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Jacob Blessing His Sons (Jacob Blessing Joseph), by Harry Anderson. Seminary students may feel unprepared to explain what it means to be a child of the covenant. Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

ABSTRACT: In classrooms across the Church Educational System, students readily testify that they are, as President Russell M. Nelson affirmed, children of God and disciples of Jesus Christ, yet far fewer feel prepared to explain what it means to be a child of the covenant. This article seeks to provide teachers with an outline of the Old Testament narrative of the people of Israel so they can help students understand more clearly their covenant role as members of the house of Israel today.

KEYWORDS: covenant, identity, teaching the gospel

In his May 2022 worldwide devotional for young adults, President Russell M. Nelson identified three things as “paramount and unchanging”: that we are, first, children of God; second, children of the covenant; and third, disciples of Jesus Christ. He urged that these identifiers not be displaced by competing labels.[1] When students study this address, many readily articulate the first and third identifiers, but far fewer feel confident explaining what it means to be a child of the covenant. Though the phrase is familiar, its doctrinal depth is often underdeveloped.

As educators within the Church Educational System, we are uniquely positioned to address that gap. A testimony of divine parentage and discipleship is foundational, yet without understanding their covenant identity, students may struggle to perceive their place in the Lord’s work “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). All three identifiers must be firmly established if young people are to recognize both who they are and what the Lord invites them to do.

We believe that the Lord accomplishes his work through covenant relationships and that he helps his covenant people develop through participation in that work. In other words, the Lord gets his work done through his people, and he gets his people done through his work. Covenant identity is therefore not merely descriptive; it is participatory. President Ezra Taft Benson taught, “All through the ages the prophets have looked down through the corridors of time to our day. Billions of the deceased and those yet to be born have their eyes on us. . . . What remains to be seen is where each of us personally . . . will stand in this fight. . . . Will we be true to our last-days, foreordained mission?”[2] How can we be true to a foreordained mission we do not understand?

To understand what it means to be a child of the covenant, students must understand the scriptural origins of the covenant. A simple but foundational understanding of the Old Testament is therefore essential. Much like an understanding of the Fall of Adam and Eve is crucial to truly desire the Atonement of Jesus Christ, our students must have some understanding of Israel’s scattering if they are going to invest their lives in Israel’s gathering.

Genesis: Covenant Origin

The structure of Genesis itself teaches this point. In Genesis 1–11, centuries pass in only a few pages. Creation, Fall, Flood, Babel—even with the priceless revelatory additions given in the Books of Abraham and Moses, human history moves at remarkable speed. Then in Genesis 12 the narrative slows almost to a crawl. The camera zooms in.

The universal account of humanity gives way to the story of one family. This literary shift signals a theological one. Genesis 1–11 establishes the universal human condition, and Genesis 12–50 introduces the people through which the Lord will do his exalting work. The Lord promises Abraham and Sarah that their posterity will be set apart through commandments and divine instruction. If faithful, they will receive promised blessings—and through those blessings, “all families of the earth” will be blessed (Genesis 12:3). They will inherit promised lands, priesthood power, and posterity as innumerable as the stars in the heavens.

The covenant was never intended to be for this one family alone; it was designed to extend outward to all of God’s children. Students often wrestle with the fairness of divine election. Why would a loving God choose one family? The scriptural answer is that being one of the chosen people is not a statement of favoritism but of function. Israel is chosen precisely because God loves all his children. Election exists for mission.

In simple terms, the Abrahamic covenant may be summarized this way: The Lord gives divine commandments and promises to Abraham’s posterity; as they live faithfully they receive blessings, and with those blessings they are to bless the entire human family. They are to invite any who are willing to let God prevail in their lives into the same covenant promise. Covenant identity carries both privilege and responsibility.

The Old Testament does not romanticize this family’s story. It is brutally honest about their weaknesses—about deception, rivalry, jealousy, and betrayal. They have ups and downs. They have moments of faith and moments of failure. At the close of Genesis, the covenant family faces extinction during a prolonged famine. Joseph—betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers—becomes the instrument of their preservation. What began as betrayal is transformed into deliverance, and the covenant family is saved through the very brother they rejected. However, the family leaves the land given to Abraham and settles in Egypt. As the first book of Moses concludes, the covenant family appears anything but triumphant. It is often painful to recognize how slowly and imperfectly divine purposes unfold through mortal men and women. The covenant does not rest upon flawless people but upon a faithful God.

