President Russell M. Nelson spoke of a significant scriptural pattern that pertains to the temple, wherein the Lord instructs us with “covenants, signs, and tokens.” He explained, “In the temple, we learn something of the unique pattern by which the Lord teaches His children. Here we make sacred covenants; in turn, the Lord emphasizes the importance of those covenants by giving us special signs and tokens. This pattern . . . is equally evident in many scriptural examples. Coupling a covenant with a sign or a token is an instructional model often employed by the Master Teacher.
“Recognition of a pattern among creators is expected. They all have their individual styles. A person familiar with the music of Beethoven, for example, can easily recognize his pattern of composition. One acquainted with the art of Van Gogh can readily identify his style of painting. So it is with this instructional model of the Lord.
“In the temple He uses covenants, signs, and tokens. The same pattern is evident in holy writ.”68
The temple is indeed “a house of covenants.”69 God is the author of all of the covenants of the gospel, including those of the temple, and “He is the only one who has authority and power to guarantee their validity beyond the grave.”70 Anciently, temples and sacred spaces served as sites for making covenants—covenants between the Lord and His people (see Ex. 24:6–8; Jer. 34:15) and also between a king and his subjects (see 2 Kgs. 11:4; 2 Chr. 23:3). Different types of covenants existed (see Ex. 24:7–8; Num. 18:19; 25:12–13), and the most holy piece of temple furniture was “the ark of the covenant” (Num. 10:33).
The English expression “to make a covenant” or variants of it appear some eighty times in the Old Testament. The Hebrew behind the English literally reads “to cut a covenant” (Hebrew: karat berit), which may have reference to the cutting of a sacrificial animal as part of the covenantal process. In a certain covenantal setting, Moses read from “the book of the covenant,” sprinkled sacrificial blood on the people, and then said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath [cut] with you concerning all these words” (Ex. 24:7–8). And Psalm 50:5, “Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” Two significant Old Testament passages—Genesis 15:7–18 and Jeremiah 34:18—pertain to the cutting of animals in a covenantal setting.
In the latter days, several Church authorities have made instructive statements regarding the temple covenants. President Nelson explained, “We should understand . . . the importance of keeping sacred covenants. Each temple ordinance ‘is not just a ritual to go through, it is an act of solemn promising.’”71
President Gordon B. Hinckley taught: “We are a covenant people. I have had the feeling that if we could just encourage our people to live by three or four covenants everything else would take care of itself. . . . The first of these is the covenant of the sacrament. . . . Second, the covenant of tithing. . . . Three, the covenants of the temple: Sacrifice, the willingness to sacrifice for this the Lord’s work—and inherent in that law of sacrifice is the very essence of the Atonement. . . . Consecration, which is associated with it, a willingness to give everything, if need be, to help in the on-rolling of this great work. And a covenant of love and loyalty one to another in the bonds of marriage, fidelity, chastity, morality.”72