Blessings of the Fathers - Abrahamic Covenant

In the video clip I shared yesterday, as well as in several recent posts, I have talked a lot about covenants.  Covenants are sacred contracts: promises between God and one or more of His children.  Covenants are sacred and should not be entered into lightly.  It is not a good idea to enter into a covenantal relationship with God having the idea that you'll give it a try and if you don't like it, you'll walk away, for God will not be mocked.

Today, I'd like to talk specifically about what we call the Abrahamic Covenant. According to www.lds.org, Abraham made covenants with God when he received the gospel, when he was ordained a high priest, and when he entered into celestial marriage. In these covenants, God promised great blessings to Abraham and his family. These blessings, which extend to all of Abraham's seed, are called the Abrahamic covenant 

There are three promises God makes to Abraham, and these include 1) land; 2) seed (posterity); and 3) priesthood.

1) For Abraham himself, the land was designated in what we now call the Middle East.  However, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Promised Land of the covenant can apply to different places for different peoples.  For Lehi's people, the Promised Land was located somewhere in the America's.  Modern-day prophets have defined the Promised Land of the covenant to be in the lands the people currently occupy.  It is often associated with temple locations, just as the center of the Promised Land of the Jews was Jerusalem with its temple.  I have sometimes wondered if this promise of a land and home could be spiritual as well as temporal (as most things in the gospel are.)  Could it refer to my final home in God's kingdom?

2) When God promised Abraham seed, that, too was both a spiritual and a temporal promise.  God referred to Abraham's seed as being as numerous as the sands of the sea or as the stars in the sky.  I think the sands of the sea refers to Abraham's literal descendants through Sarah (the 12 Tribes of Israel; and the Moabites), Hagar (the 12 Tribes of the Arab Nations), and Keturah, Abraham's wife that he married after Sarah's death (the Midanites.)  The Midianites, along with Lot's descendants, which are the Ammonites and the Moabites, are also numbered among the Arab Nations as spiritual seed of Abraham.

I also think that the stars in the sky represent the spiritual reference in the token.  All who accept the gospel, who i follow Jesus Christ, and who live faithful to the covenant will be numbered among Abraham's seed and blessed with the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant: And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness. (Genesis 15:4-6)

3) The third blessing is described in the Bible as you shall be my people and I shall be thy God. Modern-day revelation indicates that those people thus identified are those who experience the blessings of priesthood power, both those who hold it and those who are blessed by it.  The Pearl of Great Price (see Abraham, chapters 1 and 2) makes it abundantly clear that the Lord means priesthood as the means by which all the earth shall be blessed by the promises made to Abraham.

I am among those who are blessed through Abraham.

© Gebara Education, 2016