Rexburg Temple
This is a discussion based on the 2026 Come, Follow Me manual called “The Covenant” (page 55). Let’s talk about the nature of, and purpose behind covenants.
Background
I titled this article “The Plan of Salvation – Covenants”, because of the importance of covenants to the whole plan for our salvation and exaltation. First let’s make a brief mention about the nature of our agency. God does not force anyone to do anything, until a law has been violated. As the great lawgiver of the universe, any violation of His laws gets addressed immediately. What does this have to do with covenants? I’ll explain.
The use of covenants
All of us have kept our first estate, as mentioned in Abraham 3:26. This estate encompassed our time in the premortal world. We are here on earth, because we chose to follow Christ and support our Father in Heaven’s plan for our salvation and exaltation. One of the parts of that plan promised that the “heavy lifting” part of our salvation was over for most of God’s children. And one of the final steps along that path of progression is that we all need a body that can be resurrected so we can receive glory, and keeping our first estate guaranteed that we would both get a body and be resurrected. This is all thanks to Christ’s atoning sacrifice on our behalf. Even those who choose not to follow Christ in this life or the next owe him everything for that gift.
Receiving a resurrected body and gaining some glory does not mean we will be added upon forever (eternal progression). It only means we will live in a glorified body forever. It doesn’t mean we will be exalted, so our glory may be very limited in nature. The definition of being exalted is to have a place eternally in the celestial kingdom with God and Christ, with a spouse and the ability to have posterity. This is the greatest gift God can give His children.
How covenants work
Those who choose a path other than exaltation are blessed to live with varying degrees of glory elsewhere. God gives us what we desire. This is an eternal truth. Our Father never forces anything upon us that requires a choice. He waits for us to make the first move. All spiritual things in this life can only be learned through the influence of the Holy Ghost. God won’t give us the gift of the Holy Ghost’s companionship unless we first choose to obey God’s commandments and do certain things, like repent, turn to Christ, and keep the commandments, which includes getting baptized by someone holding God’s priesthood authority. Those are all choices we must make.
As an aside, it is important to remember that no covenants are needed for being blessed with a resurrected body. That privilege has already been earned when we kept our first estate (refer back to the verse I mentioned in Abraham 3). Christ’s resurrection guarantees one and all with a resurrected and glorified body. The use of covenants with God is reserved for those alone who want to become like God and have eternal glory and posterity. In the eternities only Gods are married and can have children. All else are single.
While on earth, being married is normal and expected. But we have lived an eternity or longer as single people. This earth life, for most of God’s children is our one and only chance to see what having a family of our own can be like. Some of us do really well, while some of us make a real mess of things. Along the way we should all be seeing that our agency plays a big part in what happens in our family. Some of our children choose to go a different way, no matter how hard we yearn for them to make better choices. This is what God is experiencing all the time.
God’s work and glory is to bring to pass our salvation and eternal life (exaltation). That may be His work, but for most of us it isn’t ours. Most of God’s children choose to live a different way, for whatever reason. To live away from God for eternity will still be in a state of happiness for most of us. We will have repented of our sins by the time we are sent to our kingdoms of glory, and all our mortal mistakes will have been sorted out in the Judgment. No covenants are needed for any of this to happen. Everything is already taken care of and is built into the plan for our salvation. Those who want exaltation are another matter.
For those who desire to be like God, our Father, in His mercy, has given us covenants. Covenants are designed to enable the changes needed to lead us from wherever we currently are spiritually to where we need to be to return to His presence. He supplies the covenants that can do this thing, but we must choose to make them and keep them. The responsibility for making and keeping covenants is all on us. If we really want to be where He and Christ are then we will do what is needed to get there, and that is the making and keeping of covenants.
A covenant gives permission for God to put us through personal tests of faith and endurance designed to purify our souls, enlarge our capacities, and enable a greater degree of happiness that others will never understand or experience. This is all done through the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is the reason for the gift of the Holy Ghost. He teaches us what we need to understand to think, feel, and behave in more godly ways. He is training us to become gods ourselves. This life is only the first step in the process, but it is a step we must choose to make.
Since God doesn’t force anyone to make the sacrifices needed to become like Him, He waits for us to tell Him this is what we want. The Covenants He provides open the door for the Spirit to begin His work of refining our characters and teaching us God’s ways. This whole process is a long line of revelatory experiences, since this can only be learned through revelations from the Spirit to us. This is why we must use our agency to seek it, and why we must rely so heavily on the worthiness of having the Spirit be our guide.
