In 1 Nephi 16:2, we read:
And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center.
While recently reading this passage for a lesson, it struck me how it paralleled texts such as Lev 17:3-4 and Deut 25:1, two judicial texts that are abused by Protestant apologists (e.g., James White in The God Who Justifies and Buchanan in his 1867 work defending forensic justification that White got many of his arguments from, The Doctrine of Justification). However, in the 1 Nephi texts and these two Old Testament texts, the verdict of "righteous/innocent" or "guilty" is based on a legal recognition of an inherent/intrinsic righteousness or guilt, not a mere imputation thereof. Furthermore, in neither text is there a penal substitute whose active and passive righteousness is forensically imputed to the defendant.
Not only does the 1 Nephi 16:2 text mirror Old Testament judicial parallels, but all these texts soundly refute the blasphemous understanding of justification held by Reformed Protestants and others.
For further reading, see, for e.g.:
