A View of the Last Days
Chapter 7, part 4 of The Blessings of Abraham:  Becoming a Zion People
By E. Douglas Clark

God then “revealed [to Abraham] the end of the times.” ^[1] Abraham saw that “in the last days” his own righteous posterity would be “the people set apart for” the Lord, but would be “put to the test” in that “ungodly age” of great “plagues” and “misfortunes,” ^[2] and would be “humiliated” and “mocked” and “ruled over” ^[3] and threatened with destruction. ^[4]

When Abraham’s forefather Enoch had been shown events in the future, he had pled for mercy for his descendants, and the Lord granted Enoch’s request by making a covenant (see Moses 7:48–67, especially 50–52). So it apparently happened now with Abraham as he foresaw the distress of his latter-day posterity and, according to Jewish tradition, petitioned God for their benefit, ^[5] whereupon the Lord made a covenant with Abraham.

In the highly abbreviated Genesis version of the story, the covenant concerns merely the promise of the land (Gen. 15:18–21). But Jewish tradition held that the covenant encompassed more, and that the Lord “promised Abraham to redeem his children” ^[6] and to “deliver them from the kingdoms,” ^[7] or, in the words of 4 Ezra, to “never forsake his descendants.” ^[8]

The Midrash speaks of “the deep designs which the Holy One, blessed be He … arranged between Himself and His noble companion,” namely Abraham. ^[9] These deep designs were made part of the covenant, by virtue of which the Lord would protect His Latter-day Saints: “I will show unto them that fight against my word and against my people, who are of the house of Israel, that I am God, and that I covenanted with Abraham that I would remember his seed forever” (2 Ne. 29:14).

The passage is found in the writings of Nephi, who elsewhere uses another word in describing the same event: “And all that fight against Zion shall be destroyed” (1 Ne. 22:14, emphasis added). Nephi further describes how that destruction will come, promising that the Lord “will preserve the righteous by his power …. even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire” (1 Ne. 22:17; see also verse 22, and 2 Ne. 30:10).

Nephi was paraphrasing Isaiah’s writings, which in turn, as one scholar has shown, preserved much of the old Enochic heritage. ^[10] In fact, 1 Enoch tells that at the last day the wicked “shall quiver. And great fear and trembling shall seize them unto the ends of the earth. Mountains and high places will fall down and ... melt like a honeycomb before the flame ... He will preserve the elect” but “destroy the wicked ones.” ^[11]

Abraham had undoubtedly read this Enoch passage, along with the one telling that the Lord’s return to the earth would be in fulfillment of His covenant to Enoch (Moses 7:59–60). Now Abraham himself, having received the Lord’s promise to protect Abraham’s latter-day posterity, was shown that the Lord would maintain them “safe in my keeping,” ^[12] “protected by me.” ^[13]

He would “sound the trumpet from the air, and I will send my Elect One, with a full measure of all my power. And he shall summon my people ... and those who have reviled them and have had dominion over them in the present age will I burn with fire.” ^[14]

Abraham saw, in other words, that his Descendant who had once been humiliated by the powers of the earth would in the last days come in glory to rescue others of Abraham’s righteous descendants in their hour of grave danger.

Then, as attested by various ancient sources, God showed him “the resurrection of the dead [and] the future judgment” ^[15] and “the fates of sinners and the righteous.” ^[16] He thus saw not only “the punishment of the evil,” ^[17] even “the wicked [who] rebelled ... during their lives,” ^[18] but also “the reward of the good,” ^[19] and he “watched as seats were arranged and thrones were set up.” ^[20]

A vision of such things is reserved, as the Lord has stated in latter-day revelation, for “those who fear me, and ... serve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end” (D&C 76:5). It was a vision for which Joseph Smith also qualified (see D&C 76).

