According to John Welch, building upon the foundational testimony of Christ, each Book of Mormon prophet distinctively accented certain attributes of Jesus Christ. Judging simply from the names and titles that they used in referring to the Lord, we can see that each Book of Mormon prophet related to and testified of Jesus in his own personal ways, revealing to us things about Jesus Christ and also about the prophets who knew him.
Abinadi stands out as a lone prophetic voice, singularly and courageously decrying the perversions of King Noah and his priests. After spending two years as a fugitive, Abinadi returned to the city of Nephi by himself to deliver his prophetic warnings and condemnations. He was alone in his preaching, alone in his tenacious rebuttal against Noah's court, and alone in the flames of martyrdom. He suffered, an innocent victim, who had done no evil, although four different legal allegations were leveled against him.
The attributes of Christ featured by Abinadi correlate readily with these personal experiences of Abinadi. Primarily, Abinadi depicted Christ as one who would innocently suffer, alone, to redeem his people. Three times Abinadi emphatically asserted that God himself would bear the iniquities of His people: "Were it not for the atonement which God himself shall make" (Mosiah 13:28); "God himself should come down among the children of men" (Mosiah 13:34); "God himself shall come done among the children of men, and shall redeem his people" (Mosiah 15:1). This major point of emphasis for Abinadi was also a new formulation. No other Book of Mormon prophet before Abinadi had used these exact words, and only one other will do so after him (see Alma 42:15). So unequivocal was Abinadi's formulation that the priests of Noah found it the basis of their blasphemy charge: "For thou hast said that God himself should come down among the children of men" (Mosiah 17:8) Just as Abinadi himself went down alone into the pit of certain martyrdom that awaited him in Noah's court, so God himself would come into the world.
The dominant feature of Abinadi's teaching is about the redemption and that it will come through suffering (the words "redeem" or "redemption" appear nineteen times in Abinadi's words). Despite God's mighty power, he himself will be "oppressed" and "afflicted" (Mosiah 13:35). Abinadi drew these words from the prophecies of Isaiah that the servant will be "despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; . . . afflicted, . . . wounded for our transgressions, . . . oppressed, and he was afflicted" (Isaiah 53:3-7; Mosiah 14:3-7). As Isaiah prophesied, "he hath poured out his soul unto death" (Isaiah 53:12; Mosiah 14:12), and "so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death" (Mosiah 15:7). Of all Book of Mormon prophets, Abinadi was similarly called upon to surrender his will to God, even unto death by fire. [John W. Welch, "Ten Testimonies of Jesus Christ from the Book of Mormon," F.A.R.M.S., 1994, pp. 9-10]