John 6:47

John 6:47. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth hath eternal life. In the preceding verses Jesus has rebuked the murmuring of the Jews. They had not opened their hearts to the Father's teaching, or their difficulty would have disappeared. He now returns to the truths out of which His foes had drawn their indictment against His truthfulness. First, however, He brings into relief those sayings which they had passed over entirely. The solemn formula, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you,' to be followed by a higher at John 6:53, at once marks the transition and shows the importance of the truth declared. In speaking to the multitude (John 6:26) His first words had related to eternal life, and to the paramount necessity of faith (John 6:29). So here also; but the assertion is made in the briefest possible form. Even the object of the faith is left unexpressed, that the thought may entirely rest on the state of faith itself: the believer in the very act and condition of faith has eternal life. It is not often that Jesus speaks thus, omitting the words ‘in me' or ‘in the Son;' but there could be no real ambiguity in the present instance, and He desires to express in the most forcible manner the state of mind which formed the strongest possible contrast to that of the Jews.