Covenant, Everlasting
The covenant established by the Lord with Adam; it was renewed with each of the Fathers and reintroduced to Abraham for his posterity after an apostasy. It has again been renewed in the last days as an integral part of the latter-day Restoration that began with Joseph Smith. Joseph’s work was intended to bring back the very religion of the first man. This was to be more than merely a church; this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning (JSH 18:8).1 “The new and everlasting covenant in our day is ‘new’ only as a consequence of it having been restored to our attention recently. What is going to happen in our day was predicted and promised as a consequence of Adam.”2 Modern revelation tells us: And for this cause — that men might be made partakers of the glories which were to be revealed — the Lord sent forth the fullness of his gospel and his everlasting covenant, reasoning in plainness and simplicity to prepare the weak for those things which are coming upon the earth (T&C 58:7). Blessed are you for receiving my everlasting covenant, even the fullness of my gospel sent forth unto the children of men, that they might have life and be made partakers of the glories which are to be revealed in the last days as it was written by the prophets and apostles in days of old (T&C 52:1).
The Lord affirms that the everlasting covenant is the means by which His people are gathered. The fullness of my gospel which I have sent forth in these last days, [is] the covenant which I have sent forth to recover my people which are of the House of Israel (T&C 23:3). And even so, I have sent my everlasting covenant unto the world, to be a light to the world and to be a standard for my people, and for the gentiles to seek to it, and to be a messenger before my face to prepare the way before me (T&C 31:3). Joseph Smith also referred to the sealing authority in connection with the Second Coming of Christ and the everlasting covenant: “Four destroying angels holding power over the four quarters of the earth until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads, which signifies sealing the blessing upon their heads, meaning the everlasting covenant, thereby making their calling and election sure” (TPJS, 321). The everlasting covenant to bring Zion that was originally promised to Adam and later to Enoch was made again by God with Noah. The covenant requires some generation at the end to rise up and vindicate it.3And the bow shall be in the cloud. And I will look upon it that I may remember the everlasting covenant which I made unto your father Enoch: that when men should keep all my commandments, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch which I have caught up unto myself. And this is my everlasting covenant that I establish with you: that when your posterity shall embrace the truth and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shall shake with gladness and the earth shall tremble with joy. And the general assembly of the church of the Firstborn shall come down out of Heaven and possess the earth, and shall have place until the end come. And this is my everlasting covenant which I made with your father Enoch (Genesis 5:22). As of September 3, 2017, a covenant to reconnect again as a people with the Lord and the Fathers has been offered again to mankind (see T&C 156, 157, 158). Eventually a temple will be built in which the remaining steps to fully recover the original religion will occur.
1 “More Ancient Than the New Testament,” Feb. 26, 2012, blog post.
2 40 Years in Mormonism Lecture 4, “Covenants,” 14.
3 40 Years in Mormonism Lecture 6, “Zion,” 19–20.