The Abrahamic Covenant in Its Fulness

Imagine for a moment that the Lord has something He wants to tell His people—something ancient, sacred, and far greater than what they presently understand. He has not forgotten it, nor has He abandoned the promise. He has spoken of it through prophets, preserved references to it in scripture, given portions of it from generation to generation, and continually pointed His people toward a day when He would reveal more. Yet there are things He still does not explain, not because there is nothing more to say, but because His people will not believe Him.

That is the situation the Lord describes in Ether 4. He turns to the Gentiles and invites them to come unto Him so that He may show them the greater things that have remained hidden:

“Come unto me, O ye Gentiles, and I will show unto you the greater things, the knowledge which is hid up because of unbelief.”

— Ether 4:13

Those words ought to arrest our attention. The knowledge exists. Greater things remain. The problem is not God's unwillingness to reveal them but the unbelief of the people who would receive them.

What if heaven has not been silent because everything has already been explained? What if some things have remained hidden because the Lord knows His people would reject them before they ever allowed Him to teach them? The Savior asked essentially that question during His mortal ministry:

“If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?”

— John 3:12

God cannot explain eternal seed to a people who have already decided that seed can mean nothing beyond mortal posterity. He cannot explain eternal inheritance to those who hear inheritance and think only of property. He cannot reveal the order of His eternal household to those who have already determined what relationships He could or could not establish. If everything God says must first fit comfortably inside the world we already understand, then how could He ever teach us the things of heaven?

The Book of Mormon shows what happens when unbelief takes root. In the days of Mosiah, a generation arose who would not believe the words that had been taught concerning Christ and the resurrection. Mormon records the consequence plainly:

“And now because of their unbelief they could not understand the word of God; and their hearts were hardened.”

— Mosiah 26:3

The order matters. They did not first fail to understand and therefore cease believing. Their unwillingness to believe prevented understanding, and the heart hardened afterward. Unbelief itself became the veil.

A person can therefore be surrounded by the words of God and still fail to understand what He is saying. They may know the vocabulary of scripture and speak comfortably of Israel, Abraham, priesthood, seed, inheritance, gathering, and promises made to the fathers while never stopping to ask what those promises actually mean. One phrase in particular has been repeated through generations of believers so often that familiarity can disguise how little it is understood: the Abrahamic Covenant.

What did God actually promise Abraham? Why does the Lord continue returning to that covenant thousands of years after Abraham's death? Why do prophets speak repeatedly of the day when God will remember the covenant made unto the fathers? Why does the gathering of Israel depend upon it? Why should someone who is not biologically descended from Abraham desire to be numbered among his seed, and why does Paul teach that those who belong to Christ become Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise? The obvious question follows: heirs to what?

Surely the whole prophetic expectation cannot be reduced to Abraham having many mortal descendants or one family possessing a particular piece of land. Those promises were real. Abraham was promised seed, inheritance, priesthood blessing, and a place through which all families of the earth would be blessed. Yet mortal descendants die, earthly governments pass away, lands change possession, and generations disappear into the grave. Still the Lord speaks of Abraham's promises as something that continues, something He will remember in the last days, and something that reaches into eternity.

Doctrine and Covenants 132 opens that question even further. Joseph Smith had inquired concerning Abraham and the ancient patriarchs, and the Lord responded by revealing the New and Everlasting Covenant, eternal marriage, sealing, exaltation, and the continuation of lives. In the midst of that revelation He declared:

“I am the Lord thy God, and will give unto thee the law of my Holy Priesthood.”

“Abraham received promises concerning his seed, and of the fruit of his loins—from whose loins ye are, namely, my servant Joseph—which were to continue so long as they were in the world; and as touching Abraham and his seed, out of the world they should continue; both in the world and out of the world should they continue as innumerable as the stars...”

“Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham; enter ye into my law and ye shall be saved.”

— Doctrine and Covenants 132:28–32

Why does a revelation about eternal marriage, priesthood law, sealing, exaltation, and continuing seed turn so deliberately toward Abraham? The Lord has not changed the subject. He is explaining the covenant.

The Abrahamic Covenant was never merely God's promise to make one ancient man prosperous. Seed was pointing toward more than mortality. Inheritance was pointing toward more than land. Priesthood was pointing toward more than ecclesiastical office. Israel was pointing toward more than ethnicity. The promise that all families of the earth would be blessed was pointing toward a work larger than one nation exerting righteous influence upon another.

God was promising a covenant family gathered under Jesus Christ: a people who would receive His law, His priesthood order, His inheritance, and the continuation He has promised to His heirs. The Kingdom of Zion and the covenant family the Lord is gathering are therefore not later ideas attached to Abraham's covenant. They are the covenant coming toward its fulness.

This is why Israel must be gathered. It is why the Lord speaks of remembering the promises made unto the fathers. It is why greater things were sealed and why unbelief matters so much. God has not merely been asking His people whether they can repeat the promises He made to Abraham. He has been asking whether they will believe Him when He finally explains what those promises mean.

The Lord has been speaking of this covenant for thousands of years. The question now is whether His people are finally willing to listen.