Lorenzo Palon

There is a kind of religion that looks serious, disciplined, and devout, but underneath it all, something has gone badly wrong. It constantly speaks of obedience, loyalty, and holiness. It sets rules for what people may celebrate, how they must pray, which customs they may follow, and what supposedly marks the truly faithful. It may even require formal pledges of loyalty to the church’s distinct teachings while treating healthy dissent as rebellion. From the outside, it can look orderly and strong. But Paul’s words in Colossians 2:20–23 pull the mask off this kind of spirituality (Col. 2:20–23).¹

Paul asks a sharp question: if believers have died with Christ to the old order, why do they still submit to regulations such as “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch” (Col. 2:20–21)? He is not attacking discipline as such. He is attacking a religious system that mistakes human rules for spiritual maturity. That is the real issue. When a church turns its regulations into tests of loyalty and holiness, it is no longer simply teaching wisdom. It is binding consciences where Christ has given freedom (cf. Gal. 5:1).

A Faith Built on “Do Not Touch”

The rules Paul quotes in Colossians sound familiar because every age has produced them. They may differ in detail, but the structure is the same. Do not eat this. Do not celebrate that. Do not ask those questions. Do not pray in that way. Do not cross the lines our group has drawn. Soon the community centers not on Christ Himself but on the fences it builds around Him.²

That is why rule-based religion can feel so powerful. It gives visible markers. It creates a clear in-group and out-group. It tells people exactly how to measure loyalty. There is a strange comfort in that. Rules are easier to monitor than love. Uniformity is easier to enforce than maturity. And leaders often find it easier to manage a people trained to fear stepping out of line than a people taught to stand in the freedom of the gospel (cf. Gal. 5:1).

But Paul will not let us mistake control for holiness. In the immediate context, he has already said that the church’s life and growth come only from holding fast to Christ the Head (Col. 2:19).³ That is decisive. Once the center shifts from Christ to the group’s distinctives, spiritual life begins to wither, no matter how impressive the outer structure may look. A church can organize itself tightly, regulate its life closely, and defend its customs fiercely, yet still drift from the only source of real nourishment.

When Distinctives Become Chains

There is nothing wrong with a church having convictions. Every church does.
The problem begins when a church turns its distinctives into conditions of belonging and treats its customs as if they were part of the gospel itself.Then generosity becomes a legal demand. Prayer language becomes a boundary marker. Calendar choices become proof of purity. A signed covenant becomes less a mutual confession of faith and more a mechanism of control.

This is where things often become spiritually unhealthy. Once rules are used as tests of loyalty, people learn to silence their conscience to survive. Questions are no longer welcomed as part of Christian growth. They are treated as cracks in submission. Dissent is no longer something to be discussed in the light of Scripture. It is treated as a betrayal of the group.

But the church is not meant to be built on that basis. Christ is the Head, not a church’s private creed. Paul says the whole body is nourished and held together through Him and “grows with a growth that is from God” (Col. 2:19). When a church makes its own rules function as the real center of faithfulness; Christ may still be named, but He is no longer functionally enough. The operating center has shifted. The gospel is still spoken, but another authority has quietly taken its place.

Why Strict Religion Cannot Change the Heart

Paul is fair enough to admit why such systems seem attractive. He says they have “an appearance of wisdom” (Col. 2:23).⁴ That is exactly right. Rule-based religion often looks wise because it is strict. It feels weighty. It has the air of seriousness. It promises order in a messy world. It gives the impression that the church is guarding holiness with unusual care.

But Paul’s verdict is devastating: these things are of no value in restraining the flesh (Col. 2:23).⁵ They may regulate appearances, but they cannot renew the heart. A person may obey every group rule and still be ruled by pride, bitterness, vanity, fear, envy, or spiritual arrogance. In fact, the flesh often flourishes inside strict religion because it has learned how to dress itself in pious language.

Such behavior is one of the great dangers of legalistic spirituality. It can make people outwardly compliant while inwardly anxious. It can produce a culture where members are careful not because they are walking joyfully with God, but because they fear punishment, exclusion, or suspicion. Then, peace no longer comes from Christ’s finished work. It comes from keeping the code. That is not freedom. That is bondage wearing religious clothing.

Christ Frees Us for Real Holiness

Paul’s answer is not spiritual laziness. He is saying that because rules cannot save, holiness matters. He is saying that real holiness grows only from union with Christ (Col. 2:20).⁶ Believers have already passed out of the old world and into the new. They do not need to live as though human regulations still hold authority over their standing before God.

This matters deeply for wounded consciences. Your access to the Father does not depend on a church’s permission. Through Christ, we have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18). And when Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He taught them to say, “Our Father” (Matt. 6:9). No church is entitled to forbid what the Son Himself opened up. And no human tradition is entitled to make cultural abstinence, enforced tithing, or signed loyalty to a private creed into the measure of whether someone truly belongs to God.

The gospel does not abandon us to moral chaos. It calls us into a deeper obedience, but one shaped by Christ rather than by fear. The Christian life is marked by generosity, truth, purity, love, patience, and self-control. But these are not the products of spiritual policing. They are the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23). They grow in people who know that Christ is enough, that His cross is sufficient, and that real transformation comes from sharing in His life.

The Difference Between a Cage and a Church

Where rules replace Christ, the church becomes narrow, suspicious, and controlling. It may be efficient. It can be impressive. People may even admire it for its strictness. But it will not produce the freedom, joy, and holiness that mark the people of the risen Lord.

Where Christ is truly central, the church will still care about truth and holiness. But it will not confuse man-made restrictions with godliness. It will not turn private convictions into universal laws. It will not make institutional loyalty the same thing as faithfulness to Jesus. And it will not train people to fear honest questions.

Paul’s words in Colossians remain painfully relevant because this temptation never goes away. The human heart is always drawn toward systems that can be measured, managed, and enforced. But the gospel is not a loyalty test. It is the announcement that in Christ the old world has been judged, the new has begun, and believers are free to live before the Father in the power of the Spirit (Col. 2:20–23; cf. Gal. 5:1).

That kind of freedom is not weakness. It is where true holiness begins.

Christ did not die and rise to place His people in a holier cage. He set out to bring them into the freedom of sons and daughters before the Father.

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Notes

1. James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). ↩︎
2. N. T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015). ↩︎
3. Scot McKnight, The Letter to the Colossians, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018). ↩︎
4. Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, 2nd ed., Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2024). ↩︎
5. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon; Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. ↩︎
6. Wright, Colossians and Philemon; McKnight, The Letter to the Colossians. ↩︎

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