Book of Mormon Word Usage: Yesterday

The term yesterday appears seven times in the Book of Mormon, but its usage is much more restricted than might otherwise be obvious. In the Book of Mormon it always appears in the same phrase: "the same yesterday, today, and forever." There are also a restricted number of things that are the same:

For he [God] is the same yesterday, today, and forever; (1 Nephi 10:18)

I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; (2 Nephi 27:23)

I [the Lord your God] do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; (2 Nephi 29:9)

And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, (Moroni 10:19)

For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing? (Mormon 9:9)

for the Spirit is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. (2 Nephi 2:4)

Nephite usage was so consistent that the Zoramites even followed it:

thou [Holy God] art the same yesterday, today, and forever; (Alma 31:17)

Nephite usage consistently connects the phrase with arguments that God still does miracles and provides gifts of the Spirit to those who believe in him. The Zoramites, however, used the phrase to argue that there would be no Christ. Instead, they claimed,

we believe that thou art God, and we believe that thou art holy, and that thou wast a spirit, and that thou art a spirit, and that thou wilt be a spirit forever. (Alma 31:15)

In this they rejected the earlier teachings of Abinadi that

God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God (Mosiah 15:1–2)

Thus they used a scriptural teaching that God was unchangeable to argue that

there shall be no Christ. (Alma 31:16)

Their reasoning seems to have been that if God was unchangeable, then having been a spirit yesterday, he would still be a spirit today and would be a spirit forever (Alma 31:15). So while the Zoramites concentrated on God's form, the Nephites concentrated on God's power: If God did miracles yesterday, he could still do them today and would be able to do them forever.

The same phrase is used in both cases, applied to the same subject, but understood in a slightly different way made the two groups come to opposite conclusions: one believing there was a Christ and one believing there was not.