To add power to his testimony of
the coming Messiah, Abinadi—like Nephi and Jacob in earlier parts of the Book
of Mormon—quotes the great Old Testament prophet Isaiah (the entirety of Isaiah 53). Abinadi is trying to
show his detractors (King Noah and his priests), with no room for doubt, that
the covenant they have with the Lord goes far deeper than a set of rules they
can twist to rationalize their evil deeds. Ultimately, judgment is the Lord’s,
not theirs.
The covenant is tied to a Savior
whose triumph over death and sin will qualify Him to exercise perfect judgment
in the case of each man and woman. The Savior will triumph over sin in two ways.
First, He never gives in to temptation. This qualifies Him to be able to
accomplish the second triumph—to suffer the pain of others’ sins voluntarily so
that He can remove the burden that sin places on all other people. But, the
burden is only lifted if those people repent and are willing to turn to Him and
actually recognize Him as their Savior.
As Isaiah’s prophecy tells us, many
(perhaps most) of the people among whom Jesus lived and moved ultimately could
not sufficiently humble themselves to appreciate that this person held the key
to their redemption and happiness, and that their acceptance of Him was so much
more important than obtaining or maintaining any earthly status or possession.
The prophecy says that Jesus will be “despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (verse 3).
As part of the Lord’s perfect plan,
Jesus didn’t necessarily look the part to our natural eyes. Isaiah says that “he
hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him there is no beauty that
we should desire him” (verse 2).
There is a clear double meaning
here. In addition to testifying of Christ’s coming, Abinadi (through Isaiah’s words) is giving his
captors and tormentors one last chance to realize that they are making the same
mistake with him that Christ’s persecutors will make almost 200 years later.
Noah and his priests see Abinadi as a troublemaker emerging from the margins of
society, with no advantage in his earthly appearance or status to give them
pause about treating him so wretchedly. Abinadi, of course, does not pretend to
be the Messiah, but his own situation is a “type” or example that does help
point to the injustice that Christ will suffer later.
As the prophecy continues, Abinadi
(again, through Isaiah’s words) explains why the Father is willing to have His
Son sacrificed for others. And this also gives us some insight into the reason
for Abinadi’s own sacrifice. In the bigger picture, by allowing Jesus to suffer
and die for all by making “intercession for the transgressors,” the Lord’s
“righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities”
(verses 11-12). With this perspective, the wicked who subject Jesus (and
Abinadi) to an unjust death are souls to be pitied, because they are completely
missing that the person who can save them is the very one they are ridiculing
and torturing. By the same token, Jesus (and Abinadi) will receive “a portion
with the great” because he made “intercession for the transgressors” and he
“hath poured out his soul unto death” (verse 12).
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