Monday, April 23, 2018

Mormon 9:36-37 and God "Remembering" His Covenant

Moroni, writing in Mormon 9:36-37, wrote the following:

And behold, these things which we have desired concerning our brethren, yea, even their restoration to the knowledge of Christ, are according to the prayers of all the saints who have dwelt in the land. And may the Lord Jesus Christ grant that their prayers may be answered according to their faith; and may God the Father remember the covenant which he hath made with the house of Israel; and may he bless them forever, through faith on the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

In this text, we read of how the prayers of the righteous/holy ones (“Saints”) can be efficacious (cf. Jas 5:16), not just for themselves, but for the larger community itself (cf. Exo 32-33, where Moses’ intercession results in God’s wrath against the Israelites being propitiated).

Furthermore, the theme of God “remembering” his (saving) covenant is mentioned in this passage, too. The concept of God remembering his covenant is common in Scripture (e.g., Gen 9:15-16; Lev 26:42, 45; Ezek 16:60-61; 3 Nephi 16:11, 12; 20:29; 29:3; Mormon 5:20; 8:21, 23; cf. passages where men plead with God for him to remember his covenants, such as Neh 13:29; Jer 14:21).

Speaking of the meaning of “in remembrance of me” in Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:24-25, Joachim Jeremias wrote the following, which can shed light on, not just on the Eucharistic theology of these New Testament texts, but also other texts that speak of God remembering His covenant:

For the expression לזכרון, Aram לדכרן, Greek εις αναμνησιν, εις μνημοσυον, although it means both man’s remembering and the merciful remembrance of God in the Old Testament, has in the Palestinian religious texts of the pre-Christian era much rather the second meaning than the first. Thus in the LXX we find εις αναμνησιν used three times of God’s remembrance (cf. LXX Lev 24.7; Ps. 37 [38] tit.; 69 [70] tit.), and only once of human memory (Wisd. 16.6), and εις μνημοσυνον means in Ecclesiasticus (45.9, 11, 16; 50.16) and in the newly discovered Greek fragments of Enoch (in the Chester-Beatty papyri (Aeth. Enoch 99.3 [twice])) always God’s remembrance. The same applies to the expression דכיר לטב in inscriptions recording the dedication of a synagogue, and of the analogous Hebrew expression זכור לתוב. In the New Testament too εις μνημοσυνον, which is the equivalent of εις αναμνησιν, means God’s merciful remembrance in both passages where it occurs, Mark 14.9 (par. Matt. 26.13) and Acts 10.4. This is obvious in Acts 10.4 εις μνημοσυνον εμπροσθεν του θεου, and at least highly probably in Mark 14.9. These facts make it very probably that εις την εμην αναμνησιν in 1 Cor. 11.24-5 and Luke 22.19 should be understood in the same way, “that God may remember Me.” God’s remembrance, however, has always a quite definite meaning in Holy Scripture: it never means a mere recollection on the part of God; but when God remembers somebody, He acts, He does something, He sits in judgement and grants His grace, He fulfils His promise. In what way, therefore, is God expected to “remember”, when the Messianic community meets and pays to Him that He should “remember His Messiah”? The only answer possible is: God remembers the Messiah by bringing about His kingdom in the parousia. (Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus [rans. A. Ehrhardt; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1955], 162-63, emphasis added)

 Therefore, when God is said to "remember" his covenant, it means that he promises to act in salvation history and bring about the eschatological salvation of his covenant people.


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