Why not simply point out that no one becomes a Christian, as in a phenomenological professing follower of Christ, apart from God’s Spirit and grace? Furthermore, not all professing Christian persevere in that faith. Some become worse off than they were before they heard the Gospel. Others, sometimes because they heed the dire warnings of what will happen if the don’t, persevere in the faith and inherit the promises.

Is anything above problematic to a Calvinist? It wasn’t problematic to Augustine, or to Calvin who recommended Augustine’s book, Admonition and Grace.

A Calvinist would only insist that the difference between the two kinds of professing Christians is found in God’s grace not in some inherent difference in character. When a Christian hears “well done good and faithful servant,” he will be grateful to God, not boastful against others. For the difference is in God not in ourselves.

The real mystery is not the warnings in Hebrews. The real mystery is why Calvinists feel that the warnings in Hebrews represent a special problem. That is not only mysterious because nothing in the “Calvinist creed” is threatened, but also because, Hebrews really isn’t that different from the rest of the Bible. There are warnings against falling away in (the rest of?) Paul’s epistles and the Gospels and everywhere else.

When we preach through these passages, our job as Calvinists, because it is our job as Christians, is to warn professing Christians the way God does, not mute what God says so that we can remember some other passage of Scripture that we like more.