Daily Archive

What is the New and Everlasting Covenant?

The new and everlasting covenant is the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The covenant is everlasting because it is always the same. God’s plan does not change.

The covenant is new because it has been revealed many times following periods of apostasy on the earth. Each time it is revealed it is, in effect, newly on the earth again.

All covenants between God and man are part of the new and everlasting covenant.  Many people in the LDS church mistakenly think that marriage is the new and everlasting covenant when, in reality, it is a new and an everlasting covenant. (See Doctrine and Covenants 132:4.) Covenants made at baptism, when taking the sacrament, and in the temple are also examples of individual covenants.

In a revelation received by Joseph Smith in 1831, God declared that the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the new and everlasting covenant.

–          Doctrine and Covenants 66:2 -> “Verily I say unto you, blessed are you for receiving mine everlasting covenant, even the fulness 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.”

The breaking of the everlasting covenant is apostasy.  In a revelation given to Joseph Smith in 1831, the Lord said that those who do not follow the prophet in the last days will be cut off from the Lord’s presence. “For they have strayed from mine ordinances, and have broken mine everlasting covenant.” (See Doctrine and Covenants 1:15.) In an earlier time, Isaiah prophesied that the apostasy after the death of Christ and his apostles would be because the people on the earth had “transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.”

Elder D. Todd Christofferson commented on the new and everlasting covenant in the April 2009 General Conference: “The scriptures speak of the new and everlasting covenant. The new and everlasting covenant is the gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, the doctrines and commandments of the gospel constitute the substance of an everlasting covenant between God and man that is newly restored in each dispensation. If we were to state the new and everlasting covenant in one sentence it would be this: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”