Theological term
Lovingkindness
3 sermons · All terms
The Holy Confidence
Jeremiah 9:23–24 confronts the hollow complacency of boasting in wisdom, might, and riches — the carnal securities that cannot avert the certain judgment of God — and calls God's people instead to a holy confidence whose sole ground is the knowledge of the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness. The sermon traces a threefold structure: the folly of earthly boasting illustrated from Scripture and the case of Nebuchadnezzar, the necessity of glorying in God alone as the antidote to every false confidence, and the hallowed contemplations — lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness — that are to fill the believing mind. The Christward trajectory of the passage is pressed home: Christ secures the lovingkindness, bears the judgment, and provides the righteousness that alone avails before God, so that the promise 'believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved' is as certain as every judgment God has already executed.
The Vainglorious Quest, The Virtuous Path, and The Veracious Contemplation
Jeremiah 9:23–24 issues a threefold structure: a prohibitive warning against glorying in wisdom, might, or riches; a prescriptive call to glory in the understanding and knowledge of God; and a veracious contemplation of who God is and what He does. The sermon situates these commands within their covenantal context — the inevitable Babylonian judgment upon covenant-breaking Israel under the curses of Deuteronomy 28 — demonstrating that wisdom, strength, and riches will not avail in the face of irreversible divine justice. True glorying is exclusively God's due, and the knowledge of the one living and true God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is the only wisdom, strength, and riches that profit eternally. Hearers are called to cast off vainglory, grow earnestly in the knowledge of God, and trust in Christ alone, in whom are found all true wisdom, strength, and riches.
Vain Glory, True Glory, and the Glory of the Cross
Jeremiah 9:23–24 sets a divine exhortation against three forms of vainglory — glorying in wisdom, might, and riches — within a context of covenant judgment falling on Judah at the approach of Babylon. The sermon works through each prohibition in turn, applies them to contemporary forms of self-trust (including a proud Calvinism), and then unfolds the threefold character of the God in whom alone glory is rightly placed: his lovingkindness, his judgment, and his righteousness. All three divine perfections converge at the cross of Christ, where loving-kindness, penal judgment, and righteousness are displayed together, so that any legitimate boasting must finally be a boasting in the crucified and risen Redeemer.