Summary: Throughout the scriptures we are invited to come unto Christ, but why are we commanded to do that? Perhaps even more importantly is how do we do that? The usual answers are to repent and be baptized, to take upon us the name of Christ, to keep his commandments, submit our will to his, and strive to become more like him. These are all good and valid answers, but there is another way we come unto Christ that is not normally considered. This article takes a look at what that way is.
In the Book of Mormon, we read these familiar words: “Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest” (Jacob 1:7),
The Book of Mormon also tells us “And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption” (Omni 1:26), and “again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift… Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him” (Moroni 10:30,32). In our day, the Lord has told us that we are “to warn, expound, exhort, and teach, and invite all to come unto Christ” (D&C 20:59).
Although the phrase “come unto Christ” is not specifically found in the New Testament, yet this same message is given in many other ways, but why must we come unto Christ?
The scriptures tell us that when we do, we can “partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption” (Omni 1:26). In other words, we can be saved from the consequences of our sins. Jacob further explained that it allows us to partake of his goodness and enter into his rest, but what does that mean? John the Revelator explained, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Revelation 14:13).
Jesus taught the Nephites that those who believe on him “shall sit down in the kingdom of my Father, yea you joy shall be full” (3 Nephi 28:10). Alma taught that “according to the promises of the Lord, that they are raised to dwell at the right hand of God, in a state of never-ending happiness” (Alma 28:12). The apostle Peter said, “And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away” (1 Peter 5:4), while Jesus taught that they will “sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Revelation 3:21).
However, the opposite is just as true. Those who don‘t come unto Christ are not allowed to enter into the rest of the Lord, in which case they don’t inherit “a state of never-ending happiness,” but instead must dwell in some other state. Those who come unto Christ are made perfect through him, while those who don’t come unto Christ cannot be made perfect. Those who come unto Christ have their garments washed clean while those who don’t come unto Christ remain unclean, and since “no unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, ye must be cast off forever” (1 Nephi 10:21) because “there cannot any unclean thing enter into the kingdom of God; wherefore there must needs be a place of filthiness prepared for that which is filthy” (1 Nephi 15:34).
It would therefore seem that the invitation to come unto Christ comes with many great and marvelous blessings while the refusal to accept this invitation denies us of all of them. If this is so, then it becomes extremely important to know exactly how we should “come unto Christ.”
The usual answers are to repent and be baptized, to take upon us the name of Christ, to keep his commandments, to submit our will to his, and strive to become more like him. These are all good and valid answers, but there is another way we come unto Christ that is not normally considered and that way has to do with the covenants we make with Christ. Therefore, it is important that we have a clear understanding of exactly what a covenant is.
A covenant has often been described as being like a contract where each party agrees to certain terms, and as long as both sides keep their end of the agreement, then the contract stays in force. It’s been said that in the same way, when we make a covenant with God, as long as we keep our part of the agreement, then God is obligated to keep his part, but a covenant is more than a mere contract and involves more than each side living up to its obligation. To understand why, let’s look at what the scriptures teach.
When Alma and Amulek preached to the people of Ammonihah the lawyers and judges “took them and bound them with strong cords, and took them before the chief judge of the land” (Alma 14:4). In this case, the word “bound” or “bind” means to “tie up so as to restrict, confine or restrain someone or something.” It also means to become a prisoner.
Nephi warned his people how Satan can bind us down with his chains (2 Nephi 9:45). To bind someone with chains means they are tied with something so strong they can’t break free. The way Satan binds us with his chains and makes us his prisoner, where we are not free to act for ourselves, is by incrementally getting us to believe that “All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well–and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell” (2 Nephi 28:21).
Notice the word “carefully.” This infers that Satan wraps his chains around us so slowly that we hardly notice them until it’s too late to break free of them. As Samuel Johnson has so famously said, “The chains of habits are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” This is how Satan binds us to him.
When Korihor, the antichrist, defended himself before the high priest, he answered, “I do not teach this people to bind themselves down under the foolish ordinances and performances which are laid down by ancient priests, to usurp power and authority over them, to keep them in ignorance, that they may not lift up their heads, but be brought down according to thy words” (Alma 30:23).
Korihor’s argument was that the ordinances of God have the power to keep us bound where we are not free to act for ourselves. Although Korihor said many things that were not true, yet what he said about the ordinances of God is very much true.
In our day the Lord has said, “And thus ye shall become instructed in the law of my church, and be sanctified by that which ye have received, and ye shall bind yourselves to act in all holiness before me” (D&C 43:9). “Therefore, I give unto you this commandment, that ye bind yourselves by this covenant, and it shall be done according to the laws of the Lord” (D&C 82:15).
