What Heaven May Look Like: Then and Now

Two visions of heaven—one through the eyes of a first-century believer longing for God’s restored creation, and the other through the imagination of modern faith and culture. Both point toward the same promise: all things made new.

We all do it. We imagine heaven. Some picture a city in the clouds, glowing gates of pearl, angels strumming harps, and endless family reunions on golden streets. Others picture something more grounded, a perfected earth, mountains and oceans untouched by decay, a place where laughter never fades and time finally slows down.

But here’s the thing: how we picture heaven says a lot about when and where we live.

We imagine heaven through the lens of our world, modern comforts, familiar landscapes, and the beauty we’ve learned to admire through high-definition sunsets and worship lyrics. But if you could somehow step back into the first century and ask a Jewish fisherman or a rabbi what they thought heaven looked like, their answer would be very different.

The Modern Vision of Heaven

Most of us imagine heaven as a place up there. Clouds. Light. Angels. A massive gate with Peter holding a clipboard. It’s what our culture—and even our art—has passed down. Movies, songs, and even Sunday School posters have built this image of a cosmic resort where we’re all just floating around, freed from all the mess of this world.

But that’s not the picture Scripture paints. Heaven isn’t just “up there,” and eternity isn’t about escaping earth, it’s about the restoration of it. The modern view tends to make heaven feel like an escape hatch, a final destination after all the struggle is over. But to the writers of Scripture, heaven was not an escape—it was the culmination of God’s redemptive plan.

A Country Boy’s Heaven

Country artist Craig Campbell captures that longing in his song Outskirts of Heaven. He doesn’t sing about clouds and harps. He sings about fields, fishing holes, front porches, and gravel roads. He paints a picture of heaven that feels like home—a place where he can live the way God made him to live, where the simple joys of creation are restored and redeemed.

“Lord, when I die, I wanna live on the outskirts of heaven, Where there's dirt roads for miles, hay in the fields, and fish in the river.”

Campbell’s lyrics are earthy and honest. They echo something deep in the human soul, the longing not just to leave this life, but to see it made new. His “Outskirts of Heaven” isn’t an escape from earth; it’s earth restored.

And in a way, that’s much closer to what the Bible describes than the white-clouded vision most of us grew up with.

A First-Century Vision of Heaven

To a first-century Jew, “heaven” wasn’t about mansions in the sky, it was about God’s dwelling breaking into creation. Heaven was God’s space, overlapping ours. It wasn’t “where I go when I die” nearly as much as it was “where God reigns, and one day He will reign fully.”

So when Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven, His listeners didn’t picture floating souls, they pictured the reign of God making everything right.

When they prayed, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” they were asking for that overlap to be complete. The garden restored. The curse reversed. Creation back under the rule of the Creator.

Their heaven wasn’t sterile or abstract, it was alive. They imagined vineyards, feasts, cities filled with justice, and creation itself at peace: the lion and the lamb lying together. Heaven wasn’t somewhere else. It was the world as it should be.

John’s Vision: The New Jerusalem

When John writes Revelation, he doesn’t describe souls drifting through the clouds. He describes heaven coming down.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away… I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” (Revelation 21:1–2)

That direction matters. Heaven doesn’t stay “up there.” God brings it here. John sees a city radiant with light—not because gold is the point, but because God’s glory transforms everything it touches.

The gates never close. The curse is gone. The river of life flows through the center, and the tree of life stands again, its leaves healing the nations.

This isn’t a brand-new universe, it’s this one redeemed. The restoration of Eden.

What Might It Look Like?

Maybe it’ll look a lot more like Craig Campbell’s “outskirts” than we realize. Maybe it’ll look like a place where the land finally rests, where laughter and work are both sacred again, and where the simple things, the smell of rain, the sound of wind through trees, the taste of fresh bread, are all holy reminders of the God who made them.

Maybe heaven won’t feel foreign at all. Maybe it’ll feel like home, finally made whole.

It might not be streets of asphalt or walls of marble, it might be dirt roads and golden light, rivers and fields. It’s not different stuff, but the same stuff made new.

The Point Isn’t Just Where We’re Going

John’s vision, and Campbell’s song, both point to something deeper than location. They point to restoration.

Heaven is not the end of the story—it’s the beginning of everything right again. It’s what the first-century believer longed for and what every believer today still feels in their bones: the ache for home.

So maybe instead of asking, "What will heaven look like?", we should ask, "What does it look like when heaven starts to break through right now?"

When grace invades a heart. When forgiveness heals a wound. When light pushes back darkness.

Every time that happens, we catch a glimpse of heaven. Not someday, but today.

“Behold, I am making all things new.” Not all new things—All things… made new.

That’s heaven. And maybe, just maybe, it starts on the outskirts.