---
title: Colossians 2:20
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/colossians-2-20/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/colossians-2-20.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Colossians 2:20
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Colossians 2:20

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> If you have died with Christ to the spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its regulations:

## JW Usage

JWs accept that the Mosaic Law was fulfilled in Christ but maintain that Christians today must follow "the law of the Christ" as interpreted by the Governing Body — including detailed regulations on grooming, holidays, blood fractions, and field service reporting. The Watchtower's sixty-year beard ban (reversed October 2023) is a case in point: an extrabiblical rule enforced as though it carried divine authority.

## Protestant Usage

Colossians 2:20-23 explicitly condemns submitting to human regulations — "do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" — calling them rules that have "the appearance of wisdom in self-imposed worship" but "are of no value." Paul's argument flows from 2:13-14: if the debt record was nailed to the cross, reimposing a new catalogue of human regulations contradicts the freedom Christ won. The Watchtower's 2023 reversal of the sixty-year beard ban proves the rule was never from God — rules from God do not get unbound when fashions change. Romans 14:5 confirms: "Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind." Galatians 4:10 carries the same warning: Paul rebuked the Galatians for letting Judaisers add cultural rules about days and seasons. A cancelled debt cannot be re-imposed by an organisation; the cross was meant to free people from the entire principle of earning standing with God through imposed requirements.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Certificate of Debt — Erased, Not Replaced](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/certificate-of-debt-nailed.md) — Colossians 2:13-15 [Salvation]
- [The Beard Ban — A Rule the Bible Never Made](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/jw-beard-ban.md) — Romans 14:5 / Colossians 2:20-23 [Practice]