Abinadi Analysis--Mosiah 12-17
Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 8:43 pm
Here are my notes for the Sunday school I will not be teaching on Mosiah 12-17.
All the Best!
--Consiglieri
P.S. My bishop just got released so something may be in the wind.
_________________________
Mosiah 12-17
The Book of Mormon is rife with scenes put in juxtaposition to each other, with the apparent idea that we compare and contrast such scenes.
King Noah and his encounter with Abinadi is one of these. There are three kings in Zarahemla during the period of time that is juxtaposed with three kings in the Land of Nephi. Zarahemla’s kings are Mosiah, Benjamin and Mosiah. We get the most detail on the scene of King Benjamin, how he labors with his own hands beside his people, and how, even though his people were strict in keeping the commandments of God, nevertheless something critical was missing—that being born again as sons and daughters of God through calling upon God for mercy through the merits and sacrifice of his Son.
The three kings in the Land of Nephi during this time are Zeniff, Noah and Limhi. Once again, we get the most detail regarding the middle king, Noah. Noah does not labor beside his people with his own hands, as does his counterpart king, Benjamin, but instead gluts himself on the labors of his people. Noah does not have the spiritual wherewithal to preach to his people as did Benjamin, and so a prophet from the outside must come in and preach repentance—enter Abinadi.
It is important to note, however, that Noah does not see himself as wicked, nor do his priests. They see themselves as righteous and obedient to God. They have good reason to do so. They are prospering and likely see this as evidence that they are righteous. We get many descriptions of their riches, including those that they have used to adorn his many “elegant and spacious buildings” as well as the temple. (Mosiah 11:8-11) (Are we to draw a connection between Noah’s spacious buildings and the great and spacious building Lehi saw in his dream? And is a connection between Noah and Solomon being drawn for us, with mentions not only of Noah’s lavish public building projects, but mention also of his “many wives and concubines” (1:2) and the construction of his own “spacious palace” (11:9)?
The bedrock covenant in the Book of Mormon, repeated ad infinitum, is that “inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper” in the land. (1 Nephi 2:20; 4:14; 2 Nephi 1:20; 4:4 are some examples.) Clearly Noah’s people are prospering; therefore they must be keeping the commandments.
An additional promise on which Noah could rely to make his argument is that Nephi had said God’s chosen people will be made mighty “even unto the power of deliverance.” (1 Nephi 1:20).
Noah had just beaten back the Lamanites in a “great victory” (Mosiah 11:18-19). They had been delivered. Therefore they were clearly God’s “chosen” people. What could be plainer? Noah therefore has all the proof he needs of his righteousness in his people’s deliverance from the Lamanites, as well as in their prosperity. Noah can even tax them one fifth part of all their substance (11:3), which would have been a double tithe. The proof is in the pudding. They are righteous indeed.
In this way, Noah and his priests teach his people a prosperity gospel.
But then along comes Abinadi to try and tell Noah that he is not prospering because he is righteous, and he has not been delivered because he is chosen. Why should Noah believe what Abinadi has to say when all the evidence is against him?
After Abinadi’s second foray among Noah’s people to preach repentance and his capture, Noah’s people assure Noah he is righteous and that Abinadi is lying, and do so by invoking these two aspects of deliverance from enemies and prosperity as proof of Noah’s righteousness: “And now, O King, what great evil hast thou done, or what great sins have thy people committed, that we should be condemned of God or judged of this man? . . . And behold, we are strong; we shall not come into bondage, or be taken captive by our enemies; yea, and thou hast prospered in the land, and thou shalt also prosper.” (Mosiah 12:13,15)
Abinadi prophesies that unless they repent, Noah and his people will be brought into physical bondage and “none shall deliver” except God and, even then, it isn’t going to happen quickly. (11:23-25; 12:2) But primarily, Abinadi has to shift the message from one of physical captivity to one of spiritual captivity, which he will emphasize in his sermon to Noah and his priests, speaking frequently of the “bands of death” with which they are bound, and that the only way for them to be released from these bands of death is through being delivered by Jesus Christ.
