Gospel Doctrine Commentary
Lesson No. Eighteen

Christ the Creator and the Redeemer

(An Outline of Mosiah 13-17 - These chapters are most important and doctrinally significant)

Introduction – The picture with this lesson is of Thorvaldsen’s Christus located in the Rotunda of the North Visitors Center on Temple Square.  Elder Bruce R McConkie describes it:   

“There we see the Creator in majestic marble standing in the midst of eternity.  On the domed ceiling and the encircling walls are paintings of the sidereal heavens with their endless orbs, all moving through an organized cosmos.  And as we gaze upon what the hand of mere man has made, our minds are opened to see in a limited manner the miracle of creation.

“There we also see the nail marks in his hands that healed and blessed, and also in the feet that trod the dusty lanes of that earth which his hands had made….And our minds are opened, again in a limited manner, to see the miracle of redemption” (Ensign, June 1982, p. 15).

Jesus Christ is central to the plan of salvation for without the atonement the plan of salvation would only be a plan.  The atonement puts the plan into operation, and makes it all possible.

Mosiah 13 – “God himself shall make an atonement and redeem his people” (13: Headnote)   

  1. All prophets have taught that God will come to the earth as the Mortal Messiah (Mosiah 13:34).
  2. He will not come as a conquering King “to bear his holy arm in the eyes of all nations” (Mosiah 12:24) as the false priest supposed.  This is the Second Coming.  When God comes the first time to redeem his people “he, himself, will be oppressed and afflicted” (13: 35).

Mosiah 14 – Abinadi gives an improved rendering of Isaiah 53 – Isaiah 53 is the most explicit prophetic description of the mortal ministry of Jesus in the Old Testament.

  1. Jesus shall grow as a tender plant or as a child in humble circumstances.  He will come out of dry ground or in a spiritually arid society.  He shall have no special comeliness, but will look like other men.  He will know of sorrow and rejection.  (14:1-3)
  2. Jesus not only took upon himself our sins, but also our pains and sorrows.  With his stripes we are healed.  All have gone astray and have need for his atonement. (14:4-6)
  3. Jesus will be oppressed and afflicted, beaten and scourged.  After his death who will declare his generation?  Those who will declare Jesus’ atoning sacrifice and divine Sonship will be his seed who he redeems. (14:7-8; also 15:11)
  4. After he was put to death he will see his seed.  It was while his body was in the tomb that he visited the righteous spirits in the spirit world. (See D&C 138)  The faithful who will become joint-heirs with the Savior and receive the fullness of the Father. (14:9-12)

Mosiah 15 – Christ was both the Creator and the Redeemer

  1. Jehovah, the Father of heaven and the earth, shall come to the earth as Jesus Christ and shall redeem his people. (Vs 1)
  2. Jehovah and Jesus (one God) has a dual role as both the Father and the Son. (Vs 2-4)
    1. “And because he dwelleth in the flesh he shall be called the Son of God” (15:2).  This refers to Jesus’ divine Sonship.  He inherited death from his mother and the power over death from his Father, therefore, he could willingly lay down his mortal life in an infinite atonement, and take it up again in the resurrection.  (See John 10:17-18)   
    2. He is called “the Father because he was conceived by the power of God” (15:3).  He is also the Father because he is the “Father (Creator) of heaven and of earth” (15:4)
    3. Jesus, because of his divine Sonship and his perfect obedience, is able to bring to pass an infinite atonement.  Because of his atonement and through our obedience, we become his sons and daughters, and he becomes the Father of our salvation.
  3. In mortality Jesus’ Spirit always dominated his flesh.  “Being one God” this is another way that the Son (flesh) was subject to the Father (Spirit).  Therefore, this “one God” can be referred to as both God and man or as both the Father and the Son (15:5).
    1. Jesus as the Son of God has power over death, and as the only perfect man he has power to make intercession for the children of men.  (Vs 6-8; see also Helaman 5:11)
    2. Jehovah and Jesus is one God, and is both the Creator and the Redeemer (Vs 9)
  4. “Who shall declare his generation” (Vs 10).  This question could be, who will testify of his divine Sonship or his genealogy as the Son of God and the Son of Mary.
  5. Jesus will see his seed.  (Vs 10).  Between his death and resurrection He visited the righteous spirits in the spirit world who had been redeemed through faith in his coming atonement.  (See D&C 138)  His seed are those who he has redeemed (Vs 11-13).

Mosiah 16 – The fall and Christ’s divine Sonship is the doctrinal basis of the atonement

  1. Abinadi teaches the doctrine of the fall.  Understanding the doctrine of the fall enables us to see our need for the atonement and the reason to repent (16:1-5).
  2. If it were not for the divine Sonship of Christ, the way he came into the world, there would be no redemption from sin or resurrection from the dead (16:6-9).
  3. When Book of Mormon prophets, including Abinadi, teach of the resurrection they also teach of the judgment (16:10-11).  This is because they are essentially the same. From latter day revelation we learn that we are resurrected with a celestial, terrestrial, or telestial body depending on how we have lived in mortality.  (See D&C 76)
  4. Salvation requires Christ’s atonement and our repentance (16:12-15).

Mosiah 17 – Abinadi is accused of blasphemy, a capital crime, and is executed (17:7-8)

  1. The accusation that made Abinadi worthy of death is that he taught “that Christ was God, the Father of all things, and said that he should lake upon him the image of man…or in other words he said that man was created after the image of God, and that God should come down among the children of men, and take upon him flesh and blood, and go forth upon the face of the earth – And now, because he said this, they did put him to death” (Mosiah 7:27-28).  Noah and his priests considered it blasphemy to teach that God could become a man.
  2. Conversely, Jesus was accused of blasphemy by the leaders of the Jews and executed because he claimed to be God, and they considered him a mortal man.  (See Matthew 26:59-66)
  3. People reject Christ, his atonement, and the plan of salvation by either denying that God was a man as did Noah, or that man could be God as did the leaders of the Jews.  Either way works for Satan because it is his desire to put as much distance as possible between man and God, whereas it is the purpose of the plan of salvation to help us understand our divine heritage and potential. 

Testimony – Jesus said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3) But the knowledge of God was lost during the great apostasy because Satan “has taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious” (1 Nephi 13:26).  Because of this “an exceeding great many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them” (1 Nephi 13: 29).

How grateful we should be for the restoration of the knowledge of God and the fulness of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith.  I rejoice in it.