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The Latter-day Saints are a covenant people. From the day of baptism through the spiritual milestones of our lives, we make promises with God and He makes promises with us. He always keeps His promises offered through His authorized servants, but it is the crucial test of our lives to see if we will make and keep our covenants with Him. . . .
The fruit of keeping covenants is the companionship of the Holy Ghost and an increase in the power to love. That happens because of the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ to change our very natures. We are eyewitnesses of that miracle of greater spiritual power coming to those who accept covenants and keep commandments. . . .
Each of us who have made covenants with God face challenges unique to us. But each of us shares some common assurances. Our Heavenly Father knows us and our circumstances and even what faces us in the future. His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior, has suffered and paid for our sins and those of all the people we will ever meet. He has perfect understanding of the feelings, the suffering, the trials, and the needs of every individual. Because of that, a way will be prepared for us to keep our covenants, however difficult that may now appear, if we go forward in faith. Henry B. Eyring, "Witnesses for God," General Conference, October 1996; Ensign, November 1996, pgs. 30-33
The following is taken from We Believe, compiled by Rulon T. Burton
108. God's people are a covenant making people.
Marion G. Romney
Traditionally, God's people have been known as a covenant people. The gospel itself is the new and everlasting covenant. The posterity of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob is the covenant race. We come into the Church by covenant, which we enter into when we go into the waters of baptism. The new and everlasting covenant of celestial marriage is the gate to exaltation in the celestial kingdom. Men receive the Melchizedek Priesthood by an oath and covenant. CR1962Apr:17
John A. Widtsoe
Everyone who receives an ordinance must make a covenant, else the ordinance is not fully satisfactory. He who is baptized covenants to keep the law of the Church; he who is administered to for sickness, and the administrators, covenant to use their faith to secure the desired healings; he who receives the temple endowment covenants to use in his life that which he has been taught; he who is ordained to the priesthood agrees to honor it, and so on with every ordinance.
That places covenants high, as they should be. Knowledge of itself has little saving power. Only as it is used does knowledge become of value. The man who learns and promises to use that knowledge is of value to society. ("What Is the Need of Ordinances?" IE1948Feb:97) TLDP:117-18
President Brigham Young
All Latter-day Saints enter the new and everlasting covenant when they enter this Church. They covenant to cease sustaining, upholding and cherishing the kingdom of the devil and the kingdoms of this world. They enter into the new and everlasting covenant to sustain the Kingdom of God and no other kingdom. They take a vow of the most solemn kind, before the heavens and earth, and that, too, upon the validity of their own salvation, that they will sustain truth and righteousness instead of wickedness and falsehood, and build up the Kingdom of God, instead of the kingdoms of this world. (At Bountiful, Utah, May 17, 1868, JD12:230) TLDP:118
Related Witnesses:
Marion G. Romney
A covenant is an agreement between two or more parties. An oath is a sworn attestation to the inviolability of the promises in the agreement. In the covenant of the priesthood the parties are the Father and the receiver of the priesthood. Each party to the covenant undertakes certain obligations. The receiver undertakes to magnify his calling in the priesthood. The Father, by oath and covenant, promises the receiver that if he does so magnify his priesthood he will be sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of his body; (see D&C 84:33) that he will become a member of ". . . the church and kingdom, and the elect of God," (Ibid., 84:34) and receive the ". . . Father's kingdom; therefore," said the Savior, "all that my Father hath shall be given unto him." (Ibid., 84:38) CR1962Apr:17
Joseph Smith
All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity . . . are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead. (Revelation relating to the new and everlasting covenant, July 12, 1843, [1831]) D&C 132:7
Delbert L. Stapley
The Holy Priesthood is accepted by an oath and covenant and is binding upon those who receive it. They obligate themselves to keep faithfully all the commandments of God and to magnify their callings by honoring and exercising the priesthood in righteousness for the benefit and blessing of mankind. CR1959Apr:109
Author's Note: Ordinances are covenants, writes Joseph Fielding Smith: "Each ordinance and requirement given to man for the purpose of bringing to pass his salvation and exaltation is a covenant. Baptism for the remission of sins is a covenantÂ….
"Keeping the Sabbath day holy is a covenant. . . . All of the Ten Commandments are everlasting covenants. The law of tithing is a form of an everlasting covenant . . . although some day we shall be given a higher form of this law known as consecration.
