“Except It Were Through the Atonement of His Blood”

Brant Gardner

Hebrews 13:10–13 clearly equates the sin offering of Exodus 29:10–14 with Jesus’s atonement—including the casting out of the “scapegoat.” Since the Day of Atonement occurred five days before the Feast of Tabernacles, if Benjamin’s speech is occurring during a Feast of Tabernacles as suggested (see commentary accompanying Mosiah 2:1), the people would have had a fresh reminder of the link between blood and atonement. Their ceremony differed somewhat in time and location and had to differ because of the difficulty of coming up with bulls and goats (which are not attested for Mesoamerica). The point, however, for Benjamin’s discourse is that blood is associated with atonement, both in the law of Moses and through the Messiah.

What Benjamin has done, in a deft and swift stroke, is to equate the blood of the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement under the law of Moses with the future atoning blood of the Messiah. For Benjamin, they are the same blood, and it is the Messiah’s future blood that makes efficacious the ritual blood of the sacrificial animal under the law of Moses. Thus, the Atoning Messiah not only supersedes the law of Moses, but is the foundation from which the law of Moses draws its own atoning power.

Second Witness: Analytical & Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 3

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