Abinadi's Torch of Testimony
Book of Mormon Notes - Thursday, July 6, 2023, Mosiah 14
Abinadi was just getting started.
Remember the questions that were on the table, both the wicked priests questions and Abinadi’s questions. An ever present question is also to consider why Mormon quoted Abinadi quoting Isaiah directly, and why Mormon included these passages in his abridgment of the large plate of Nephi. We may also have our own personal questions.
Remember that the particular question that was posed by the wicked priest, although it was probably an insincere question that was aimed at entrapping Abinadi, is still a question that Abinadi will answer. It may remind us a bit of the Savior’s response to the crafty lawyer who sought to justify himself by asking “Who is my neighbor?” Though it was a cunning question, it brought forth one of the Savior’s greatest parables. Similarly, the wicked priest’s question was cunning, an attempt to use ancient scripture, particularly ancient scripture from the prophet Isaiah, to accuse and entrap Abinadi. And similarly, this question, and Abinadi’s own rhetorical questions brought forth a recitation of some of Isaiah’s most beautiful teachings, along with an inspired interpretation of those teachings.
What was the wicked priest’s original question? He wanted to know the meaning of a passage in Isaiah, specifically Isaiah 52:7-10. This wicked priest, perhaps Alma, perhaps another one of King Noah’s wicked priests, asked:
aWhat meaneth the words [from Isaiah 52:7-10] which are written, and which have been taught by our fathers… ?
Abinadi’s response included many questions that lead up his inspired answer:
Are you apriests, and pretend to teach this people, and to understand the spirit of prophesying, and yet desire to know of me what these things mean?
Ye have not applied your ahearts to bunderstanding; therefore, ye have not been wise. Therefore, what teach ye this people?
Why do ye commit whoredoms and cspend your strength with harlots, yea, and cause this people to commit sin, that the Lord has cause to send me to prophesy against this people, yea, even a great evil against this people?
And what know ye concerning the law of Moses?
What say ye?
Now Abinadi said unto them, Have ye done all this?
And have ye ataught this people that they should do all these things?
Have ye ataught this people that they should observe to do all these things for to keep these commandments?
And now, did they aunderstand the law?
For behold, did not Moses prophesy unto them concerning the coming of the Messiah, and that God should redeem his people?
Yea, and even aall the prophets who have prophesied ever since the world began—have they not spoken more or less concerning these things?
Have they not said that aGod 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?
Yea, and have they not said also that he should bring to pass the aresurrection of the dead, and that he, himself, should be oppressed and afflicted?
Abinadi quickly turned the tables on the wicked priests of King Noah. He became the interrogator and the teacher. And Abinadi’s pointed and poignant questions dovetailed beautifully and naturally with Isaiah’s questions in a different portion of his book:
Thus Abinadi did more than answer the wicked priest’s conniving question. He answered that question along with the questions that he should have asked, as well as the questions that the Lord, through Isaiah asks us. The Lord has His own questions, and Elder Maxwell’s observation is true:
There are poignant and frequent reminders of the veil, adding to our sense of being close but still outside. In our deepest prayers, when the agency of man encounters the omniscience of God, we sometimes sense, if only momentarily, how very provincial our petitions are; we perceive that there are more good answers than we have good questions; and we realize that we have been taught more than we can tell, for the language used is not that which the tongue can transmit.
Thus Abinadi responded to a question about a passage from Isaiah with an answer from another passage of Isaiah. Abinadi wielded the word of God righteously in defense against the misuse of scripture by the wicked priest. This may remind us of our Savior Jesus Christ who resisted the temptations of the devil. Each time that He was tempted, the Lord resisted the temptation beginning with the phrase “It is written…”. Like the wicked priest, the devil attempted to use scripture against the Savior, saying, “It is written…” but like Abinadi, our Savior responded with the true understanding of scripture.
In essence, the wicked priest of Noah seemed to be tempting Abinadi by claiming that Isaiah had prophesied good news and glad tidings, whereas Abinadi only “prophesied evil.” But Abinadi’s swift reply, in a nutshell, was: “Ok, you want some Isaiah? I’ll give you some Isaiah. Pow! 💥”
Abinadi’s response was also to reprove and correct the wicked priests regarding their misunderstanding and misuse of the law of Moses, and to testify of the true Source of salvation. Remember that Abinadi asked: “aDoth salvation come by the law of Moses?” Another way to phrase Abinadi’s question for the purpose of our study is “How does salvation come?” Abinadi instructs us that salvation does not come by the law of Moses alone, and that the law of Moses points to the True Source of Salvation, namely Jesus Christ. In fact, Moses and all the prophets who have prophesied ever since the world began prophesied of the coming of the Messiah. Moses and all of the prophets testified 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. They each prophesied that the Lord should bring to pass the resurrection of the dead. And one of the most poetic and powerful among those prophets, the great prophet Isaiah, prophesied that the Lord himself should be oppressed and afflicted. Thus Abinadi not only turns the tables on King Noah and his wicked priests, but he sets the stage for a recitation of Isaiah’s testimony regarding the True Source of Salvation.