This will constitute the bulk of Abinadi’s message in Mosiah 15:19 through the end of his sermon in chapter 16. Abinadi speaks of being released from the bands of death as “redemption” and the process as one of “resurrection.” So although Noah and his people may be free from physical bondage at present, that is only temporary, and the more significant and eternal bondage to sin and death is what they are currently in, and from which only Christ can free them.
______________
But Abinadi does not restrict himself to simply a prophecy of future physical captivity and a sermon on present (and eternal) spiritual captivity. He takes it upon himself to try to convince Noah and company that they are not as righteous as they think they are.
Noah and his priests appear to keep strictly the law of Moses, by which they believe they will be saved. (12:28; 13:25) They appear to keep all the “performances and ordinances” (13:30) of the law of Moses; else why the need for priests and the temple? Abinadi tells them there is more to the law of Moses than merely the outward ordinances, and quotes the ten commandments to them, accusing them of breaking them. Abinadi separates the ten commandments in his speech, however, beginning with the first two commandment of not having any Gods before the Lord and not making any graven images (12:34-36) and not getting to the last eight until 13:12-24).
Abinadi puts great emphasis on keeping the ten commandments, going so far as to say he knows that “if ye keep the commandments of God ye shall be saved.” (12:33)
In between these two recitations of the ten commandments given by Moses, Noah attempts to silence Abinadi, at which point Abinadi becomes another Moses when “his face shone with exceeding luster, even as Moses’ did while in the mount of Sinai, while speaking with the Lord.” (13:5)
The text adds, “And he spake with power and authority from God.” (13:6) This is an important transition because Abinadi is about to reverse his position on salvation coming through keeping the law of Moses (12:33) and will hereafter preach that “salvation doth not come by the law alone; and were it not for the atonement, which God himself shall make for the sins and iniquities of his people, that they must unavoidably perish, notwithstanding the law of Moses.” (13:28)
Abinadi accuses Noah of having other gods before God, and of making graven images. (12:37) This is strange, inasmuch as we are not told expressly about any idols worshipped by Noah and his people, and indeed they seem well attuned to the details of the law of Moses. Is it possible that Abinadi refers not to actual graven images of idols, but of putting their riches and elegant and spacious buildings before God?
Abinadi tells them that they are not keeping the commandments of God as contained in the Decalogue, regardless of how well they are keeping the ordinances and sacrifices, and will later explain that the law of Moses is of no effect unless they recognize that it is done as a type and shadow of the sacrifice of Christ who alone can redeem them from the bands of death. “And moreover, I say unto you, that salvation doth not come by the law alone; and were it not for the atonement, which God himself shall make for the sins and iniquities of his people, that they must unavoidably perish, notwithstanding the law of Moses.” (13:28)
In making the transition from the law of Moses to the gospel of Christ, Abinadi says the law is not sufficient of its own but was given to the children of Israel as a strict law because they were a “stiffnecked people.” (13:29) He says Moses prophesied of the coming of the Messiah, and that “God should redeem his people” (a possible reference to Deuteronomy 18:18-19?). He then cites other unnamed prophets as having predicted that “God himself should come down among the children of men, and take upon him the form of man, and go forth in mighty power upon the face of the earth.”
But Abinadi now quotes, as if in support of his proposition, all of Isaiah 53 in Mosiah 14, and begins apparently explicating the passage in 15:1 by reiterating the point that “God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.” (15:1) In other words, Isaiah 53 seems to be the source for this prophecy of Abinadi that will end up getting him executed. It seems clear, then, that Abinadi sees the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 as referring to God himself, and that he will come down to earth and suffer on our behalf, will bear our griefs and carry our sorrows (14:4), we will be healed with his stripes (lashes) (14:5), and will “pour out his soul unto death. (14:12).
But there is a problem with Abinadi’s applying this to “God himself,” and that is that Isaiah 53 says it is God himself who is going to be involved in laying these punishments on his servant. The suffering servant will grow up before the Lord” (14:1), he is “smitten of God” (14:4), the “Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all” (14:7), it “pleased the Lord to bruise him” (14:10), and the “pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand,” (14:10)
How can Abinadi apply the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 to “God himself” when God is mentioned several times as being separate from the servant?
