Heaven and the Kingdom of God Are Related
Heaven and the Kingdom of God are not the same thing. There is much confusion over this today as though the two were synonymous.
Heaven is a place in the spirit realm. In fact, there are at least three heavens.
The Kingdom of God, on the other hand, is a realm of authority.
Heaven was on the earth, so to speak, in the garden of Eden. But the Kingdom of God was not present.
Sin began in Heaven but there is no sin in the Kingdom of God.
We must be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of God, not to enter Heaven.
The Kingdom of God is God in Christ in the saints governing the creation. Heaven is, as we have said, a place in the spirit realm.
At present the Throne of God, the origin of all Kingdom law and judgment, is in Heaven. God created man so He could move His Throne from Heaven into the personalities of a company of sons. After the thousand-year Kingdom Age the Throne of God and of the Lamb will descend to earth in the glorified Church, the new Jerusalem.
It is our point of view that during the second half of Daniel's week, after the latter-rain revival, the Throne of God will move from the spirit realm into the hearts of the godly remnant who have been forced into the wilderness. Then Antichrist will govern the major cities of the earth. Antichrist will have power to reach into the heavens, but he will not have power to reach the Throne of God for by that time it shall have been established for eternity in the hearts of the saints.
Then the water of eternal life will issue from the innermost being of the saints because the Holy Spirit always comes from the Throne of God, from nowhere else.