Faith in Christ, Faithful to Our Covenants

In my reading of the Old Testament, I've been occasionally turning to a newer translation of the Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter. Recently in Deuteronomy 29 I read, “You are … here today … for you to pass into the Covenant of the Lord your God and into His oath that the Lord your God is to seal with you today, in order to raise you up for Him today as a people, and He will be for you a God.” I was interested in this phrasing "pass into a Covenant" and so I looked at the note of the translator to understand why he translated it this way. He explains that it is a "relatively rare verb for concluding a covenant … reflecting an early practice in which a covenant was sealed by cutting animals in two and … having the two parties pass between the cut parts." Then he referenced Genesis 15 in which Abraham wonders how he knows that the Lord's promises of seed as numerous as the stars above and a promised land for their inheritance would be fulfilled. The Lord instructs Abraham to take a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram, cutting each animal in half and placing the two sides apart from each other. That night a "smoking brazier and a flaming torch passed between those parts” by which “the Lord made a covenant with Abraham."

Another note explained more: "Covenants in the which the two parties step between cloven animal parts are attested in various places in the ancient Near East …. The idea is that if either party violates the covenant, his fate will be like that of the cloven animals. The Hebrew idiom karat berit, literally ‘to cut a covenant,’ may derive from this legal ritual.” The Lord passed into a covenant or "cut a covenant" with Abraham as assurance that the Lord would certainly fulfill His part of the agreement. This imagery and symbolism made two truths clear to me. First, we can have complete trust and faith that God will fulfill the promises made in His covenants to us. And second, our covenants are serious matters with significant consequences for breaking them but even greater blessings for keeping them.

Jesus Christ: The Mediator of Our Covenants

The plan of happiness was for us to receive a fulness of joy made possible by receiving and mastering a body like our Father in Heaven. But the Fall of Man brought about by Adam and Eve and perpetuated by our sins created a chasm between humankind and God that was too deep. Having fallen, we could no longer hope to live again with our Father in Heaven let alone become like Him. The gap was irreconcilable, leaving us, irredeemable.

But there was a way prepared for an outcome such as this. If Jehovah, the Only Begotten Son of Elohim in the flesh, taking on Him the consequences for sin and death so that the law could be satisfied, then our door of opportunity to fulfill the plan of our Father would again be opened. Christ’s atoning sacrifice ensured that the universal consequences of the Fall were overcome. However, the purpose of becoming like our Father in Heaven could not be obtained by the Atonement alone. God wants to give and offers us all that He has. While Christ suffered the individual consequences of our sins, we still need to act with agency to follow His example in order to learn, line upon line, to abide by our Father’s celestial law. Eternal life, or exaltation, has always been part of the plan.

Therefore God "passes into a covenant" with us, promising blessings on condition we “look to the great Mediator [who is His Beloved Son], and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life” (2 Nephi 2:28). And so, Jesus Christ mediates and facilitates the conditions of these covenants as God sets them forth, in these ways:

1. First by opening the door for us, and leading us to approach the Father again;
2. Second, by redeeming us from the consequences of the Fall, overcoming death and paying in full the price of our sins;
3. Third, by modeling the way in which we can become like Him so we can follow His example to receive God’s power and glory.

Like Enos after his prayer, our souls should rest knowing that it will be according to the covenant God has made with us as mediated by His Son, who He Himself sent.

Conference Teachings on Covenants

The last general conference was full of pleading to stay on the covenant path and the importance and urgency of complete commitment to our covenants right now.

Speaking about the challenges ahead, President Eyring said:

Anyone with eyes to see the signs of the times and ears to hear the words of prophets knows that [perilous times have come]. The perils of greatest danger come to us from the forces of wickedness. Those forces are increasing. And so it will become more difficult, not easier, to honor the covenants we must make and keep to live the gospel of Jesus Christ.

President Nelson's very first suggestion to build spiritual momentum was for us to get on the covenant path and stay there. He said: “Ordinances and covenants give us access to godly power. The covenant path is the only path that leads to exaltation and eternal life.” He included temple worship as a way to build positive spiritual momentum and pleaded with us to “counter worldly ways by focusing on the eternal blessings of the temple.”

Sister Craven explained how these suggestions build the spiritual momentum we need to generate:

The more we do to stay firmly on the covenant path, the more our faith in Jesus Christ will grow. The more our faith grows, the more we will desire to repent. And the more we repent, the more we will strengthen our covenant relationship with God …  [which] draws us to the temple because keeping temple covenants is how we endure to the end.

And Sister Bingham expounded on what is at stake:

There is nothing more important to our eternal progress than keeping our covenants with God. When our temple covenants are in force, we can trust in a joyful reunion with loved ones on the other side of the veil. … If we disregard or treat lightly our covenants with God, we are putting those eternal ties in danger. Now is the time to repent, repair, and try again. Happiness is hollow if we exchange the blessings of eternal joy for momentary ease. … The key to lasting happiness is living the gospel of Jesus Christ and keeping our covenants.

Keeping Covenants with All Our Hearts

Faithfully keeping our covenants with God necessarily separates us from the world, as is commanded us in the Book of Mormon: “All you that are desirous to follow the voice of the good shepherd, come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things …” (Alma 5:57). Yet those same covenants obligate us to reach out in love to all of God's children and invite them to experience the same blessings we enjoy through our covenants.

