“The Covenant Which the Father Made with Your Fathers”

Joseph F. McConkie, Robert L. Millet

The gospel covenant, the new and everlasting covenant, has been in existence from the days of Adam. Its rights and privileges and responsibilities continued from Adam through the antediluvian patriarchs-Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah.

From Noah the blessings of the gospel continued-albeit through periods of apostasy and restoration-through ten generations until the days of Abraham. God renewed his covenant, the gospel covenant, with Abraham.

Because Abraham was a restorer; because he was a dispensation head; because more scriptural information regarding the terms and conditions of the covenant are given in God’s dealings with Abraham than elsewhere in holy writ; and because Abraham received the covenant and lived worthy of its consummate privileges, even exaltation and godhood-because of these things we have come to call the covenant which God makes with his people the Abrahamic covenant.

In that covenant God promises Abraham four things:

  1. The gospel
  2. The priesthood and its ministry;
  3. Eternal life and the continuation of the family unit; and
  4. A land inheritance (see Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 13:14-17; Genesis 15:1-5; JST, Genesis 17:1-2; Abraham 2:8-11).

Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 4

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