An extract from Romans 8 by Thomas Jacomb
(The piece has been slightly edited to aid comprehension)
WITH regard to the doctrine of Christ being sent in the flesh, Jacomb says: “There is this in it for the strengthening of faith and the heightening of joy: that God is now knowable and accessible. Some may say, Beyond all contradiction, it is a blessed thing to know God, but who can know Him? Can any see God and live? Can a finite eye take a view of such an infinite majesty, the least ray of which outshines the sun in its greatest brightness? What! man to know God? Alas! poor creature! his weak faculties will not bear the beholding of so glorious an object. To which I answer: All this, in such a sense, is very true, yet let not humble souls be discouraged; for notwithstanding this, they may yet know God savingly and comfortably, though not perfectly.
“In and by Christ in the flesh, the great God is knowable; partly as He is most clearly manifested by Christ in the flesh. In the Christ God-man we have the brightest objective manifestation of God. By the creation, much may be known of God, as you read in Romans 1:20; but the whole creation makes no such discoveries of Him to the soul as Christ doth. Therefore He is said to be “the brightness of his Father’s glory”, Hebrews 1:3; (for this is one explication which the words will very well bear), and hence some style Him Speculum Patris, the glass wherein the Father in the most clear and lively manner is represented. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” John 14: 9; and the apostle speaks of “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face”, that is, in and by the manhood “of Jesus Christ”, 2 Corinthians 4:6.
“Again, in and by Christ in the flesh, the great God is knowable, partly as Christ in our flesh is a fit medium to transmit God, as knowable, to us. Indeed God, as considered absolutely and in Himself, is so infinitely above us, that we cannot here immediately behold Him. His glory, His immense and infinite perfections, should they be let out upon us, would soon reduce us to our first nothing. But… mediatly, through Christ, we can look upon Him; see Him and live. In this way the majesty of God is, as it were, so refracted, tempered, and qualified, that the poor dim eye of the creature may behold it. As we cannot immediately look upon the sun because its splendour and intense light presently dazzles us; yet we can look upon it reflected in a pail of water. So here, we cannot immediately behold God in the brightness of His glory – a finite faculty must needs be dazzled by an infinite majesty – yet take Him in the flesh and manhood of Christ, and there His glory is so brought down to us that we can see Him and know Him to our comfort. The Christ-man interposes not only between us and God’s anger, to screen us from it, that we be not thereby consumed, but also between us and God’s majesty that we may not be overwhelmed by it. He lets it out as our capacity will bear, and so by Him, God becomes knowable. He both carries us up to God, and also brings down God to us.
“Oh study God much! but be sure you study him in Christ incarnate. In that way you may come to know Him. Augustine says, “By the hypostatical union of the human nature with the divine, there is such a collyrium or eye salve made for us, that we may with these very eyes almost see the Deity.” How should we rejoice in the manhood of Christ! By that flesh in which the Godhead was sometimes hid, it is now revealed; that which was once a veil to cover it, is now a glass to represent it. Do but know Christ, and you will know God.”
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Reviewed on page 118 of this issue
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Thomas Jacomb (1622-87), a native of Leicestershire, came from Cambridge, where he served as a Fellow of Trinity College, to London in 1647, to be chaplain to the Countess of Exeter. In 1650 he became minister of St. Martin’s Church, Ludgate, and was one of the Puritan leaders in the city. When ejected in 1662, he continued to preach in the home of the Countess, and it was there that his sermons on Roman 8 were preached. Although little is known of him it is recorded that he was “a learned man, an able divine, a serious and affectionate preacher, of unspotted morals…” He died at the age of 65.