The two great commandments encapsulate all of our obligations. When we have hearts that truly love and trust God more than even ourselves, we have the will to obey all the commandments, to sacrifice, to abide in the good news of the gospel, to live the law of chastity, and finally to consecrate all we have and are to His purposes. By the power of the Holy Ghost we see others as He does and we strive to love and serve His children, including inviting them to join us on the path.

As evidenced by the imagery of the cloven animals in "cutting or passing into a covenant," and our absolute assurance that God will fulfill His promises, our covenant isn’t one of partial commitment or one where we only need follow Him when it is convenient. Our covenant requires an offering of our whole souls. All our heart might mind and strength, our time, talents, possessions, are to be offered to the cause of the Lord.

In Hmong, the idiom used to translate this idea is kawg siab, kawg ntsws, kawg plab, kawg plawv literally meaning with all of your "liver, lungs, stomach, and heart" essentially, all the vital organs inside you. Which part of us are we holding back from the Lord? Which commandments are we choosing to ignore? What treasure corrupted by moths and rust are we setting our hearts on in place of our Savior? What mess of pottage do we think is so satisfying that we are willing to give up our birthright to receive all that the Father hath? We are "eternally indebted to [our] heavenly Father to render to him all that [we] have and are." We cut ourselves off from His blessings when we withhold parts of ourselves.

Turn and Return to Our Covenants

I suspect many of you feel like I do that you are fully aware of what you lack, desiring to fulfill your part of the covenant, but feeling constantly like you are falling short. This is the why daily repentance is necessary as we turn to the Lord and pass into the strait and narrow covenant path. Those that find joy in their covenants don’t do so because they are perfect. On the contrary they know they are not. But they know and trust the Mediator who has power to overcome their weaknesses and turn them into strengths, again and again until they will one day be perfected.

If you feel that what you have inside is not of value or worth, or even if you feel empty, please know that this is not true. God sent His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as evidence that He not only values you, but wants you to have all of the blessings of the covenants that Christ mediates for you. As payment, the Savior only asks you to turn to Him and offer your broken hearts, your poor contrite spirits. When you believe in the Good Shepherd and repent, your sins can be washed away and He can make you whole. Bring all that which you feel is broken or irreparable to His feet. None are forbidden from the one who “keepest covenant and mercy” if we will “walk before [Him] with all [our] heart[s]” (1 Kings 8:23).

In Deuteronomy 4, Moses prophesied that if the children of Israel corrupted themselves and worshipped other gods, turning aside to "vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver" (1 Samuel 12: 21), they would be scattered among the nations. Yet this promise follows (Deuteronomy 4:29-31), saying:

But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God [with all thy heart and with all thy soul], thou shalt find him. When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice; He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them; (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God.)

Joy and Blessings of Covenants

The joy and blessings of our covenant-keeping are easy to dismiss when we are not mindful of them in our daily lives. Ignorance may temporarily be bliss, but someday regret will be the cause of some of our greatest pain. Thankfully Christ mediates yet again. If we will only re-turn to Him, then He promises we will be joint-heirs of all that God has. Regret for our past need not have power over us when we offer Him all that we have and are now and in the future.

We often forget that God's covenants with us are a sign of His love that come with blessings that far outweigh the consequences of not keeping them. “He loveth those who will have him to be their God. Behold, he loved our fathers, and he covenanted with them” (1 Nephi 17:40).

Just a few blessings of His love that we gain by keeping our covenants.

1. These are now the latter-days in which the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are being fulfilled. The opportunity for us to participate in what has been prophesied for ages should excite and motivate us.

2. We will have protection and power. As Nephi says:

   He will preserve the righteous by his power, … wherefore, the righteous need not fear; … they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire.” He saw in vision that “the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; … were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory.

3. An enormous blessing is the opportunity to participate in the work of salvation and exaltation. Because of our covenants we are taught by God and learn to stretch beyond what we may be capable on our own. We have the privilege of bearing one another's burdens as our hearts, and theirs, are changed and filled with the pure love of Christ. In paradise of the spirit world we can continue the work of preaching His gospel.

4. If I had time I would read to you Deuteronomy chapter 8 in its entirety for encapsulating so well the blessings of keeping our covenants and the consequences for breaking them. But this small portion reminds me of, one, the great blessings that we now enjoy in our temporal circumstances here in this place, for which we should be grateful and use for the Lord's purposes, and two, a description, in spirit, of what I imagine the promised land of the celestial kingdom will be like (Deuteronomy 8:7-9).

   The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness …

Testimony

Brothers and sisters, these are just a few of the promised blessings of keeping our covenants. Like Nephi, “my soul delighteth in the covenants of the Lord which he hath made to our fathers; yea, my soul delighteth in his grace, and in his justice, and power, and mercy in the great and eternal plan of deliverance from death.”

I reissue the challenge to determine how you are not fully living your covenants you have made and seek to repent. Read the Book of Mormon and live its teachings to keep this important covenant. Prepare yourselves to attend the temple in August together in whatever way you need. For some it may be to attend regularly between now and then. For others it may mean seeking to have a temple recommend. I promise these challenges will help change your hearts to want to give your all to God, and look to the great Mediator of your covenants to help you. I love you brothers and sisters. Jesus Christ lives and this is His church. I know this to be true in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.