Dale Taliaferro

Road to Heaven? Dale Taliaferro

This book is a response to Robert Jeffress' book, Not All Roads Lead to Heaven. Jeffress presents the traditional, accepted view within Christianity concerning who gets to heaven and how they get there. One can easily tell the acceptability and popularity of the viewpoint presented by Jeffress by glancing over the list of persons recommending the book. Nevertheless, it is the contention of this author that the accepted view of "salvation" cannot be defended on Biblical grounds. Not only is there no heaven and hell motif in the Scriptures, neither is there any explicit statement that by belief in Jesus can one get there. Most systematic theologies discuss the salvific terms used in the Bible as though they were basic synonyms of each other. So, if one is justified, he must also be saved, and vice versa. Or, if one has eternal life, then he has heaven guaranteed to him. But it doesn't take the student-researcher of Scripture long before he concludes that such conclusions as these do not spring from the literal understanding of the explicit declarations of Scripture. Justification and salvation are not the same thing nor do they refer to exactly the same thing. Additionally, forgiveness, that is, the kind of forgiveness that Reformed Christian theology needs, is never said to come by having faith in Jesus. Neither eternal life nor the kingdom is a reference to heaven or to a destiny in heaven. Eternal security? Assurance of salvation? These doctrines are the results of further conjectures and assumptions of men rather than the explicit declarations of the Bible. This book, Road to Heaven, is an attempt to demonstrate that the doctrine of salvation that has been passed down to us from the Reformation is simply and clearly incorrect and should be set aside once and for all.