I share Cole’s desire that we live with eager expectation, longing for our resurrection into the age to come in the new heaven and the new earth (Rev 21:1). But Cole’s pervasive language of ‘heaven’ often confused me. Although he acknowledges our ultimate future is resurrected bodies in a new creation (13–14), he usually refers to that future state as ‘heaven’. He seems unaware of people like NT Wright emphasising that the Christian eschatological hope is not ‘going to heaven when you die’, but resurrection to real physical life when Christ returns.

Why is my generation of Christians often spiritually tepid and languid? Why can we be indistinguishable from the secular people around us? Cameron Cole has the answer—we are too earthly minded, with little or no yearning for heaven. We need to shift our paradigm. In his words, ‘most Christians live with very little awareness of their eternal trajectory’, and as a consequence our service to Christ feels ‘routine and obligatory’, ‘blah or meh’ (2).

He is not the first to make such a diagnosis. I remember as a young adult hearing Don Carson remark that western Christianity lacks clear and substantial hope—we live in and for the present age. And I live in a location on this spinning globe where it feels like heaven on earth is within touching distance, often to our loss.

Cole admits that he was deeply infected by this same disease until the accidental death of his 3-year-old son. This tragic event prompted a deep and ongoing reflection on the reality and significance of heaven, not just for his son, but for his own life and faith. This gives Heavenward a strong personal tone as Cole shares his own pain and growing hope.

Christ-Centred Heaven

I resonate with Cole’s diagnosis of the malaise that infects our Christianity. I too perceive that myself and my western co-heirs with Christ often have minimal day-to-day hope in life eternal, but are heavily earth-focussed. It needs to change. As an added point, we would do well to imitate our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world whose longing for Christ’s return is palpable.

His vision of heaven is Christ-centred. Heaven is wonderful because of the presence of Jesus, reigning in glory. Cole does mention other aspects of the future, but these are rightly overshadowed by the prospect of knowing Christ, even as we are already known.

He grounds his encouragement to be heavenly minded in rich biblical theology, drawn mainly from the Apostle Paul. The central section of the book (chapters 3–7) track Paul’s teaching on the present experience of heavenly realities brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Bravo! These hopes are not an exaggeration or speculative fantasy.

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