A commentary on the epistle to the Ephesians by Charles Hodge ...

266 EPIHESIANS
which lead to destruction; the principle of spiritual
life is here personified as aXjOeta, truth, which produces righteousness and holiness. Truth is spiritual
knowledge, that knowledge which is eternal life, which
not only illuminates the understanding but sanctifies
the heart. The Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of truth
as the author of this divine illumination which irradiates the whole soul. This truth came by Jesus Christ,
John 1, 17. He is the truth and the life, John 14, 6.
We are made free by the truth, and sanctified by the
truth. The Gospel is called the word of truth, as the
objective revelation of that divine knowledge which
subjectively is the principle of spiritual life. Taking
the word in this sense, the passage is brought into
nearer coincidence with the parallel passage in Col. 3,
10. Here the image of God is said to consist in righteousness and holiness of the truth; there it is said to
consist in knowledge. " The new man is renewed unto
knowledge after the image of him that created him.'"
These passages differ only in that the one is more concise than the other. Knowledge (the &ry'vworts 70T
Eov') includes righteousness, holiness, and truth. Nothing, therefore, can be more contrary to Scripture
than to undervalue divine truth, and to regard doctrines as matters pertaining merely to the speculative
understanding. Righteousness and holiness, morality
and religion, are the products of the truth, without which
they cannot exist.
This passage is of special doctrinal importance, as
teaching us the true nature of the image of God in