Exodus Through Deuteronomy: Covenant Formation

As Exodus opens, the house of Israel has multiplied exceedingly in Egypt but is enslaved under a Pharaoh “which knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). The covenant family preserved in Genesis now finds itself in bondage. The Lord hears the cries of the children of Israel, his people. He raises up Moses as a deliverer, leading Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and toward Sinai. Are they ready to return to the promised land and be God’s covenant people who will bless all the families of the earth?

The Book of Numbers shows that the promised land is ready for them, but they are not ready for it. Through deliverance, law, and covenant renewal in the wilderness, Israel begins to learn what it means to become “a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Jehovah instructs them to build a sacred tabernacle where they are to offer sacrifice. The Lord is deeply loyal to this covenant family and will instruct them if they choose to hear him. The tabernacle and obedience to divine laws can create holiness within and without. Delivering Israel from Egypt proved only the first step; shaping a covenant people capable of carrying covenant responsibility required deeper transformation. One might say that getting the children of Israel out of Egypt proved easier than getting Egypt out of the children of Israel.

At long last, under Joshua, the people entered the promised land long associated with Abraham’s covenant. Yet possession of the land was never an end in itself. The land was a gift and stewardship, not entitlement. It was a symbol of their covenant relationship with Jehovah. Israel’s identity and mission were defined not by geography alone but by covenant fidelity. The children of Israel had been returned to land promised to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Though they were unfaithful to Jehovah, he was faithful to them. He had been loyal when they were not. He had watched and shaped them. He was ready to give them all the blessings of the covenant if they would only choose him to guide their daily walk.

Monarchy, Division, and Scattering

The period of the Judges reveals how difficult that responsibility proved to be. A repeated pattern emerges: covenant neglect, oppression, repentance, and deliverance. Over time, the distinction between Israel and the surrounding nations diminished. The burden of being different grew heavy.

By the time of the prophet Samuel, the elders of Israel requested a king “that we also may be like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:20). In modern terms, they wanted to be like everyone else. The Lord instructed Samuel to grant their request, explaining, “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). The issue was not political structure alone; it was covenant allegiance. When Israel sought sameness over sanctification, their capacity to bless the nations diminished. They could no longer make a difference in the world because they were no longer willing to be different from the world. Yet again, Israel chose to live far beneath their privileges. Jehovah will not force the covenant people to be the covenant people.

The first three kings of Israel each began their reigns with humility and promise but ended in sin and corruption. Saul disobeyed divine commands and clung to power. David became complacent, yielded to sin, and deeply compounded the problem with deception and murder. Finally, Solomon’s many foreign marriages turned him toward idolatry. Each passing year opened more cracks in the foundation of what could have been a holy nation.

Following Solomon’s death, the kingdom divided. The ten northern tribes established what is known as the northern kingdom of Israel, and the two remaining tribes became the southern kingdom of Judah. The Lord in his goodness sent prophets to these nations, calling upon them to repent and return to their covenant destiny. Prophets such as Elijah and Elisha were rejected. Destruction was imminent. The Northern Kingdom fell to Assyria in the eighth century BC. The Assyrians set their sights on the Southern Kingdom of Judah. However, Hezekiah, the king of Judah, hearkened to the voice of the prophet Isaiah when all his circumstances seemed hopeless. God intervened, and Judah was saved from the flood of Assyria’s advancing army.

The Book of Mormon opens with Lehi crying repentance in Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, around 600 BC. The people of Judah felt that Jehovah would not allow them to be destroyed. Just over a hundred years earlier, he had saved Jerusalem from the Assyrians. Surely, they thought, he would save them again from Babylon. But tragically, the Southern Kingdom fell to Babylon. Judahite sons such as Daniel and Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (also known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) were taken to be raised in Babylon.

The scattering of Israel was both covenant consequence and covenant preservation. As the Book of Mormon affirms, the Lord scatters his people yet remembers them still (1 Nephi 22:3–5). Dispersion did not signal abandonment; it became the means by which covenant lineage extended into many lands. The Lord in his mercy did not scatter Israel to punish them; he was trying to save them. He promised he would gather them together again one day, but for now, he would send them to every corner of the vineyard.