Interestingly, Abinadi himself sees the problem, and therefore launches into a convoluted argument as to how it is that the Father and the Son are one and the same being. Here we must leave all notions of the First Vision and D&C 130 behind us, for this is not Abinadi’s paradigm, nor is it the point he is making. Rather, Abinadi distinguishes the Father as a being of spirit and the Son as a being of flesh, with the implication that they are the same being manifesting in two forms.
And now Abinadi said unto them, “I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of god, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son—And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and earth.” (Mosiah 14:1-4)
Having established this point, Abinadi goes on to explicate the suffering servant element of Isaiah 53: “And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptations, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by his people. . . . the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father.” (15:5-6).
Having extricated himself from this thorny theological bramble, Abinadi goes on to selectively quote from Isaiah 53 in his exegesis, saying that Jesus was “as a sheep before the shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth,” and that the Son had power to “make intercession” for the children of men,” having “taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions.”
_________________
Abinadi is almost finished with his discourse, and will cite more to Isaiah 53, but in order to understand what he is doing here, we have to go back to the question that precipitated this entire sermon.
Noah and his priests had thrown Abinadi into prison and conferred on their inquisition of him. When they bring him forth, they try to cross him but are confounded. We are given only one actually question that the priests ask Abinadi, and it is the one that provokes his long, recorded sermon. It seems a very strange question, as it asks Abinadi what a certain passage of Isaiah means, which begins, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, ‘Thy God reigneth!’” (12:21)
It seems a strange question to ask. But from the point of view of Noah and his priests, they are the righteous ones, and they can prove it by their deliverance from enemies and their prosperity. They have no need of repentance. They bring up this question because Abinadi is doing anything other than bringing good tidings to them and publishing peace. In fact, one of their main complaints against Abinadi is that he is “has prophesied evil concerning thy (Noah’s) people, and saith that God will destroy them. And he also prophesieth evil concerning thy life.” (12:9-10) Abinadi’s feet are not beautiful, he is not a true prophet of God, or he would be lining up with this passage from Isaiah and preaching good things to them—not their imminent destruction. This is the gist of their question.
Abinadi is going to give the answer to the question about what this passage from Isaiah means. (Note this passage is from Isaiah 52 immediately before 53 which Isaiah will quote in its entirety. Isaiah seems to be saying they didn’t read far enough.)
Abinadi is also aware that he has not answered their question yet, because when they are going to lay their hands on him and his face shines as Moses, Abinadi says, “Touch me not, for God shall smite you if ye lay your hands upon me, for I have not delivered the message which the Lord sent me to deliver; neither have I told you that which ye requested that I should tell.” (13:3)
Now, going back to Mosiah 15:10 where we left off, Abinadi quotes more from Isaiah 53, saying, “Who shall declare his generation?” and “When his soul has been made an offering for sin, he shall see his seed?”
Abinadi implicitly lines himself up with those who declare his generation, and says that those who listen to the words of the prophets are those who are “his seed.” “I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are heirs of the kingdom of God.” (15:11)
Abinadi then says that all the prophets (of whom he is implicitly one) are those who have “published peace.” And so, three chapters later, after laying the foundation to answer their original question, Abinadi comes round to saying that those who preach of Christ and the salvation offered through him are those who have “brought good tidings of good,” and who have “published salvation,” and “said unto Zion: ‘Thy God reigneth!’” And “O how beautiful upon the mountains were their feet!” (15:14-15)
Abinadi hammers away at this theme in the present, past and future tense, and ends by saying “that is the founder of peace, yea, even the Lord, who has redeemed his people; yea, him who has granted salvation unto his people.” (15:18)
Abinadi goes on to preach Jesus Christ and the breaking of the bands of death through the Son, and links the prophets and those who have believed in their words (which he has previously defined as the “seed” the Lord will see in Isaiah 53 with those who will be in the first resurrection: And now, the resurrection of all the prophets, and all those that have believed in their words, or all those that have kept the commandments of God, shall come forth in the first resurrection; therefore, they are the first resurrection. They are raised to dwell with God who has redeemed them; thus they have eternal life through Christ who has broken the bands of death.” (Mosiah 15:22-23)
Here Abinadi also substitutes being delivered from earthly enemies as a sign of God’s favor (which Noah believes and can demonstrate) with a spiritual deliverance and redemption from the “bands of death.” This is the redemption and deliverance that is important, according to Abinadi.
