Temple, Abrahamic Covenant, and You

By Hollie Wells

You have probably heard the phrase Abrahamic Covenant, especially recently with the content of our Come, Follow Me study. This is a term we use and hear frequently in the church. As I was studying, I was contemplating whether I really understood what that term meant. What I found was wholly temple-related and relevant to every and any Latter-Day Saint that makes and keeps temple covenants. 

The Abrahamic Covenant encapsulates something we call the New and Everlasting Covenant, which is the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ including all of the ordinances necessary for salvation, as well as a few specific additional blessings. The Abrahamic Covenant is entered into by baptism. In temples today, we are providing baptism to hundreds and thousands of people who have died without the opportunity, thus gathering people into the Abrahamic Covenant. 

Abraham fully lived up to his end of his covenant. There are numerous times Abraham is referred to in the scriptures as faithful. His faithfulness was proved by his consistent obedience and willingness to sacrifice: two of the laws we ourselves commit to keep in the endowment. Additionally, the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is something we hear explicitly in the sealing ordinance as something that we can inherit if we are faithful to that covenant we make. 

Abraham and Sarah are regarded by many religions as faithful characters who should be exemplified, and we revere and remember them as our spiritual ancestors when we make covenants with God, starting with baptism and culminating in the sealing between husband and wife. These Old Testament characters made covenants with God that greatly blessed them in their lives by providing a closer relationship with God and ultimately a son through a miraculous birth. However, they were promised much more than this. They were promised that they would have posterity as numerous as the stars, but only had one son before Sarah died, and they were told they would inherit a promised land which they never reached. 

Thousands of years in the future, it is you covenant making and keeping Latter-Day Saints who are the fulfillment of the promises God made to Abraham: that he would have numerous seed, a righteous posterity that would bless the world, and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ would be had and taught among them and the rest of the world. You are living proof that God keeps His promises, even if the timing runs far beyond our mortal lives. That is comforting as we try to walk our own covenant path, assurance that God’s end of the promise will always be fulfilled as we are faithful.