---
title: Colossians 3:24
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/colossians-3-24/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/colossians-3-24.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Colossians 3:24
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Colossians 3:24

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> because you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

## JW Usage

JWs read "you know that it is from Jehovah you will receive the inheritance as a reward" as confirmation that eternal life is a reward earned through faithful service — tracked meeting attendance, field-service hours, loyal obedience. The "inheritance" is the paradise earth awaiting Great Crowd survivors of Armageddon, granted as compensation for a life of compliance.

## Protestant Usage

Paul's word for "reward" here (*antapodosis*) is used for recompense, but the content of the recompense is "the inheritance" (*tēs klēronomias*) — and inheritance in the Pauline corpus is never earned. An heir receives the inheritance because he is a son, not because he worked his way into the will. Romans 8:17 makes the logic explicit: "if children, also heirs — heirs indeed of God, but joint-heirs with Christ." Galatians 4:7 likewise — "you are no longer a slave but a son; and if a son, then also an heir through God." The inheritance of Colossians 3:24 flows *to* those who are already sons, and the text is encouragement in ordinary workplace obedience ("whatever you are doing, work at it whole-souled as for Jehovah") — not a scoring formula. The Colossian believers are already "raised up with the Christ" (3:1) and their life is already "hidden with the Christ in God" (3:3). Service flows from secured inheritance, not toward it.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Judgment According to Works](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/judgment-according-to-works.md) — Matthew 25, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Revelation 20 — evidence or basis? [Salvation]