Abinadi excoriates Noah for not being redeemed from this most important enemy because he does not keep the commandments, says that the salvation of the Lord shall be declared to every people everywhere, and concludes by quoting the second half of the Isaiah passage originally asked of him back in Mosiah 12, being the part about “thy watchmen shall lift up their voice,” and concluding with “The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” (Mosiah 15:29-31)
But Abinadi is not finished yet, and says that those who persist in their own carnal state and do not call upon the Lord for mercy are subject to the devil and are not delivered, in accordance with the God’s promise of deliverance for the righteous. (16:5, 12) Here we are reminded of the same message given by Benjamin to his people; that the natural man is an enemy to God and they must call on God for mercy to be delivered and receive the mighty change of heart. Benjamin’s people did cry to God for mercy and were delivered; Noah did not.
Noah can see that he is prospering and that his people are delivered from the Lamanites. Because of this, Noah believes he is in a right relationship with God. Abinadi challenges this notion, calling to mind the fact that Noah and all his people will one day die, that they can’t take it with them, and that it is death who is the true enemy and deliverance from death that is the true victory. If you are not delivered from death through the power of Christ, all the wealth and prosperity in this life count for nothing. They are ephemeral. Or, as Shakespeare put it:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
--Cymbeline IV, 2
Abinadi has previously invoked Noah’s transitory human state in his three-part prophecy, related to Noah by the people who captured him: And he “saith that thy life shall be as a garment in a furnace of fire. And again, he saith that thou shalt be as a stalk, even as a dry stalk of the field, which is run over by the beasts and trodden under foot. And again, he saith thou shal be as the blossoms of a thistle, which, when it is fully ripe, if the wind bloweth, it is driven forth upon the face of the land.” (12:10-12) These are images not just of destruction, but of the transitory and precarious nature of human existence.
For all we know,
This may only be a dream.
We come and go
Like a ripple on a stream.
--Fred Karlin
All the Best!
--Consiglieri
P.S. My bishop just got released so something may be in the wind.
_________________________
Mosiah 12-17
The Book of Mormon is rife with scenes put in juxtaposition to each other, with the apparent idea that we compare and contrast such scenes.
King Noah and his encounter with Abinadi is one of these. There are three kings in Zarahemla during the period of time that is juxtaposed with three kings in the Land of Nephi. Zarahemla’s kings are Mosiah, Benjamin and Mosiah. We get the most detail on the scene of King Benjamin, how he labors with his own hands beside his people, and how, even though his people were strict in keeping the commandments of God, nevertheless something critical was missing—that being born again as sons and daughters of God through calling upon God for mercy through the merits and sacrifice of his Son.
The three kings in the Land of Nephi during this time are Zeniff, Noah and Limhi. Once again, we get the most detail regarding the middle king, Noah. Noah does not labor beside his people with his own hands, as does his counterpart king, Benjamin, but instead gluts himself on the labors of his people. Noah does not have the spiritual wherewithal to preach to his people as did Benjamin, and so a prophet from the outside must come in and preach repentance—enter Abinadi.
It is important to note, however, that Noah does not see himself as wicked, nor do his priests. They see themselves as righteous and obedient to God. They have good reason to do so. They are prospering and likely see this as evidence that they are righteous. We get many descriptions of their riches, including those that they have used to adorn his many “elegant and spacious buildings” as well as the temple. (Mosiah 11:8-11) (Are we to draw a connection between Noah’s spacious buildings and the great and spacious building Lehi saw in his dream? And is a connection between Noah and Solomon being drawn for us, with mentions not only of Noah’s lavish public building projects, but mention also of his “many wives and concubines” (1:2) and the construction of his own “spacious palace” (11:9)?
The bedrock covenant in the Book of Mormon, repeated ad infinitum, is that “inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper” in the land. (1 Nephi 2:20; 4:14; 2 Nephi 1:20; 4:4 are some examples.) Clearly Noah’s people are prospering; therefore they must be keeping the commandments.
