In this future world, grown apart from its God yet still believing, human beings must reconcile their professed belief with God’s evident withdrawal. Nephi is describing a situation that must be conceptually foreign to him. As an Israelite, he traced his heritage to a God who was physically present in the pillar of the cloud and the pillar of light that guided the children of Israel from Egypt (Ex. 13:21). God’s absence would therefore define foreigners—people who lacked the covenant. Thus, this future Gentile population and the wayward Jews both lacked the covenant.
Nephi predicts that they will attempt to justify God’s absence by claiming that the atonement has been accomplished. By pointing to this great event in the past, they will justify the lack of current miracles and God’s absence.