Isaiah framed this turbulent history within a larger redemptive vision. Lehi and his sons Nephi and Jacob were living the scattering but reveled in descriptions of the future gathering. Nephi read Isaiah while Jacob taught from Zenos. They were far from home but held to the promise that they were not forgotten. Though Israel was being scattered, an ensign would yet be lifted to gather them (Isaiah 11:12). Even in judgment, the promise of gathering remained.

Exile under Babylon gave way to partial restoration under Persian rule. A decree of King Cyrus allowed a small portion of Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the city and the temple. As the centuries passed, Hellenization under Greek and Roman influence introduced new cultural pressures, but this small population of what had once been God’s holy nation endured. By the time of Jesus’s birth, the Roman Empire controlled most of the Jews’ lives and the promised land on which they lived. The office of high priest was now a political appointment, and the temple had become a marketplace.

In these circumstances, the one thing more important than all others occurred. Jehovah himself became a man to walk and talk among his own people. Born in humble circumstances, he became one of them. He experienced human suffering. He suffered pain, thirst, and fatigue. He called Apostles and organized a community of believers. Tragically, he was rejected by the Jewish leadership. He came to his own people, and they did not receive him. After a beautiful ministry of healing and teaching, he offered himself as a sacrifice on behalf of all of God’s children. He suffered infinite and eternal physical and spiritual agony that only a god was capable of experiencing. In Gethsemane and on the cross, he endured something unfathomable to the finite mind in order to give all of God’s children the pathway to repent and overcome the effects of the Fall of Adam and Eve. Tragically, just a few decades after the Redeemer’s life, Jerusalem and its temple would be crushed under Roman power. The once holy nation, the house of Israel, the Lord’s covenant people, were scattered all over the globe.

Following his Resurrection, the Savior ministered to scattered branches of the house of Israel. One such visit is described in 3 Nephi. The Lord speaks of other populations of scattered Israel he would visit. He tells the Nephites they are of the house of Israel and that future Gentiles would be the instrument of the gathering. He teaches that the Book of Mormon will be the sign that the Lord has begun to fulfill his promise to bring scattered Israel home.

Over time, explicit emphasis on the Abrahamic covenant and Israel’s mission receded from central Christian discourse. The Nephite people fell into apostasy and destruction. Christianity and the Bible lived on, but Jehovah’s people forgot who they were and what they had been promised. This plain and precious truth—the covenant—faded into the background.

Yet divine covenants do not expire. The Lord who covenanted with Abraham does not forget his word.

Reformation, Restoration, and Gathering

One might reverently imagine Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and his household looking forward with anticipation to the fulfillment of the covenant promises made to their family. They were promised priesthood, posterity, and lands of inheritance. They were told that through their seed all the families of the earth would be blessed. Generations passed. Kingdoms rose and fell. Israel was still scattered. In that imaginative scene, one might picture the Savior gesturing the eyes of these ancient fathers and mothers toward the earth at a decisive moment in history—a young farm boy kneeling in a grove of trees in upstate New York.

Jehovah had never stopped preparing for the gathering. He inspired priests, philosophers, reformers, explorers, and leaders. The stage was set. The gathering was about to begin.

When Moroni appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1823, his central message was that the gathering of Israel was about to begin. First needed to come the Book of Mormon, the tool of the gathering. Elder Gerrit W. Gong taught the following:

The Book of Mormon is evidence we can hold in our hand of covenant belonging. The Book of Mormon is the promised instrument for the gathering of God’s children, prophesied as a new covenant. . . . Your forefathers received a covenant promise that you, their descendants, would recognize a voice as if from the dust in the Book of Mormon. That voice you feel as you read testifies you are “children of the covenant” and Jesus is your Good Shepherd.[3]

President Russell M. Nelson added this witness: “If there were no Book of Mormon, the promised gathering of Israel would not occur.”[4] The Church was legally organized on April 6, 1830. Priesthood keys were restored. The gathering of Israel had begun. It was time for the Lord to bring his people back together so they could fulfill their covenant destiny and bless all the families of the earth. In the 84th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord says his church was “established in the last days for the restoration of his people, as he has spoken by the mouth of his prophets, and for the gathering of his saints to stand upon Mount Zion” (v. 2). In time, authorized temples returned to the earth. Hundreds of thousands of missionaries have been and will continue to be sent to all the nations of the earth.

