Abraham and the Endowment

On a recent podcast, Dr. Jenae Nelson suggested that “Abraham lives the laws of the endowment.” Those laws, as stated on the Church website, are these five: 

·       Law of Obedience, which includes striving to keep Heavenly Father's commandments. 

·       Law of Sacrifice, which means sacrificing to support the Lord’s work and repenting with a broken heart and contrite spirit. 

·       Law of the Gospel, which includes exercising faith in Jesus Christ, making and honoring essential covenants with God, enduring to the end, and striving to love God and our neighbor. 

·       Law of Chastity, which means abstaining from sexual relations outside of a legal marriage between a man and a woman, which is according to God’s law. 

·       Law of Consecration, which means dedicating our time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed us to building up Jesus Christ’s Church on the earth. 

I thought I would look to see examples of living these five laws in the life of Abraham. When he was in the land of Chaldeans, he received this command from the Lord: “Abraham, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee.” The next verse tells us how Abraham responded: “Therefore I left the land of Ur, of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan” (Abraham 2:3-4). The Lord commanded, and Abraham obeyed. He followed the law of obedience and would throughout his life. He went first to Haran, and from there he journeyed to the land of Canaan. Abraham recorded one thing he did on that journey, “Now I, Abraham, built an altar in the land of Jershon, and made an offering unto the Lord” (Abraham 2:17). Here was an example of living the law of sacrifice as required in his day: he made an offering (of an animal) to the Lord. The description of the law of the gospel above highlights that it includes entering into covenants with God, which Abraham did. The Lord said to him: “My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee above measure, and make thy name great among all nations, and thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations; And I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father” (Abraham 2:8-10). The Lord covenanted with Abraham and promised him future blessings which included the gospel of Jesus Christ that would be received by his posterity. Abraham followed the law of the gospel and the faithful who followed him would as well. We clearly see that he also kept the law of chastity in his marriage with Sarah and then others. The Lord summarized in our dispensation, “God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife. And why did she do it? Because this was the law; and from Hagar sprang many people. This, therefore, was fulfilling, among other things, the promises. Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation? Verily I say unto you, Nay; for I, the Lord, commanded it” (Doctrine and Covenants 132:34-35). As it relates to the law of chastity, Abraham was obedient. And lastly, as highlighted in the podcast, Abraham showed his willingness to keep the law of consecration with his interactions with Lot. When there was some strife between the two of them because of their many possessions, Abraham sought for peace this way: “Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left” (Genesis 13:9). He let Lot take the better land, willing to give up possessions in order to follow the Lord. This was surely an example of living the law of consecration.

               I think we can also say that in his supreme act of offering Isaac, all of these laws came together. His willingness to take Isaac to the mount was the ultimate example of obedience, sacrifice, and consecration. He obeyed the Lord’s command, he offered Isaac as a sacrifice, and he consecrated what was of most value to him to the Lord. Isaac was his son whom he and Sarah had begotten in accordance with the law of chastity. Abraham also, perhaps unknowingly, provided a symbol of the essence of the law of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as Jacob would later explain: “It was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son” (Jacob 4:5). And so, in this incredible act of faith, Abraham showed us his commitment to the covenants we now live through the endowment ceremony of the temple.