Eternal Marriage Is “A” New and Everlasting Covenant
Doctrine and Covenants 132:4
4 For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.
President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:
“Each ordinance of the gospel is a covenant which is new and everlasting. It is new and everlasting because it is divine truth and never grows old. . . . This was said of baptism, and the Lord calls it ‘a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning’ [D&C 22:1]. It is so with all the covenants and obligations in the gospel which pertain to salvation and exaltation of man. . . . There are some members of the Church who seem to think that the new and everlasting covenant is the covenant of celestial marriage, or marriage for eternity, but this is not so. . . . The Lord draws a distinction between a new and everlasting covenant and the new and everlasting covenant. . . . It is plainly discernible that the new and everlasting covenant is the fulness of the gospel.”
(Church History and Modern Revelation, 2 vols. [1953], 2:354, 355, 356.)