When we make a covenant with Christ, we are not just making an ordinary agreement with him but rather we are binding, or deliberately tying ourselves to him. We are not so much working together with Jesus as we are making ourselves his prisoner and giving him power and authority over us to do as he pleases.
The difference between Satan and Jesus is that Satan deceitfully binds us so he can drag us down to misery and woe, while Christ asks us to voluntarily bind ourselves to him so he can pull us up to where we can experience heavenly joy and happiness.
The way we bind ourselves to Christ is through the covenants we make with him, and when we make a covenant with God, of our own free will, we are voluntarily submitting our will to his. Instead of doing what we want, a covenant tightly ties us to God where we become obligated to follow the commandments he gives us. This is how a covenant binds or ties us to Christ.
The very first covenant we make with Christ is at the time of our baptism. After Alma had escaped from King Noah, he baptized people in the waters of Mormon telling them, “Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?” (Mosiah 18:10).
Later, when this same Alma went to the city of Gideon, he taught, “Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism” (Alma 7:15).
The covenant we make at the time of our baptism is that we solemnly witness before God that we truly repent of our sins by being willing to lay all of them aside and that we will keep his commandments and serve him. In that covenant we also witness “unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ by baptism” (2 Nephi 31:13) and “are willing… to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death” (Mosiah 19:9).
When we make that promise to God in the waters of baptism, we are pledging or making a sacred, solemn oath that we promise never to break. It’s in this way that a covenant binds us to Christ.
Each week when we take the sacrament, we are renewing that covenant, and the reason why we take it so often is because the Lord is giving us an opportunity each week to either confirm that this is still the desire of our heart, or to declare before him that we’ve changed our mind and no longer want to honor that commitment.
When we take the sacrament, we are literally coming unto Christ and saying, “By taking this bread and drinking this water, I am witnessing unto thee yet again that I still want to honor the covenant I made with you at the time of my baptism. I affirm again that it is my desire to submit my will to thine and willingly serve thee.” When we take the sacrament with that kind of attitude, we are literally coming unto Christ and offering ourselves to him.
But when we take the emblems of Christ’s flesh and blood without giving any thought to why we’re doing it, that ritual does nothing to help bring us closer to Christ. When we thoughtlessly take the bread and water, we are treating lightly something that should be taken very seriously. Instead of honoring our commitment to Jesus, at the least, we are treating it as something of little importance, and at worse, we are mocking God.
When we take the sacrament with the respect, reverence, and solemnity it deserves, participating in that ordinance can be a powerful way to bring us closer to Christ.
President Eyring has said, “Every covenant with God is an opportunity to draw closer to him” (2024 April GC). That means, the more covenants we make with the Lord, the more we bind ourselves to him, and by doing so we forge a closer and stronger relationship with him.
In the temples of the Lord, we make additional covenants. The first time we go to the temple we make five covenants that we personally give our sacred word we will keep, but each time we return to the temple, we no longer retake those covenants. Instead, we make them for someone else who is dead. However, just like we take the sacrament each week to reaffirm our baptismal covenants, so also, each time we go through the temple for someone who has died, we have an opportunity to reflect on and recommit ourselves to living those covenants we had once made.
We have no idea what is happening to those in the spirit world who accept the vicarious work that is being done for them, but reason seems to suggest that their temple experience only happens one time for them, while we, the living, get the opportunity to go to the temple as many times as we want, which allows us many more opportunities to come unto Christ through the covenants we’ve made with him. Thus, attending the temple perhaps does more good for us, the living, than it does those for whom we’re officiating.
But the same danger applies here as it does to taking the sacrament. If all we do is hurry through the temple ordinances so we can check off one more name on a genealogy list, or we let our mind wander as we go through an endowment session for the upteenth time, then going to the temple does little to help us draw closer to Christ.
But there is another way we come unto Christ through our covenants which is when we serve the Lord in the church and in the temple.
God has told us that his work, and what brings him glory, is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39). With so many people, both living and dead, who need to have the gospel not only preached to them but help them become perfected, God has a tremendous work to do, and he has allowed the members of his church to assist him in that effort.
The apostle Paul explained that the reason why God “gave some prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; [is] For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13):
As we partner with Christ and commit ourselves to helping build his church here on earth, whether it’s being an usher, or teaching in Primary, or ministering to our assigned families, or doing family history work in the temple, we are helping our Father in heaven to accomplish his work of salvation and exaltation among his children, and in so doing, we bring glory to his name. As the saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words,” and when we show our heavenly Father that we are committed to serving him with all of our heart, mind, and strength, as we covenanted to do at the time of our baptism, perhaps that’s the greatest way we can come unto Christ.
Related article can be found at The Nature of Salvation