The covenants we make in the temples may not all seem like earth-shatteringly grand things. We promise to be chaste, to keep the commandments, etc. These are simple things, but all things required to keep us in a state where we can welcome and entertain a Celestial guest in our lives, the Holy Ghost. He is a member of the Godhead, is a God himself, and as such can’t tolerate spending time with great impurity and wickedness. This offends Him. This is the reason for the sacrament each week, to remind us why we are remembering Christ and trying to be like him all the time. We are keeping ourselves in a state of being that invites the company of the Spirit into our lives to teach us the ways of godhood. And this is why it isn’t easy being good. But we have a Celestial tutor on hand to encourage us, uplift us, bring us peace, calm our souls, and show us forms of happiness not available anywhere else. We don’t refer to the plan of salvation as the great plan of happiness for no reason.
Caveat
It is important to note here that just because most of God’s children will make choices other than to return to live with Him, the plan for our salvation, as presented by God, ensures that each and every child will have the same opportunity to be taught about the covenants and will be given the chance to accept them, turn to Christ as their Savior, and receive forgiveness for all repented sins. It doesn’t matter what time they lived on earth or where they lived. All will be given the opportunity to return home before our resurrection. This is the work we are currently engaged in.
When we do missionary work, we are not only seeking the descendants of Israel, Abraham’s grandson, to call them back into the family covenant with God, but we are also offering that covenant to all those we come into contact with. The same thing is happening on the other side of the veil. Our temple work won’t be complete until the end of the Millennium when every person to have ever lived will have had the work done for them in the temple of God, so no one can say they were at a disadvantage. The same opportunity to be baptized and receive temple ordinances is being universally presented to every child of God. Only when this is done can the work be considered complete. No one will be able to say they didn’t have the opportunity or a fair chance.
We have been saved for these last days to assist in this great work of redeeming the dead, as well as helping to redeem the living. Our numbers will always be few, until the Savior returns and the whole of humanity still alive are converted to the gospel of Christ. In Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon, Jacob refers to laborers whom God calls just before the end of His work in His vineyard. They are few in number and all are required to go to and labor with their might. We are those laborers. What a privilege to be able to help the Savior and our Father perform the work of salvation for our kindred dead and spread Christ’s gospel message throughout the world. This is our ministry, and every member of the Church is called to the same work. Till the day we we die we are all under covenant to move forward this work. And just as the prophets looked forward to eternal glory for their labors, we too have that to look forward to. This is the work of God, and as one aspiring to be like Him, it becomes our work as well.
Commitment
Covenants are not something casual in nature. To make a covenant is a life-altering decision, for which we are held accountable in the eternities. As an example, look at how God views His commitment to His covenants. He promised Abraham that if Abraham and Sarah would be faithful to the covenants he was willing to make with them, He would watch over and shepherd their descendants for the rest of eternity. Abraham lived thousands of years ago. In that time his posterity rejected God over and over again, went into bondage and exile, were made slaves for hundred of years, and finally were dispersed throughout the world for their repeated violation of their covenant with God. Yet in all this time the Lord has been preparing for the day He would reclaim them from their exile and covenantless lives.
This whole last dispensation of time before the return of Christ is all about finding and reclaiming fallen Israel. As God promised Abraham, through the scattering of his posterity, Israel’s family has mingled their bloodline with all the nations of the earth, and now the Lord is using the covenant members of the gospel to go searching for them, whether on this side of the veil or the next. The Lord promised Abraham that his posterity would bless the whole earth. This scattering is how this is coming to pass. Because they have mixed their bloodline with every nation on earth, now that God is sending us to seek them out, the blessings of the gospel are being taken to the whole earth.
Israel’s family may have abandoned God, but He is still upholding the covenant He made with Abraham, who was faithful. God is fulfilling His promise to find Abraham’s family members, as well as to offer the gospel message to all the world through those who have also made covenants with Him. Eternal life, exaltation, eternal progression is the reward for one and all who accept and keep these covenants. We must be as committed to keeping our covenants as God has been over the last multiple thousands of years to keeping His covenant with Abraham and Sarah. God always plays the long game. He never tires, never quits. He is ever faithful.
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Very interesting and thorough about covenants! I congratulate the author on his scholarship and spiritual feelings about Covenants!