Old Covenants Have I Done Away
Behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.
-thus the Lord, D&C 22:1.
I don’t fully grasp this verse. For one, there is the intriguing hint that old covenants may have had some lingering validity despite their apostasies. The way the Jewish high priest gets treated in the gospels and Acts.
Even more, what about the reference to a new covenant, which is also an everlasting covenant that has already been around. “This brand new car isn’t a billion years old. Its older than that.” Continuity is a theme around here. I suppose that sometimes continuity requires ending a failed effort and starting over again back at the basics. One might say that continual repentance is the true principle of continuity.
Filed under: Deseret Review | Tags: all things before my face, integration, LDS
William James Tychonievich
October 11, 2019
I always assumed “new and everlasting covenant” meant that the covenant had not existed before but would continue to exist forever into the future. Kind of like how “eternal marriage” doesn’t mean the couple always has been married, but that they always will be.
G.
October 11, 2019
Sensible, but note the phrase “even that which was from the beginning”
Jeremiah NTJ
October 12, 2019
What if we read it as:
Behold, all the [temporary] covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is [the renewed and] everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning.
Something of a stretch, but maybe sort of a Law of Moses -> Law of Christ kind of transition?
Ugly Mahana
October 12, 2019
It is God’s covenant. He is both new and everlasting. Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. The Father and the Son.
God, who is eternal, makes all things new.
Adam has the full gospel covenant.
Ugly Mahana
October 12, 2019
Adam had the full gospel covenant. But it had to be renewed with Joseph.
And, indeed, it must be renewed with each of us, even if we receive it (at least in part) from mortal rather than angelic, representatives.
Vader
October 12, 2019
I have always understood the phrase to mean the covenant is new to every generation to which it is revealed; but it is the same everlasting covenant that was from the beginning.
I believe this was Bruce R. McConkie’s interpretation. I disagreeed with Elder McConkie on a number of issues, but this is one where I think he was right.
Jared
October 12, 2019
There’s some of the 3rd Nephi phenomenon in this verse, where people were teaching that you still need to obey the law of Moses, and the prophets were trying to get them to understand that it was a ‘new’ covenant.
Kind of like the D&C section that says you can be baptized a hundred times without the right authority and it availeth nothing. So I think this is a good scripture to show that the Lord is restoring rather than just creating something new.