The role of covenants
People give up some individual freedoms in order to receive the greater blessings of organized society.
The Lord is not being subtle with me about the importance of keeping my covenants and actively receiving their promised blessings and the centrality of prayer in my progress.
To remove your garments (unnecessarily) can be seen as a disclaimer of your covenants.
A covenant is a commitment to fulfill certain responsibilities. Personal commitments are essential to the regulation of our individual lives and to the functioning of society. This idea is currently being challenged. A vocal minority oppose institutional authority and insist that persons should be free from any restrictions that limit their individual freedom. Yet we know from millennia of experience that persons give up some individual freedoms to gain the advantages of living in organized communities. Such relinquishments of individual freedoms are principally based on commitments or covenants, expressed or implied.
It is interesting that commitments and covenants include some things that are implied, not only things that are explicitly expressed.
Distinctive clothing or name tags are intended to signify that the wearer is under covenant and therefore has a duty to teach and serve and should be supported in that service. A related purpose is to remind the wearers of their covenant responsibilities. There is no magic in their distinctive clothing or symbols, only a needed reminder of the special responsibilities the wearers have assumed.
The central role of covenants in the newly restored Church was reaffirmed in the preface the Lord gave for the first publication of His revelations. There the Lord declares that He has called Joseph Smith because the inhabitants of the earth “have strayed from mine ordinances, and have broken mine everlasting covenant.” This revelation further explains that His commandments are being given “that mine everlasting covenant might be established.”
Take away covenants and this church becomes almost indistinguishable from other Christian sects.
Every member of this church who has entered the waters of baptism has become a party to a sacred covenant. Each time we partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, we renew that covenant.
Gordon B. Hinckley
Persons who have been endowed in a temple are responsible to wear a temple garment, an article of clothing not visible because it is worn beneath outer clothing. It reminds endowed members of the sacred covenants they have made and the blessings they have been promised in the holy temple. To achieve those holy purposes, we are instructed to wear temple garments continuously, with the only exceptions being those obviously necessary. Because covenants do not “take a day off,” to remove one’s garments can be understood as a disclaimer of the covenant responsibilities and blessings to which they relate. In contrast, persons who wear their garments faithfully and keep their temple covenants continually affirm their role as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
People who don’t wear their garments as consistently as possible (based on the specifics of their life circumstances) should consider if they are actually keeping their covenants. On the other hand, the rest of us should refrain from judging others relative to when they do not wear temple garments because the covenant is between that individual and the Lord so only the Lord is authorized to judge them.
The ordinance of baptism and its associated covenants are requirements for entrance into the celestial kingdom. The ordinances and associated covenants of the temple are requirements for exaltation in the celestial kingdom.
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