This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Heaven Is For Real" by Todd Burpo. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What is Jesus’s throne like according to Heaven Is for Real? Did Colton really see God and Jesus’s thrones in Heaven?
Colton Burpo claimed to have gone to Heaven during a surgery and shared the details with his father, pastor Todd Burpo. Four-year-old Colton described seeing God and Jesus’s thrones. His father was skeptical at first, but gives him a test to prove his heavenly visit wasn’t just a dream.
Continue on to learn about Colton’s visit to Jesus’s throne.
Colton and Jesus’s Thrones
One night in December 2003, Todd was preparing to read Colton a bedtime Bible story: specifically, a story about King Solomon. While reading the book, Todd noticed an illustration of King Solomon sitting on his throne. This got him thinking about God and Jesus’ throne, as described in the book of Revelation. He wondered if Colton had seen the throne while in heaven; so, he asked him about it.
At first, Colton was confused: He didn’t know what a throne was. However, once Todd had explained the concept, Colton confirmed that he’d seen God’s throne multiple times, and said that it was huge. He also noted that Jesus had a throne next to God’s. The Bible describes Jesus’s throne as being on God’s right side. Todd wanted to know if this was true, but Colton didn’t know left from right yet. So, Todd asked Colton to imagine that his father was God’s throne and to point to the side that Jesus’s throne was on. Colton pointed to Todd’s right side.
Colton then stated that the angel Gabriel sat on God’s other side and that he himself had sat on a smaller chair, next to God the Holy Spirit. He said that he’d sat and prayed with the Holy Spirit because he knew that his family needed the Holy Spirit’s support during that stressful time.
Todd’s Final Test for Colton
By this point, Todd almost entirely believed that Colton had gone to heaven, since most of the things he’d described matched the Bible’s teachings. However, he wanted to give Colton one last test to check he was telling the truth. So, Todd asked Colton what he did when it got dark in heaven, knowing full well that, according to the Bible, heaven is actually bathed in perpetual light.
Colton passed the test. He told his father that it never gets dark in heaven because God and Jesus create its light. To Todd’s knowledge, nobody had told Colton that: He must have learned it from first-hand experience. Todd let go of his last doubts and decided to believe Colton.
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Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Todd Burpo's "Heaven Is For Real" at Shortform .
Here's what you'll find in our full Heaven Is For Real summary :
- Why 4-year-old Colton Burpo believed he had visited Heaven
- What Burpo saw during his time in Heaven, including proof it was real
- How the experience strengthened the faith of the Burpo family