"Marriage is an everlasting covenant, but not as some believe, the new and everlasting covenant." (Church News, May 6, 1939; Doctrines of Salvation, 1:152-53)
. . .
113. We are to keep the sacred covenants we have made with God if we are to merit entrance into the celestial kingdom.Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
The fate of the covenant breaker was most severe. "And the soul that sins against this covenant, and hardeneth his heart against it, shall be dealt with according to the laws of my church, and shall be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan until the day of redemption." The breaking of any covenant that our Father in heaven makes with us, is a dreadful thing. We make a covenant in the waters of baptism. Many have broken it, and hence lose the promised blessings. All through our lives we are called to enter into covenants and many members of the Church seemingly fail to realize the seriousness of a violation or to understand that punishment must inevitably follow. Solemn covenants are taken by members of the Church in the Temples. These covenants are to prepare us for an exaltation. Yet there are many who receive them who utterly fail to heed them, but presumably, they think the Lord has a short memory, or that he is so extremely merciful that he will break his promises and the punishment mentioned for the violation will not be inflicted. In this manner many deceive themselves. CHMR1:322-23
Delbert L. Stapley
Perhaps we should define the meaning and significance of a covenant. In a spiritual application a covenant is a solemn, binding compact between God and man whereby man agrees to keep God's commandments and serve him in righteousness and in truth unto the end. The gospel covenants and obligations bind Church members to obedience to laws and principles given of God which lead to happiness, love, and eternal joy. A covenant then is an agreement which includes obligations and is given as a principle with promise of blessings for obedience. . . .
Perhaps in Church assemblies today we do not stress sufficiently the importance of gospel covenants and the Saints' obligation to them. It is our duty to learn and understand the sacred and binding nature of the covenants we accept at baptism and the covenants and obligations associated with all other ordinances of the gospel found along that narrow path which leads to life eternal. CR1959Apr:107-08
Joseph Smith,
receiving the Word of the Lord
For if ye will not abide in my covenant ye are not worthy of me. (Revelation received Aug. 6, 1833, in consequence of the persecution of the Saints) D&C 98:15
Joseph Smith,
receiving the Word of the Lord
I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise. D&C 82:10
Joseph Smith,
receiving the Word of the Lord
The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which shall not be forgiven in the world nor out of the world, is in that ye commit murder wherein ye shed innocent blood, and assent unto my death, after ye have received my new and everlasting covenant, saith the Lord God; and he that abideth not this law can in nowise enter into my glory, but shall be damned, saith the Lord. (Revelation relating to the new and everlasting covenant, July 12, 1843 [1831]; law given relative to blasphemy against the Holy Ghost) D&C 132:27
Related Witnesses:
John A. Widtsoe
Everyone who receives an ordinance must make a covenant, else the ordinance is not fully satisfactory. He who is baptized covenants to keep the law of the Church; he who is administered to for sickness, and the administrators, covenant to use their faith to secure the desired healings; he who receives the temple endowment covenants to use in his life that which he has been taught; he who is ordained to the priesthood agrees to honor it, and so on with every ordinance.
That places covenants high, as they should be. Knowledge of itself has little saving power. Only as it is used does knowledge become of value. The man who learns and promises to use that knowledge is of value to society. ("What Is the Need of Ordinances?" IE1948Feb:97) TLDP:117-18
Recorded in Ecclesiastes
When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
5. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. (Reflections of a son of David the king) Eccl.5:4-5
HYMNS Written by Prophets
Applicable to this Topic
Parley P. Pratt
Father in Heaven, We Do Believe
HYMNS:180
Father in Heav'n, we do believe
The promise thou hast made;
Thy word with meekness we receive,
Just as thy Saints have said.
We now repent of all our sin
And come with broken heart,
And to thy covenant enter in
And choose the better part.
O Lord, accept us while we pray,
And all our sins forgive;
New life impart to us this day,
And bid the sinners live.
Humbly we take the sacrament
In Jesus' blessed name;
Let us receive thru covenant
The Spirit's heav'nly flame.
We will be buried in the stream
In Jesus' blessed name,
And rise, while light shall on us beam
The Spirit's heav'nly flame.
Baptize us with the Holy Ghost
And seal us as thine own,
That we may join the ransomed host
And with the Saints be one.
