By Gwen Frangs / Cambridge, UK / February 2021
In the book Heaven is for Real when Todd Burpo, Colton Burpo’s father, asked Colton to describe God the Holy Spirit, Colton told him that God the Holy Spirit looked ‘kind of blue’:
‘What does God look like?’ I said. ‘God the Holy Spirit?’ Colton furrowed his brow. ‘Hmm, that’s kind of a hard one…he’s kind of blue.’
(Heaven is for Real page 103)
The fact that Todd Burpo included that piece of conversation in the book shows how committed he was to telling the whole truth about what Colton saw in Heaven, even if he did not understand it himself and even if it could lead to people saying that the story was made up. After all the genie in the Aladdin movie was blue. However, this tiny detail of the Holy Spirit looking blue provides proof that Colton did indeed go to Heaven.
In the Book of Daniel chapter 10, Daniel describes a vision of a Glorious Man who appeared to him:
4 Now on the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, that is, the [c]Tigris, 5 I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a certain man clothed in linen, whose waist was girded with gold of Uphaz! 6 His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished bronze in color, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude.
Daniel 10:4-6 (NKJV)
Note that in verse 6 Daniel describes the Man as having a body that looked like ‘beryl’ (Daniel 10:6). Beryl is a type of stone. The name “beryl” is derived from Greek βήρυλλος beryllos which referred to a “precious blue-green color-of-sea-water stone.” This colour is commonly known as aquamarine.
Because Jesus taught that no one had seen the Father and because Jesus Himself had not yet been born, every time someone in the Old Testament saw God, they were in fact seeing God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is highly likely that it was the Holy Spirit who appeared to Daniel as the Glorious Man in Daniel 10.
Revealing the truth to us is one of the roles of the Holy Spirit:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you
John 16:13-1 (ESV)
The Glorious Man came to reveal the truth to Daniel in the same way that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, leads us into all truth. The Glorious Man came to reveal to Daniel what was written in the Scripture of Truth:
20 Then he said, “Do you know why I have come to you? And now I must return to fight with the prince of Persia; and when I have gone forth, indeed the prince of Greece will come. 21 But I will tell you what is noted in the Scripture of Truth.
Daniel 10:20-21 (NKJV)
There was no way that Colton Burpo, at only three years of age, would have known about the visit of the Holy Spirit to Daniel and that the Holy Spirit can appear as a Man with an aquamarine coloured body. It is clear from the book that even Colton’s father, a pastor, did not make this connection. Because aquamarine is an unusual type of blue, Colton was struggling to describe the kind of blue that the Holy Spirit was.
To my mind, there is no doubt that Colton visited Heaven because this tiny detail that God the Holy Spirit was blue provides substantial evidence that He did indeed meet and talk with the Holy Spirit.
I found the book Heaven is for Real to be wonderfully encouraging and I highly recommend it to the reader.
Heaven is for Real Blog:
https://www.heavenisforrealproof.com/blog/
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