Jesus spoke again to the people who were mourning in the darkness after the great destructions. Christ here proclaimed that he would no longer accept animal sacrifices and burnt offerings. Instead, the Lord declared that he would receive a sacrifice of “a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (3 Nephi 9:17, 19).
This told the people that the law of sacrifice, as understood under the Law of Moses, was no longer acceptable to the Lord. The old law of sacrifice of animals that had been practiced for millennia was no longer to be observed. What would be the new law of sacrifice? The answer to that question constitutes much of the teachings that the Lord would subsequently deliver among the Nephites.
Although the words “sacrifice of a broken heart and contrite spirit” never appear explicitly in the New Testament, Jesus used that phrase, found in the Psalms, to emphasize the point that adherence to the essential part of the law of sacrifice—one which had existed from ancient times and with which the righteous Nephites and Lamanites most likely would have been familiar—had now been fulfilled and superseded.
The requirement to sacrifice “a broken heart and a contrite spirit” is repeatedly stated in the Book of Mormon, not only by Jesus and Moroni after Christ’s coming (3 Nephi 12:19; Mormon 2:14; Ether 4:15; Moroni 6:2), but also by the early Nephite prophets, Lehi and Nephi, long before Christ’s birth (2 Nephi 2:7; 4:32).
Moreover, this crucial phrase can be found in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, and therefore may have been included on the plates of brass that Lehi’s family brought out of Jerusalem. Old Testament references to this principle include Psalm 51:17, which states that “[t]he sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart.” Psalm 34:18 declares that “[t]he Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” The great Old Testament prophet Isaiah, when speaking messianically, declared that the Lord’s mission was to “bind up the brokenhearted” (Isaiah 61:1).
Therefore, even under the old Law of Moses, the sacrifice of an animal on the altar of the temple was to be accompanied by a broken heart. Once the shedding of the blood of an animal under the law of Moses had been fulfilled by the shedding of the blood of Christ, the role of blood was no longer necessary. However, the broken heart and contrite spirit remained as an essential spiritual requirement of the Lord’s people.
Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Jesus Tell All People to Sacrifice a Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit? (3 Nephi 9:19-20),” KnoWhy 198 (September 29, 2016).