As Abraham continued to watch, he saw something else, something that moved him deeply, something of which he had been reminded when he noticed the rainbow surrounding Enoch. What Abraham saw is mentioned in a text attributed to Baruch, a contemporary of Lehi who, like Lehi (1 Ne. 1:12–13), had foreseen in vision the fall of Jerusalem. As Baruch was “grieving over Zion ... because of the captivity,” ^[21] God informed him of another city, “not this building that is in your midst now,” but one that “is preserved with me” and that in time “will be revealed.” And “I showed it to my servant Abraham in the night between the portions of the victims.” ^[22]

It is the same city that 4 Ezra calls Zion: “And Zion will come and be made manifest to all people, prepared and built.” ^[23] Thus Abraham foresaw the glorious descent of Zion, the city he had long sought in the flesh. Having just learned that he would never reside in that city in its terrestrial translated state, Abraham now saw its latter-day glory on the earth in fulfillment of the covenant signified by the rainbow. The vision of that millennial Zion was a sight that Abraham “contemplated with delight” and that “fired” his soul as he saw in advance “the destruction of the powers of darkness, the renovation of the earth, the glory of God, and the salvation of the human family,” ^[24] including the purification of the Lord’s people. ^[25]

Wilford Woodruff stated that Abraham saw that “a reign of righteousness would commence and the honest and meek of the earth would be gathered together to serve the Lord, and upon them would rest power to build up the great Zion of God in the latter days.” ^[26]

For many years, Abraham had longed to join the translated city of Zion; now, seeing in vision its latter-day glory, he longed to be there. A latter-day revelation speaks of “Enoch, and his brethren, who were separated from the earth, and were received unto myself — a city reserved until a day of righteousness shall come — a day which was sought for by all holy men, and they found it not because of wickedness and abominations; and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth; but obtained a promise that they should find it and see it in their flesh” (D&C 45:11–14).

If Abraham had sought the city of Enoch, he had with equal diligence sought to establish Zion and an era of righteousness on earth, but “found it not because of wickedness and abominations.” Now he received the promise that he would yet see it in the flesh in the great and last day when he would also join with the city of Enoch.

And as Abraham had rejoiced in the vision of the first coming of Christ, so now he rejoiced in the vision of Christ’s Second Coming, when the Son of Man would rescue Abraham’s latter-day seed, those inhabitants of the earthly Zion who would then be joined by Enoch’s Zion descending from realms above. It was all a part of the covenant to Abraham, who thanks to the Savior’s Atonement and Resurrection, would finally in the flesh join the glorious city of Zion on earth.

Having been offered the opportunity to choose what gift he wished from the Lord, notwithstanding Abraham’s long quest for the translated city of Zion, he had chosen to remain below in order to become the father of those who would build Zion again on earth. No matter that at least one of his followers — the very steward and administrator of his own house, Eliezer, who had expected to be Abraham’s heir ^[27] — would eventually, according to a rabbinic tradition, be translated. ^[28] Abraham’s role was to live out his life as a mortal model for his posterity who would be charged with carrying on his mission of building the earthly Zion.

And once again in Abraham’s life, Zion above — the angel Enoch — had been sent to strengthen Abraham and teach him, this time about the Zion of the future. But this time the translated Enoch had taken Abraham to the Lord Himself, following the pattern of Enoch’s own prior ascension and that of earlier patriarchs, a pattern that would come to be reflected in royal ritual of the ancient Near East in which “the king is the Sent One. He has ascended to heaven to receive ... his commission. Then he is sent out, i.e., he descends again” bearing the “tablets of wisdom,” the heavenly book. ^[29]

Thus Abraham, heir to the royal patriarchal authority of Adam, now descends as a Sent One, a special witness of the Greater One whom the Father would send as his Beloved Son, even the King of Zion, he who had welcomed Abraham at the royal throne above.

Abraham’s exhilarating experience at the throne of God would be but a foretaste of the eternal glory awaiting him when he would inherit his own throne of glory in the presence of God the Father and His Only Begotten Son. In the meantime, many centuries after Abraham when the Only Begotten Son would descend from His throne to be born in a manger, He would be recognized and honored as the Heavenly King by magi from the East. ^[30]

Who were they, and how did they know how to find and recognize the infant King? “The Magi are said to have called their religion Kêsh-i-Ibrâhîm, i.e., creed of Abraham, whom they considered as their prophet and the reformer of their religion. They traced their religious books to Abraham, who was believed to have brought them from heaven.” ^[31]

According to this tradition, it was the books brought down by Abraham from the throne of Jesus that guided the magi to the manger to worship the infant King of Heaven.