An additional promise on which Noah could rely to make his argument is that Nephi had said God’s chosen people will be made mighty “even unto the power of deliverance.” (1 Nephi 1:20).
Noah had just beaten back the Lamanites in a “great victory” (Mosiah 11:18-19). They had been delivered. Therefore they were clearly God’s “chosen” people. What could be plainer? Noah therefore has all the proof he needs of his righteousness in his people’s deliverance from the Lamanites, as well as in their prosperity. Noah can even tax them one fifth part of all their substance (11:3), which would have been a double tithe. The proof is in the pudding. They are righteous indeed.
In this way, Noah and his priests teach his people a prosperity gospel.
But then along comes Abinadi to try and tell Noah that he is not prospering because he is righteous, and he has not been delivered because he is chosen. Why should Noah believe what Abinadi has to say when all the evidence is against him?
After Abinadi’s second foray among Noah’s people to preach repentance and his capture, Noah’s people assure Noah he is righteous and that Abinadi is lying, and do so by invoking these two aspects of deliverance from enemies and prosperity as proof of Noah’s righteousness: “And now, O King, what great evil hast thou done, or what great sins have thy people committed, that we should be condemned of God or judged of this man? . . . And behold, we are strong; we shall not come into bondage, or be taken captive by our enemies; yea, and thou hast prospered in the land, and thou shalt also prosper.” (Mosiah 12:13,15)
Abinadi prophesies that unless they repent, Noah and his people will be brought into physical bondage and “none shall deliver” except God and, even then, it isn’t going to happen quickly. (11:23-25; 12:2) But primarily, Abinadi has to shift the message from one of physical captivity to one of spiritual captivity, which he will emphasize in his sermon to Noah and his priests, speaking frequently of the “bands of death” with which they are bound, and that the only way for them to be released from these bands of death is through being delivered by Jesus Christ.
This will constitute the bulk of Abinadi’s message in Mosiah 15:19 through the end of his sermon in chapter 16. Abinadi speaks of being released from the bands of death as “redemption” and the process as one of “resurrection.” So although Noah and his people may be free from physical bondage at present, that is only temporary, and the more significant and eternal bondage to sin and death is what they are currently in, and from which only Christ can free them.
______________
But Abinadi does not restrict himself to simply a prophecy of future physical captivity and a sermon on present (and eternal) spiritual captivity. He takes it upon himself to try to convince Noah and company that they are not as righteous as they think they are.
Noah and his priests appear to keep strictly the law of Moses, by which they believe they will be saved. (12:28; 13:25) They appear to keep all the “performances and ordinances” (13:30) of the law of Moses; else why the need for priests and the temple? Abinadi tells them there is more to the law of Moses than merely the outward ordinances, and quotes the ten commandments to them, accusing them of breaking them. Abinadi separates the ten commandments in his speech, however, beginning with the first two commandment of not having any Gods before the Lord and not making any graven images (12:34-36) and not getting to the last eight until 13:12-24).
Abinadi puts great emphasis on keeping the ten commandments, going so far as to say he knows that “if ye keep the commandments of God ye shall be saved.” (12:33)
In between these two recitations of the ten commandments given by Moses, Noah attempts to silence Abinadi, at which point Abinadi becomes another Moses when “his face shone with exceeding luster, even as Moses’ did while in the mount of Sinai, while speaking with the Lord.” (13:5)
The text adds, “And he spake with power and authority from God.” (13:6) This is an important transition because Abinadi is about to reverse his position on salvation coming through keeping the law of Moses (12:33) and will hereafter preach that “salvation doth not come by the law alone; and were it not for the atonement, which God himself shall make for the sins and iniquities of his people, that they must unavoidably perish, notwithstanding the law of Moses.” (13:28)
Abinadi accuses Noah of having other gods before God, and of making graven images. (12:37) This is strange, inasmuch as we are not told expressly about any idols worshipped by Noah and his people, and indeed they seem well attuned to the details of the law of Moses. Is it possible that Abinadi refers not to actual graven images of idols, but of putting their riches and elegant and spacious buildings before God?
