Covenant Sacrifice
The Abrahamic or new and
everlasting covenant has always been entered into by sacrifice. Adam received
the covenant as he made sacrifice. Abraham made sacrifices when God administered the covenant to
him. Israel sacrificed at Mount Sinai when they entered into the covenant and
had the blood of that sacrifice, or the “blood of the covenant,” sprinkled on
them as part of the process. Christ entered into the covenant in pre-mortality
by promising to sacrifice Himself; He fulfilled the covenant by making that sacrifice
with His blood. We must never forget that the fulfillment of every covenant
promise is made possible by the sacrifice of Christ. There would be no
point to our mortal probation without the covenant, and there is no point to
the covenant without Christ. His sacrifice if the fulcrum of the covenant.
While our sacrifices cannot compare, and will never be enough without His infinite
sacrifice, still it behooves us to follow His sacrificial example. If Christ
first entered into the covenant by promising to sacrifice Himself, then this is
the path we too must follow.
In fact, we also make a sacrifice
in order to enter the covenant. When we first enter the covenant, at baptism,
we sacrifice our old selves. Part of the symbolism of baptism is that we kill
the old, not-holy self within us. That self is buried under the water, and we
arise as a new person (for covenant also always involves rebirth). Thus we,
like Christ, promise to sacrifice ourselves as we enter the covenant,
remembering we could never be successful in making this sacrifice without the
help of Christ. The covenant path involves an ongoing process of killing the
natural man within us—elsewhere described as becoming holy, or peculiar. To
move toward this state, we must ask ourselves some difficult questions. How
focused on sacrificing the natural man are you? How much do you concentrate on
becoming holy? How often do you think of this part as part of the covenant
process? How willing are you to sacrifice? How much do you invite Christ to
help you in that effort? (Kerry Muhlestein, God Will Prevail: Ancient
Covenants, Modern Blessings, and the Gathering of Israel [American Fork,
Utah: Covenant Communications, 2021], 130-31, emphasis in bold added)