And it came to pass that [Lehi] built an altar of stones, and made an offering unto the Lord, and gave thanks unto the Lord our God. (1 Nephi 2:7)
And it came to pass that [Lehi and Sariah] did rejoice exceedingly, and did offer sacrifice and burnt offerings unto the Lord; and they gave thanks unto the God of Israel. (1 Nephi 5:9)
All throughout the Book of Mormon, including its earliest chapters (see above), the theme of God’s people offering sacrifices and erecting sacrificial altars are part-and-parcel of their religious worship and devotion, just as it was in the Old Testament. I point this out, as there are some, such as Michael Flournoy, who claim that the Protestant concept of imputed righteousness is taught in the Book of Mormon(!) However, in light of this, such cannot be the case. Why? As one Roman Catholic critic of sola fide noted about Old Testament figures offering sacrifices, which can also be applied to Lehi et al., in the Book of Mormon and the theology thereof:
Protestants believe that justification is made possible by Christ’s atoning sacrifice and is imputed by grace through an individual’s faith. Because they believe salvation comes exclusively through faith, Protestants contend that personal sacrifices are not to be offered to God in an effort to seek forgiveness of sin nor to propitiate His wrath. They contend that Christ’s one sacrifice was all that was necessary for atonement . . . Protestant theology is left with the larger task of explaining why men who were justified by grace through faith in the Old Testament offered blood sacrifices to God. From a Protestant understanding of atonement, the sacrifices offered by men such as Abel, Noah, Job and Abraham would be superfluous, for each of them were already justified by grace through faith and thus their blood sacrifices would be [superfluous]. Pressing the logic further, the Protestant must conclude that, in being justified by grace, the blood sacrifices offered by the patriarchs were an insult to God’s sovereign prerogative to provide forgiveness and favor by “faith alone.” (Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Bread Alone: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for the Eucharistic Sacrifice [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], 50, comment in square bracket added for clarification)
