In spite of the fact that temple covenants were restored through the prophet Joseph Smith as an integral part of the restored gospel, Latter-day Saints know little of their true nature and how they fit into the larger scheme of God’s covenants with his people. As covenant relationships provide the only context in which God relates to his people, and as no covenant God makes is temporary, one would assume that covenant theology would constitute a central part of LDS teaching.
Instead, exhortations to “follow the covenant path”—without an accompanying explanation of what that involves—seem to assume everyone knows what it means. The covenant of baptism and temple covenants may come to mind, but beyond those little is spoken of definitively. Not only that, key parts of covenants have been removed or modified—as if covenants can be manipulated or made politically correct and are not in themselves eternal and unchangeable.
Did not Isaiah say of God’s end-time people, “They have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, set at naught the everlasting covenant” (Isaiah 24:5). From the beginning, for example, the Bible’s covenant theology has been central to understanding the nature of temporal as well as spiritual saving roles. Old Testament covenants reappear in the Book of Mormon, but only a knowledge of the nature of these covenants brings them to light or they remain obscure.
Chief among these is the Davidic Covenant and its operating principle of proxy salvation through which a king obtains God’s deliverance of his people from a mortal threat. The Book of Mormon thus correctly identifies a king’s role as “a protector . . . on whom ye depend for safety” (2 Nephi 6:2). This kingship follows the Davidic Covenant’s pattern of proxy salvation, in which the king keeps God’s law and the people keep the king’s law in order to obtain God’s protection.
And yet, Book of Mormon prophecies of God’s end-time fulfillment of his covenants with the house of Israel that are grounded in the prophecies of Isaiah have been in full view all this time. Don’t we emulate the great and abominable church when we too take away many plain and precious parts that deal explicitly with God’s covenants? Aren’t we then also making people beholden to the church more than to God, who is asking us to be saviors in our own right?
Shouldn’t the idea that “inasmuch as they are not the saviors of men, they are as salt that has lost its savor, and is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men” (Doctrine & Covenants 103:10) awaken our sensibilities sufficiently to want to understand God’s ancient covenants that still operate to this day? And if God expects the Ephraimite Gentiles to fulfill this end-time savior role toward the house of Israel, should we just let it pass?
