---
title: Colossians 3:10
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/colossians-3-10/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/colossians-3-10.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Colossians 3:10
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Colossians 3:10

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "and clothe yourselves with the new [personality], which through accurate knowledge is being made new according to the image of the One who created it."
- NWT (2013 revision): "and clothe yourselves with the new personality, which through accurate knowledge is being made new according to the image of the One who created it."

## JW Usage

The Watchtower reads transformation as the gradual acquisition of Watchtower-shaped character traits through study, meeting attendance, and obedient service. The driver of renewal is "accurate knowledge" — usually understood as correct doctrine mediated by the organisation.

## Protestant Usage

Read the mechanism carefully: the new self is "being renewed" — present passive participle, something done *to* the believer — "through accurate knowledge, according to the image of the one who created it." The image is Christ's (2 Corinthians 3:18 — "we all… are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory"; Romans 8:29 — "predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son"). The agent of transformation is the Spirit, not organisational compliance, and the target is Christ-likeness, not denominational conformity. Paul's metric for the new self is likeness to Jesus — his character, his love, his freedom. That metric cannot be measured in meeting hours. It is measured in the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) that any ordinary believer can begin bearing immediately, not only after the millennium.

## NWT Issue

Where the Greek reads τὸν νέον ("the new one / new self"), the NWT renders "the new personality." The same pattern appears at Ephesians 4:24 ("put on the new personality"). "Personality" in modern English carries connotations of outward demeanour and temperament — the social style a person projects — which shifts the emphasis from ontological renewal (a *new self*, a new identity in Christ) to behavioural conformity (a reformed way of acting). No major English translation uses "personality" here; the standard renderings are "new self" (ESV, NIV, NASB, CSB) or "new man" (KJV). The NWT choice matches the wider Watchtower framework, in which transformation is primarily the accumulation of Watchtower-shaped behaviour rather than Spirit-wrought identity change.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Transformation Is Happening Now](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/2corinthians3-transformation.md) — 2 Corinthians 3:18 — not deferred to the millennium [Sanctification]