The wicked priest who posed the question using verses from Isaiah wanted scripture to mean something that it didn’t. He wanted Isaiah’s good news and glad tidings to apply to King Noah and his priests. That’s what he wanted to hear. But what he needed to hear was precisely the opposite, namely, that Isaiah’s good news and glad tidings applied to Abinadi and to all of the holy prophets. What he and his comrades also needed to hear was that the price of salvation was, as Isaiah testified, the humiliation and suffering of God Himself, the Messiah.
And who believed the prophets’ report? To whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? Abinadi believed and the arm of the Lord was revealed to him. Thus Abinadi answered his own questions as he continued to answer the wicked priest’s question. And if we return to the question about why Mormon included Abinadi’s direct quotation of Isaiah along with Abinadi’s interpretation of these passages, we will remember that these things were recorded specifically for us, for our benefit, today.
I believe that these things were also recorded for Joseph Smith’s benefit, and for the benefit of the early saints. It was only a short time before Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum would suffer a fate similar to that of Abinadi. To translate and internalize Abinadi’s testimony and example, as well as his recitation and explanation of Isaiah, must have strengthened and prepared Joseph, as well as his brother Hyrum, to follow Christ in that great adventure of discipleship that leads inevitably through Gethsemane and the Cross to the hope of the Resurrection and the gift of Eternal Life.
There are only twelve verses in Isaiah 53 and in Mosiah 14. But those twelve verses contain the answer to the question of the Source of our salvation, and the answer to each of our own personal questions.
King Noah and his wicked priests understood nothing of Christ, his Gospel, or the scriptures because their hearts were set upon the things of this world. But Abinadi was sent to reveal Jehovah to them in answer to King Noah’s mocking question: “aWho is Abinadi, that I and my people should be judged of him, or bwho is the Lord, that shall bring upon my people such great affliction?” Abinadi came in disguise to King Noah’s people, but then revealed his true identity. He also revealed the Lord’s true identity:
And it shall come to pass that they shall aknow that I am the Lord their God, and am a bjealous God, visiting the iniquities of my people. (Mosiah 11:22)
Abinadi revealed what Isaiah had revealed, namely the Source of Salvation, Jehovah, Jesus Christ… the Lord our jealous God.
Do we believe the prophets’ report? Is the arm of the Lord revealed to us?
Who was Jesus Christ? What was He like? What did He do? Do we really want to know Him?
There was at least one person in Abinadi’s audience who had started to pay attention. His name was Alma, and he was caught in a snare. But as Abinadi testified of Jesus Christ and unfolded the truth about Him, Alma, like his son after him, may have caught a glimpse of joy and felt a spark of hope. Alma, like his son after him, may have felt racked with torment, harrowed up by the memory of his many sins. He may have felt exquisite and bitter pains. He may have been in the gall of bitterness when the Lord sent Abinadi, with Isaiah’s testimony burning in his heart, to rescue him from the snare in which he was caught. Then later on Alma’s own testimony of Christ, like Jacob’s testimony to his son Enos, could rescue Alma the Younger in his time of need.
If we pause for a moment to consider how the line of testimony had been broken, we can better understand the significance of how it was restored through Abinadi. Lehi’s testimony flowed freely through Nephi, Jacob, Enos, and others down to the reign of King Benjamin, and even through King Zeniff. But King Noah had, through his tyranny and riotous living, severed that line. The Lord sent Abinadi to restore or rekindle the flame of testimony through the heart of one whom He knew would receive it.
Let’s go with Abinadi, then, and be present with Alma as Isaiah’s testimony of the Messiah flowed forth and may have first penetrated Alma’s searching heart:
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is adespised 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.
Surely he has aborne our bgriefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was awounded for our btransgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are chealed.
All we, like asheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he aopened not his mouth; he is brought as a blamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgressions of my people was he stricken.
And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the arich in his death; because he had done no bevil, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it pleased the Lord to abruise him; he hath put him to grief; when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his bseed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall abear their iniquities.
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the agreat, and bhe shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many, and made cintercession for the transgressors.
When I was a student at BYU I took a class on Isaiah from Victor Ludlow (son of Daniel Ludlow) in which we read his excellent book, one of my favorite books, Isaiah: Prophet, Seer, and Poet. One of the assignments for the class was to do a creative project based on a favorite chapter in Isaiah. I chose this chapter that Abinadi recited, Isaiah 53, and I created a painting that was meant to represent my feelings regarding Isaiah’s testimony of the Messiah’s humiliation and suffering, or what the angel in Nephi’s vision called “the condescension of God:”
Nephi’s response to the angel’s question “Knowest thou the acondescension of God?” is also my response: “I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.” (1 Nephi 11:16-17)
I know that God loves us, His children, and that Nephi’s tesitmony, Abinadi’s testimony, and Isaiah’s testimony of Jesus Christ are true. I know that Jesus Christ suffered and died for us.
He did all of this and more because He loves us, and because He is the Son of God.
If we, like Alma, listen to Abinadi’s testimony and receive it into our hearts, then we, like Alma’s son Alma may catch hold upon this thought and cry within our hearts:
Then we, like Abinadi, can carry the torch of testimony to ignite hope in Christ for others.