)
*Will Be Saved (I Timothy 4:16)

Salvation is both now and not yet. The fullness of time breaks into the here and now when we are united with Jesus in faith. The whole package of our salvation is handed to us, and received in our union with him.

Romans 8:30
And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

But it is only by this union in faith that we have this assurance.