The covenant with Abraham was not replaced; it was renewed and reactivated. Latter-day Saint theology affirms that many spirits were foreordained to come forth in this dispensation. Those spirits—us, our students, our ancestors, our children and grandchildren—have the opportunity and responsibility to participate in the culmination of covenant history.

Joining in the work of the gathering of Israel is not peripheral to covenant identity; it is central to it. If we were to ask a typical primary-age child why they came to earth, we would likely hear “to get a body and be tested,” “to have a family,” or “to become like Heavenly Father.” All are age-appropriate answers, but here is how Elder David A. Bednar answered that question. He said, “We were foreordained in the premortal existence and born into mortality to fulfill the covenant and promise God made to Abraham. . . . That is who we are and that is why we are here—today and always.”[5]

If our students disengage from covenant purpose, their lives will feel incomplete, not because of social expectation but because deep down their spirit knows why they came to earth. Conversely, the deepest and most enduring joy comes through participation in the Lord’s redemptive work alongside family and loved ones.

Covenant Memory and Modern Discipleship

Covenant history also reveals a recurring counterforce. If covenant identity carries a mission and purpose, it also invites resistance. Scripture testifies consistently that opposition accompanies divine purpose.

The adversary’s strategies are not new. Shame, distraction, appetite, ambition, and cultural pressure have long threatened covenant fidelity. The patterns differ in form but not in substance. Covenant people are most vulnerable when they forget who they are and why they were chosen.

In my experience with young adults, shame often becomes the adversary’s most effective instrument. Students may question their standing before God long before they question doctrine. Covenant amnesia—not intellectual doubt—is frequently the deeper struggle.

Here doctrinal clarity becomes essential. Shame, understood as a belief that one is fundamentally unworthy of love, is not a divine instrument. Scripture teaches instead that the Lord “suiting his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men” (Doctrine and Covenants 46:15). Guilt, by contrast, can function as a spiritual gift—an awareness that actions have diverged from covenant identity and an invitation to realign. Covenant identity reframes repentance. It is not a negotiation for worth; it is a return to remembered belonging.

Nephi’s vision offers a final, helpful image. Some entered the “great and spacious building,” yet he said of his own family, “we heeded them not” (1 Nephi 8:33). The issue was not the existence of mockery but the refusal to internalize it. A knowledge of who he was gave him the awareness and courage to reject the shame pointed at him. Likewise, in Revelation, the Lord calls to his people within Babylon: “Come out of her, my people” (Revelation 18:4). The covenant asks us not to isolate from the world but have purposeful distinction in it.

Conclusion: Teaching Covenant Identity

President Nelson’s plea that we not replace our paramount and unchanging identifiers takes on deeper meaning when viewed through covenant history. To be a child of God affirms divine origin. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ affirms personal devotion. To be a child of the covenant situates the other two identifiers within a redemptive mission that began with Abraham and continues in our day.

I have come to believe that students will only fully understand their worth when they understand their work. They are not accidental participants in the last days. They are covenant heirs, living in the dispensation long anticipated by prophets and patriarchs. If they grasp that truth—if they truly believe they were born to help fulfill promises made anciently to Abraham—their discipleship gains coherence, their resilience deepens, and their joy expands. The Lord told Moses that his work and glory was “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39), and perhaps he had our students in mind when he declared, “I am able to do mine own work” (2 Nephi 27:20).

Notes

[1] Russell M. Nelson, “Choices for Eternity,” worldwide devotional for young adults, May 15, 2022.

[2] Ezra Taft Benson, “In His Steps,” Brigham Young University devotional, March 4, 1979, https://speeches.byu.edu.

[3] Gerrit W. Gong, “Covenant Belonging,” Ensign, November 2019, 81.

[4] Russell M. Nelson, “The Gathering of Scattered Israel,” Ensign, November 2006, 80.

[5] David A. Bednar, “Becoming a Missionary,” Ensign, November 2005, 47.