As did his father, Mormon, Moroni makes a temporary end to telling the history, and tells the moral of the history. With the backdrop of the relentless stories of rebellions and walking wickedly before God, it seems unusual that Moroni would insert a discourse on the nature of faith. It is plausible that these thoughts were triggered by his summary of Ether’s preaching in the previous verses (2–5). In those verses, Moroni described Ether faithfully teaching, with only a few who believed. Moroni personally understood that the destruction of a people did not mean that every person in that destroyed nation had abandoned faith.
Moroni saw in Ether the example of faith in adversity. When we see the language echoing Hebrews 11:1, the important part isn’t the whole of the verse, but the wording of the verse’s ending: “… hoped for and not seen.” Moroni is placing a definition of faith in the context of adversity, a faith that can remain strong even when the results, or the justification for that faith, are not seen.
Thinking on Ether’s personal mission, Moroni sees the problem of a faithful prophet, who is preaching to a nation that rejects him. Still, the rejection of the message does not mean that the message wasn’t true. Ether was in a trial of his faith, but “ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” That statement parallels the admonition against looking for signs. Looking for signs reverses the process, suggesting that the witness might come first. It is rather that we must be prepared, and be faithful so that we might be worthy of the witness.
Because it is Moroni speaking, he is not exclusively speaking of the brother of Jared when he says that “Christ showed himself unto our fathers,” though that is appropriate in this record. Moroni would include any time that God was present, even if only in a cloud, or in a fire on a rock (as witnessed by Lehi). Moroni also included the time that Christ literally showed himself in Bountiful. All of those occasions were made possible through faith, and were not given to create faith.
The purpose of Christ is to be the foundation upon which our hopes can be built. Having declared himself among men, Christ is the anchor to which we may tie our hopes, and therefore be “partakers of the gift” of eternal life.