1. There are three important Gospel Covenants:
a. The original covenant of Justice: Keep every commandment and inherit. Abraham 3:25 This is a covenant of justice.
b. The New and Everlasting Covenant: Repent of all sinning and learn to keep every commandment and then inherit. This is a covenant of mercy, which mercy enables a sinner finally to keep the original covenant. Mercy cannot rob justice.
c. The Covenant of Abraham: This is Abraham’s personal version of the New and Everlasting Covenant with four additions that pertain to time only:
- 1) His posterity will be a great nation.
- 2) His posterity will be charged to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ (The New and Everlasting Covenant) to all other nations.
- 3) Everyone who accepts the Gospel of Jesus Christ (and partakes of the New and Everlasting Covenant) will be counted as Abraham’s posterity if they were not already literally so.
- 4) God will bless all who bless Abraham, and curse all who curse him. (Abraham 2:9–11)
2. The New and Everlasting Covenant is the means of obtaining forgiveness of sins so that we may then try to fulfill the original covenant. It gives us the supernatural powers necessary to fulfill the original covenant.
When the New and Everlasting Covenant is kept (and only when it is fully kept), it is:
- a. A bestowal of knowledge and wisdom.
- b. A bestowal of righteousness (a pure heart).
- c. A bestowal of the promise of eternal increase.
- d. A bestowal of an increase in priesthood power.
Only those who completely repent of all sinning while in their probation can fully inherit.
Anyone who wills not to repent completely is damned to the degree that they refuse to repent.
(The New and Everlasting Covenant makes it possible to repent of every and all sinning.)
3. The most important sentence in all of scripture: “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all of thy heart, with all thy might, mind and strength: and in the name of Jesus Christ shalt thou serve him.” (D&C 59:5)
The second most important scripture: “Thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son for evermore.” (Moses 5:8)
The keys to fulfilling the New and Everlasting Covenant.
Consciously do everything we do as a priesthood act, in the name of Jesus Christ, by:
- a. Being obedient to Christ, even unto the ultimate sacrifice. (Heart)
- b. Putting our full trust in Jesus Christ. (Mind)
- c. Being chaste, uniting only with our husband or wife in the covenant. (Strength)
- d. Use all we have and control to build Zion and establish His Righteousness. (Might)
4. Conclusions:
- The centerpiece and jewel of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in any dispensation is the New and Everlasting Covenant.
- The endowment in the temple is the key to human fulfilling of the New and Everlasting Covenant.
- The most important covenant is the original covenant. The New and Everlasting Covenant is the bridge that makes it possible even to try to keep the original covenant.
- When we come to the point where we will no longer to sin, and do no longer sin, we will be fulfilling the New and Everlasting Covenant.
- If we then, no longer sinning, endure in faith in Christ unto the end of our probation, we will also fulfill the original covenant and can and will enter into exaltation.