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Friday, December 21, 2018

Who are the covenant people of the Lamb referred to in 1 Nephi 14:14?

Who are the covenant people of the Lamb referred to in 1 Nephi 14:14?

"I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth;" 

Who are the covenant people of the Lamb?

Are they the saints of the church of the Lamb

The covenant people of the Lord (is the Lord here God the Father?) are definitely descendants of the House of Israel, including descendants of Lehi in the Americas as 2 Nephi 29:2 points out. I am pretty sure this is repeated over and over and over and over and over throughout the other books of scripture. It would be interesting to know how often the scriptures refer to the covenant people. 

The covenant is with "God" (see Mosiah 5:8 which to me seems to be a reference to God the Father). 

Answer: 
Yes and no. 
The covenant people are both those people who actively make covenants (i.e. saints of the church of the Lamb, like for example, yours truly!) and their descendants.

You know, I have often thought about what it means for there to be just one family that is called the "covenant people." It seems to me that if this is taken literally, at some point, this will include every single human being on the face of planet earth. At least, this is how I felt when I saw that my DNA test had "2% Eastern European Jewish" ancestry (before the recent big update which removed all trace of Jewish heritage for me). 

But I guess that is a deep hypothesis for another day.  

The scriptures seem to be pretty clear, though, that people who are members of the Lord's church are also "covenant people." When we make covenants with God, what else could we be?!

The question I think I was trying to ask, but didn't, is to what extent is it possible for people who are not members of the Lord's restored church to make covenants with him and follow him? I am not sure about that. I don't think we have a monopoly on striving to follow God. I do think my church is literally the only church on the earth today to have the correct authority from God to administer specific ordinances like baptism. Ordinances are covenants. So...

...so temple work is really important.


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