To what does “the word of truth” refer?

Explanation:

Paul writes that in Jesus Christ, the believers in Ephesus heard the word of truth. He immediately follows this up with a subordinating clause which states the gospel of your salvation. The subordinating clause is meant to clarify what Paul means by the word of truth. In other words, he wants the Ephesians to understand that the word of truth is the gospel of salvation.⁵

Counterargument:

It is possible that the subordinating clause (the gospel of your salvation) does not clarify the preceding clause, but rather introduces new information. There is no necessary grammatical rule that a subordinating clause clarify the main clause of a sentence. It could clarify the main clause, or it could simply add further information. In this case, if we paraphrase Paul, he might be saying something like, When you heard me speak the truth to you, which in part had to do with the gospel of your salvation…

Response to counterargument:

It may be the case that there is no necessary grammatical connection for a subordinating clause to modify the main clause. Still, subordinating clauses often function this way, and in Ephesians 1:13 it makes the most sense to take the subordinating clause as modifying the main clause. This is because the content of the subordinating clause is so closely connected with the content of the main clause that it is hard to see how the subordinating clause could not be clarifying the main clause.

Explanation:

When Paul uses similar terminology in other letters, he means the gospel of salvation.⁶ For example, in Galatians 2, Paul explains to his audience that when he was in Jerusalem, some spies slipped in on him in relation to circumcision. He understood that in order to be one of God’s people, circumcision was no longer a requirement because becoming a child of God is not accomplished through circumcision but through faith in Jesus Christ. The spies wanted to circumvent Paul’s understanding on the matter. Still, he writes that he and Titus did not yield to the spies in order that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for the Galatians (Galatians 2:5). In this instance, it is fairly clear that what Paul means by truth of the gospel is something like the pure gospel of salvation, which has to do with salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.⁷

Another example comes by way of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. There he writes that the Colossians have heard about the hope stored up for them in heaven, of which they have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel (Colossians 1:5). In this case, Paul uses a similar strategy as he does in Ephesians 1:13 by adding the term gospel to clarify what he means by word of truth. He wants his audience to be clear that the word of truth is the gospel.

Counterargument:

When Paul writes the word of truth, the noun truth modifies the word, and is in the genitive singular. The genitive singular can be taken in multiple ways. Added to this, when Paul writes to the believers in Ephesus, he does so in the ancient Greco-Roman context, which was rife with varying religious groups and ideas.⁸ Taken together, we have good reason to take the genitive as objective. When we do this, we might paraphrase the translation as something like the word/message about the truth.⁹ In other words, Paul knows that his readers face a variety of false religious choices, and he wants to remind them that the message they heard when they first encountered his teachings was true. Not only was it true, but it was the gospel of their salvation.

Response to counterargument:

While there are different ways to take the genitive, it is not immediately clear that the objective genitive is the most appropriate. Paul might just as likely be using the genitive of content, which might be paraphrased as the word of which truth is its very essence.¹⁰ In either case, whether Paul uses the genitive of content or the objective genitive makes little difference. This is because, whether he means to say that it is the word about the truth or the word that is in essence true, that word is the gospel of salvation. In other words, Paul did not preach some true words as well as the gospel of salvation. The gospel of salvation simply is the true word that he preached to the Ephesians.

Possible weaknesses: It is hard to say what the overall weakness of this view might be. The subordinating clause, the gospel of your salvation, seems to clearly reveal that the content of the word of truth is the gospel of salvation. Added to this, when Paul uses a similar phrase in his letters to the Galatians and Colossians, there is little doubt that by word of truth Paul means the gospel.

Paul will sometimes use the term truth to refer to the message of the Scriptures. For example, in 2 Corinthians 4:2 he makes this connection when he explains that he does not tamper with the word of God, but by revealing truth, he commends himself to everyone’s conscience. For Paul, the word of God is the Scriptures, and when he explains it, he is revealing the truth.¹¹ The word of truth contains the message of the gospel, but it also contains many other elements including the creation of the universe, the history of the Israelites, and psalms of praise.

Counterargument:

It might be that Paul uses the term truth in 2 Corinthians 4:2 to refer to the Scriptures, but it is far from obvious that Paul often uses truth in this sense. In fact, he uses the term in a wide variety of circumstances, with a variety of meanings. For example, in 2 Corinthians 12:6, he states that if he were to boast, he would be speaking the truth. In Ephesians 4:21, he uses the term to describe an attribute of Jesus, stating that the truth is in him. In 2 Thessalonians 2:10, he uses the term truth to refer to the content of the gospel when he states that those who are perishing refuse to love the truth. The point is, that Paul uses the term truth in a variety of contexts, and rarely if ever to refer to the Scriptures.

Response to counterargument:

Whether or not Paul always uses the term truth to mean the Scriptures is not important. What is important is that he sometimes uses the term to mean the Scriptures, and he certainly does when he uses it in conjunction with the word as he does in Ephesians 1:13.

Explanation:

Paul was a missionary in the earliest days of the church, who spread the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. The book of Acts records much of Paul’s activity, and there we learn that it was his habit to use Scripture to explain the gospel. In Acts 17:2–3 we read that when Paul entered a new area, his custom was to spend a few weeks in the synagogue arguing from the Scriptures the message of the gospel. There are also extended passages in Acts that have Paul recounting some of the history of Israel, and how that history culminates in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:13). Such passages demonstrate that Paul used the framework of the narratives of the Old Testament in his preaching. Added to this, Paul references Old Testament passages numerous times in his letters (Romans 3:10–18; 1 Corinthians 2:9; 2 Corinthians 6:17–18; Galatians 3:8), again showing that Paul relied on the existing Scriptures for his ministry.

All of this implies that when Paul says that the Ephesians heard the word of truth, for Paul that word finds its foundation in Scripture. In other words, the word of truth is the message of Scripture, and it contains the gospel of salvation.

Counterargument:

While it is assuredly the case that Paul used the Scriptures as a foundation for preaching the gospel, this does not imply that when Paul uses the term word of truth he simply means the Scriptures. Arguably the gospel of salvation, which is salvation through Jesus Christ, is the primary message of Scripture, but still, Scripture contains many other elements relevant to God and how to live obediently for him. For example, the Proverbs are meant to impart practical knowledge for living rightly before God, and many aspects of Chronicles confirm the historicity of God’s interactions with Israel. The prophets contain elements of warning and judgment, but also renewal in a Messiah. The point is, Scripture contains the gospel of salvation as well as other facets of reality. That is why Paul clarifies his statement that the Ephesians heard the word of truth with the subordinating phrase the gospel of your salvation. The gospel of salvation is a specific, primary, aspect of Scripture, and it is the specific content of the gospel of salvation that Paul here refers to as the word of truth.

Possible weaknesses:

The weakness of this view is that even if the Scriptures are the word of truth, Paul never makes this correlation explicit. This means that we should be cautious not to assign meaning to a phrase without Paul's giving us good indication for doing so. If there were no subordinating clause in Ephesians 1:13 that added the clarifying phrase the gospel of your salvation, one could make a stronger case that by word of truth Paul means Scripture. Given the context, we cannot say with a high degree of certainty that when Paul refers to the word of truth, the phrase is synonymous with the Scriptures.