Having himself seen his Redeemer and partaken of the goodness and blessings of the Atonement (2 Nephi 2:3; 2 Nephi 11:3),
Jacob, son of Lehi, began to “sing the song of redeeming love” (Alma 5:26), to exult in the mercies and condescensions of the great Jehovah, who would become Jesus Christ the Lord. His faith was perfect: he had partaken of the powers of the Mediator as though they were an accomplished fact, an act of the past.
That which follows in Jacob’s sermon was a theological trek into the realm of what might have been had there been no redemption, no Savior, no plan for the deliverance of earth’s pilgrims.