Abinadi tells them that they are not keeping the commandments of God as contained in the Decalogue, regardless of how well they are keeping the ordinances and sacrifices, and will later explain that the law of Moses is of no effect unless they recognize that it is done as a type and shadow of the sacrifice of Christ who alone can redeem them from the bands of death. “And moreover, I say unto you, that salvation doth not come by the law alone; and were it not for the atonement, which God himself shall make for the sins and iniquities of his people, that they must unavoidably perish, notwithstanding the law of Moses.” (13:28)
In making the transition from the law of Moses to the gospel of Christ, Abinadi says the law is not sufficient of its own but was given to the children of Israel as a strict law because they were a “stiffnecked people.” (13:29) He says Moses prophesied of the coming of the Messiah, and that “God should redeem his people” (a possible reference to Deuteronomy 18:18-19?). He then cites other unnamed prophets as having predicted that “God himself should come down among the children of men, and take upon him the form of man, and go forth in mighty power upon the face of the earth.”
But Abinadi now quotes, as if in support of his proposition, all of Isaiah 53 in Mosiah 14, and begins apparently explicating the passage in 15:1 by reiterating the point that “God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.” (15:1) In other words, Isaiah 53 seems to be the source for this prophecy of Abinadi that will end up getting him executed. It seems clear, then, that Abinadi sees the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 as referring to God himself, and that he will come down to earth and suffer on our behalf, will bear our griefs and carry our sorrows (14:4), we will be healed with his stripes (lashes) (14:5), and will “pour out his soul unto death. (14:12).
But there is a problem with Abinadi’s applying this to “God himself,” and that is that Isaiah 53 says it is God himself who is going to be involved in laying these punishments on his servant. The suffering servant will grow up before the Lord” (14:1), he is “smitten of God” (14:4), the “Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all” (14:7), it “pleased the Lord to bruise him” (14:10), and the “pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand,” (14:10)
How can Abinadi apply the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 to “God himself” when God is mentioned several times as being separate from the servant?
Interestingly, Abinadi himself sees the problem, and therefore launches into a convoluted argument as to how it is that the Father and the Son are one and the same being. Here we must leave all notions of the First Vision and D&C 130 behind us, for this is not Abinadi’s paradigm, nor is it the point he is making. Rather, Abinadi distinguishes the Father as a being of spirit and the Son as a being of flesh, with the implication that they are the same being manifesting in two forms.
And now Abinadi said unto them, “I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of god, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son—And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and earth.” (Mosiah 14:1-4)
Having established this point, Abinadi goes on to explicate the suffering servant element of Isaiah 53: “And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptations, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by his people. . . . the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father.” (15:5-6).
Having extricated himself from this thorny theological bramble, Abinadi goes on to selectively quote from Isaiah 53 in his exegesis, saying that Jesus was “as a sheep before the shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth,” and that the Son had power to “make intercession” for the children of men,” having “taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions.”
_________________
Abinadi is almost finished with his discourse, and will cite more to Isaiah 53, but in order to understand what he is doing here, we have to go back to the question that precipitated this entire sermon.
Noah and his priests had thrown Abinadi into prison and conferred on their inquisition of him. When they bring him forth, they try to cross him but are confounded. We are given only one actually question that the priests ask Abinadi, and it is the one that provokes his long, recorded sermon. It seems a very strange question, as it asks Abinadi what a certain passage of Isaiah means, which begins, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, ‘Thy God reigneth!’” (12:21)
It seems a strange question to ask. But from the point of view of Noah and his priests, they are the righteous ones, and they can prove it by their deliverance from enemies and their prosperity. They have no need of repentance. They bring up this question because Abinadi is doing anything other than bringing good tidings to them and publishing peace. In fact, one of their main complaints against Abinadi is that he is “has prophesied evil concerning thy (Noah’s) people, and saith that God will destroy them. And he also prophesieth evil concerning thy life.” (12:9-10) Abinadi’s feet are not beautiful, he is not a true prophet of God, or he would be lining up with this passage from Isaiah and preaching good things to them—not their imminent destruction. This is the gist of their question.
