Mosiah 13-15
It seems as though a great many people in the early days (as well as today) were suddenly enraged at the idea of Christ condescending to our level. The Jews hated it, the Zoramites hated it, and the priests of king Noah hated it.
The idea that God would be born a baby to a mortal woman, perhaps, brought heaven and eternity a bit too close? It's much more comfortable to deal with an invisible unknowable God who just stays "out there," and meddles not in the affairs of men.
They want a "smooth" God, who asks nothing of us, and for all his doctrine and prophets to testify of bees and flowers and chirping birds nothing but good tidings, gladness, and peace
The priests of Noah questioned Abinadi, saying, "Hey! Why don't you declare happy things to us like Isaiah clearly said you should do? How dare you tell us we're wicked!"
"Look, you jibronies," returns Abinadi. "You're totally wrong. Isaiah didn't mean that!"
He goes on to explain that God himself would step down and make personal intercession for His children. He will come to be mocked, cast out, spit upon, beaten, scourged, humiliated, tortured, and crucified; by this dying and suffering more than anyone could, Christ would break the bands of death and stand between us and justice.
Salvation comes not by the law, but through the atonement of Christ who should come in the flesh, for which the law of Moses served only as a type.
As Noah and his priests became angry, as the wicked often do, they send him back to prison. When they finally sentence him to death, his capital offense, they declare, is to have taught that God should be born in the flesh.
Curious, isn't it, that these very men who asked for the good tidings of gladness - the publication of peace of which Isaiah spoke - are enraged to murder upon hearing those glad tidings? May we all publish the peace of the Christ child this Christmas, and may we all rejoice for the good tidings of great joy.
Merry Christmas!
Sincerely,
Taylor, a dead missionary
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