1 Nephi 19:6-10

The plates Nephi’s making are for an important purpose.  “I do not write anything upon plates save it be that I think it be sacred” (1 Nephi 19:6).  He feels it important to remind the reader that he is just a man.  “[I]f I do err, even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself” (1 Nephi 19:6).  Nephi is but a man. 

The wicked will take sacred and holy things and “trample them under their feet” (1 Nephi 19:7).  Nephi would emphasize this point towards the end of his life.  “But behold, there are many that harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, that it hath no place in them; wherefore, they cast many things away which are written and esteem them as things of naught” (2 Nephi 33:2).

Men will not just trample sacred and holy things under their feet.  They will also trample Christ under their feet, ignoring His counsel.

The time of Christ’s coming is 600 years from the time Lehi left Jerusalem.  I doubt Nephi intended us to read this as exactly 600 years.  Instead, I believe he is saying in around 600 years.

When he comes, Nephi tells us they will “scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it.  Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men” (1 Nephi 19:9).  After his encounter with the angel, Alma2 would testify to those who had gathered and prayed for him:

I rejected my Redeemer, and denied that which had been spoken of by our fathers; but now that they may foresee that he will come, and that he remembereth every creature of his creating, he will make himself manifest unto all.

Yea, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before him.  Yea, even at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of him, then shall they confess that he is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the world, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of his all–searching eye.

Mosiah 27:30 - 31

Nephi tells us that Christ will yield “himself, according to the words of the angel, as a man, into the hands of wicked men, to be lifted up” (1 Nephi 19:10).  During his visit to the Nephites, Christ would tell them, ”And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil—“ (3 Nephi 27:14). 

Nephi’s brother and successor, Jacob taught the Nephites, “Nevertheless, the Lord has shown unto me that they should return again.  And he also has shown unto me that the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, should manifest himself unto them in the flesh; and after he should manifest himself they should scourge him and crucify him, according to the words of the angel who spake it unto me” (2 Nephi 6:9).  King Benjamin taught, “And lo, he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name; and even after all this they shall consider him a man, and say that he hath a devil, and shall scourge him, and shall crucify him” (Mosiah 3:9).

After His death, he would be buried in a sepulcher.  The elder Nephi would write, “Behold, they will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God.  Wherefore, my soul delighteth to prophesy concerning him, for I have seen his day, and my heart doth magnify his holy name” (2 Nephi 25:13).

Six hundred years later, Matthew would record, “And when Joseph [of Arimathæa] had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed” (Matthew 27:59-60).

According to the words of Zenos, there would be three days of darkness “which should be a sign given of his death unto those who should inhabit the isles of the sea” (1 Nephi 19:10).  When preaching to the Nephites, Samuel the Lamanite would echo the words of Zenos.  “But behold, as I said unto you concerning another sign, a sign of his death, behold, in that day that he shall suffer death the sun shall be darkened and refuse to give his light unto you; and also the moon and the stars; and there shall be no light upon the face of this land, even from the time that he shall suffer death, for the space of three days, to the time that he shall rise again from the dead … And he said unto me that while the thunder and the lightning lasted, and the tempest, that these things should be, and that darkness should cover the face of the whole earth for the space of three days” (Helaman 14:20, 27).