Abinadi is going to give the answer to the question about what this passage from Isaiah means. (Note this passage is from Isaiah 52 immediately before 53 which Isaiah will quote in its entirety. Isaiah seems to be saying they didn’t read far enough.)
Abinadi is also aware that he has not answered their question yet, because when they are going to lay their hands on him and his face shines as Moses, Abinadi says, “Touch me not, for God shall smite you if ye lay your hands upon me, for I have not delivered the message which the Lord sent me to deliver; neither have I told you that which ye requested that I should tell.” (13:3)
Now, going back to Mosiah 15:10 where we left off, Abinadi quotes more from Isaiah 53, saying, “Who shall declare his generation?” and “When his soul has been made an offering for sin, he shall see his seed?”
Abinadi implicitly lines himself up with those who declare his generation, and says that those who listen to the words of the prophets are those who are “his seed.” “I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are heirs of the kingdom of God.” (15:11)
Abinadi then says that all the prophets (of whom he is implicitly one) are those who have “published peace.” And so, three chapters later, after laying the foundation to answer their original question, Abinadi comes round to saying that those who preach of Christ and the salvation offered through him are those who have “brought good tidings of good,” and who have “published salvation,” and “said unto Zion: ‘Thy God reigneth!’” And “O how beautiful upon the mountains were their feet!” (15:14-15)
Abinadi hammers away at this theme in the present, past and future tense, and ends by saying “that is the founder of peace, yea, even the Lord, who has redeemed his people; yea, him who has granted salvation unto his people.” (15:18)
Abinadi goes on to preach Jesus Christ and the breaking of the bands of death through the Son, and links the prophets and those who have believed in their words (which he has previously defined as the “seed” the Lord will see in Isaiah 53 with those who will be in the first resurrection: And now, the resurrection of all the prophets, and all those that have believed in their words, or all those that have kept the commandments of God, shall come forth in the first resurrection; therefore, they are the first resurrection. They are raised to dwell with God who has redeemed them; thus they have eternal life through Christ who has broken the bands of death.” (Mosiah 15:22-23)
Here Abinadi also substitutes being delivered from earthly enemies as a sign of God’s favor (which Noah believes and can demonstrate) with a spiritual deliverance and redemption from the “bands of death.” This is the redemption and deliverance that is important, according to Abinadi.
Abinadi excoriates Noah for not being redeemed from this most important enemy because he does not keep the commandments, says that the salvation of the Lord shall be declared to every people everywhere, and concludes by quoting the second half of the Isaiah passage originally asked of him back in Mosiah 12, being the part about “thy watchmen shall lift up their voice,” and concluding with “The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” (Mosiah 15:29-31)
But Abinadi is not finished yet, and says that those who persist in their own carnal state and do not call upon the Lord for mercy are subject to the devil and are not delivered, in accordance with the God’s promise of deliverance for the righteous. (16:5, 12) Here we are reminded of the same message given by Benjamin to his people; that the natural man is an enemy to God and they must call on God for mercy to be delivered and receive the mighty change of heart. Benjamin’s people did cry to God for mercy and were delivered; Noah did not.
Noah can see that he is prospering and that his people are delivered from the Lamanites. Because of this, Noah believes he is in a right relationship with God. Abinadi challenges this notion, calling to mind the fact that Noah and all his people will one day die, that they can’t take it with them, and that it is death who is the true enemy and deliverance from death that is the true victory. If you are not delivered from death through the power of Christ, all the wealth and prosperity in this life count for nothing. They are ephemeral. Or, as Shakespeare put it:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
--Cymbeline IV, 2
Abinadi has previously invoked Noah’s transitory human state in his three-part prophecy, related to Noah by the people who captured him: And he “saith that thy life shall be as a garment in a furnace of fire. And again, he saith that thou shalt be as a stalk, even as a dry stalk of the field, which is run over by the beasts and trodden under foot. And again, he saith thou shal be as the blossoms of a thistle, which, when it is fully ripe, if the wind bloweth, it is driven forth upon the face of the land.” (12:10-12) These are images not just of destruction, but of the transitory and precarious nature of human existence.
For all we know,
This may only be a dream.
We come and go
Like a ripple on a stream.
--Fred Karlin