The Law of Moses was filled with symbolic reference to the life and mission of the Savior, all these things were types of things to come (v. 31). Robert Millett said, “In a sense the Law of Moses was given as a type of ‘spiritual busywork’ a system and pattern that would keep the people constantly involved; with everything pointing toward the coming Savior and Redeemer.” (CES Symposium, Aug. 1986, p. 99 as taken from Latter-day Commentary on the Book of Mormon compiled by K. Douglas Bassett, p. 219)
How ironic it is that the law was kept for centuries but the Savior, to whose life the law pointed, was rejected by the keepers of the law? The people had lost sight of the meaning of the many symbols. That is like forgetting what a red light signifies. What good is a traffic light if no one remembers what it symbolizes? Such is the Law of Moses without remembering that it is the schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ (Gal 3:24).
“Ethics without doctrine is like the body without the spirit—it may have the same appearance but is void of the power of life. The Ten Commandments, independent of the fulness of the gospel, are little more than an anemic theology in the hands of social reformers, being bereft of the laws and ordinances of the gospel. Similarly, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, detached from the testimony of Christ’s divine sonship, is but a curriculum for a civics class rather than a testament of those verities by which one obtains everlasting life.” (McConkie and Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, vol. 2, p. 213)
Mosiah 14 Abinadi recites Isaiah 53
Of all the chapters which Isaiah wrote, none of them deal more completely and exclusively with the First Coming of Jesus Christ than Isaiah 53. So many times, Isaiah speaks of events in Christ’s first and second comings in juxtaposition, making differentiation difficult without the benefit of a retrospective viewpoint. But in this chapter, there is little need for differentiation—except for verses 10 &12, it is all about the First Coming of Christ. Abinadi uses this chapter as the quintessential prophecy of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten. This is what the Law of Moses was pointing to all along. He is going to prove to Noah and the priests that indeed the prophets have all spoken of this Messiah, Have they not said that God himself should come down among the children of men…that he should bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, and that he, himself, should be oppressed and afflicted? (Mosiah 13:34-5). Isaiah 53 is going to be the example which Abinadi chooses to prove his point.
Bruce R. McConkie
“As our New Testament now stands, we find Matthew (Matt. 8:17), Philip (Acts 8:27-35), Paul (Rom. 4:25), and Peter (1 Pet. 2:24-25) all quoting, paraphrasing, enlarging upon, and applying to the Lord Jesus various of the verses in this great 53rd chapter of Isaiah. How many sermons have been preached, how many lessons have been taught, how many testimonies have been borne-both in ancient Israel and in the meridian of time-using the utterances of this chapter as the text, we can scarcely imagine.” (The Promised Messiah, p. 235)