The next condemnation of the future churches is that they do not teach the true gospel; they misunderstand the nature of repentance. Where repentance is the essential provision of the atonement which allows us to change and repent, in these future churches the concept will be perverted to a way to whitewash actions without requiring any true change. The idea that “God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved” undermines the reason for the atonement. Given Nephi’s emphasis on the atoning mission of the Messiah, he would have been particularly incensed at this misunderstanding and misapplication of the atonement.
Verse 9 says of those future churches that “their works shall be in the dark.” This is probably an allusion to Isaiah 28:15, which spoke of those who “seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark.” Nephi is particularly sensitive to that phrase. In 2 Nephi 9:9 he condemned the secret combinations who did “secret works of darkness.” In 2 Nephi 10:15 he again condemned “secret works of darkness.”