=47, 48. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hath faith hath eternal life.= The words _on me_ are wanting in the best manuscripts, are omitted by Tischendorf and Alford, and are queried by Schaff; internal evidence is against them. The declaration is generic; faith in the largest sense of that word--the power which lays hold upon the invisible and the hope which reaches after it (Heb. 11:1), a faith which may be and is exercised by those who have never known Christ (Rom. 2:7), is the essential condition of spiritual life. This life is not, as in our English version, merely “everlasting life,” but life eternal, _i. e._, the spiritual life which is created in the soul when it is born from above, which is nurtured in the soul that follows after that it may apprehend Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:12), the fruits of which are love, joy, peace, etc. (Gal. 5:22, 23). This eternal life is a present possession; he that hath faith already hath this life.--=I am the bread of that life.= Faith may exist without Christ, as it did in the O. T. prophets and patriarchs, and as it does in greater or less measure in some at least of those in heathen lands; but Christ is the bread of that life; by him it is fed, strengthened, and made to grow; by him faith in invisible things is made rich and strong. The universal effect of a pure Christianity has been to turn the mind away from material things to unseen realities (2 Cor. 3:18). 49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and[240] are dead. [240] Zech. 1:5. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and[241] not die. [241] verse 58. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: it any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh,[242] which I will give for the life[243] of the world. [242] Heb. 10:5, 10, 20. [243] ch. 3:16; 1 John 2:2.