Such an affront to the whole gospel theme would be a baffling task to repudiate for the simple reason that one hardly knows where to begin with such an apostate spirit. Here is Sherem defending the law of Moses and yet attacking the gospel of Jesus Christ, when the whole purpose of the law of Moses was to bring people to Christ! How do you handle a mentality like that? Jacob clearly recognized the challenge and he expressed gratefulness that the Lord poured his Spirit into Jacob's soul so that he was able to confound Sherem in all his words.
Jacob said, "Deniest thou the Christ who should come?" In his reply Sherem hedged a little and said he would not deny Christ if there was a Christ, but then he quickly bolstered his position by stating with certainty that there never would be and never had been a Christ.
Now this laid a foundation for Jacob's next bit of Socratic probing. Having firmly established Sherem's declaration that the whole idea of a Christ was a fake, Jacob quietly asked him if he believed in the scriptures. As a pretended supporter of the law of Moses, Sherem immediately replied, "Yea." He didn't realize, but he was now caught in a trap.
Jacob could have immediately made Sherem look ridiculous by quoting dozens of verses of scripture dealing with the Christ. The brass plates were literally loaded with such scriptures. But Jacob chose not to do this. In a spirit of kindness he suggested that Sherem had apparently not understood the scriptures. He then certified that none of the prophets have written nor prophesied without speaking specifically of Jesus Christ.
Continuing in a low key, Jacob presented Sherem with the irrefutable declaration that he, Jacob, was a scientific witness to the reality of Christ, because he had both seen him and heard him. In fact Jacob first saw Christ when he was very young. He even saw a vision of the day when Jesus would perform his great redemptive sacrifice.3 Furthermore, Jacob had been instructed by the Holy Ghost concerning the importance of Christ's mission. He had been told that without the Atonement the entire human race would have been lost.