Alma’s Temple Text on the Priesthood-Part 2
- Stephen Fluckiger
- Nov 4, 2025
- 20 min read
Updated: Nov 5, 2025
As we conclude our review of the priesthood and temple themes Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery learned about in their translation and transcription of Alma 12-13, it is worth contemplating what this revelatory process might have looked like. For starters, it must have been intellectually and physically exhausting. Brother Welch calculates that between April 7 and the end of May 1829, “Joseph translated and Oliver wrote” “about 75 percent” of the roughly 390-page Book of Mormon. “On average" that amounted to "7.4 present Book of Mormon pages per day.” To accomplish this, they worked “from morning till night.”[1]
Of course, Joseph had to prepare himself spiritually each morning and throughout the day to be able to use the interpreters. The revelatory process must have demanded not only an extraordinary amount of faith, but great powers of concentration and mental exertion. After dictating the translation to Oliver, Joseph then had to listen carefully as Oliver would read back what he had written to see if he had written it correctly. Inevitably, transcription errors would need to be corrected. Joseph's effort to render the divinely inspired translation exactly as it was received was also evidenced by his care to “spell out unfamiliar words and ‘proper names he could not pronounce.’”[2]
“Day after day [they] continued, uninterrupted.” Frankly, for me just reading aloud and having read to me 7+ pages “day after day” would be challenging. No wonder Oliver Cowdery described these as “days never to be forgotten—to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven, [which] awakened the utmost gratitude of this bosom!”[3]
What “counsel” or “word” did God give Alma2 in his Divine Council experience? Mormon records that after their conversion Alma2 and the sons of Mosiah2 published “to all the people the things which they had heard and seen,” and preached “the word of God” (Mosiah 27:32). Alma2 shared only a glimpse of the instruction he received during his Divine Council experience. Nevertheless, what he did share goes to the heart of the gospel—and the temple—as we learned from King Benjamin’s angel-delivered sermon at the temple. Exclaimed Alma2 upon arising from his near-death[4] experience:
And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God (Mosiah 27:25-26).
If the Lord “said” the things Alma2 describes above, it is safe to assume that more was said or seen to provide context and meaning to this quoted statement. Whatever specifics were conveyed during his Divine Council experience, by the time Alma2 begins his mission to Ammonihah, a decade after his conversion and the beginning of his ministry as high priest (having been ordained by his father Alma1, compare Mosiah 29:42 and Alma 8:3&8), the “word” he has received from God includes certain “mysteries of God” that he and others who receive them are under “strict command that they shall not impart” (Alma 12:9-10).
According to Welch, “while we cannot be certain” that in his teaching in Alma 12 and 13 to the wicked Ammonihahites Alma2 “was alluding to specific elements of a Nephite temple ordinance, many factors support that idea. For one thing, the word mysteries seems to refer to priesthood or temple ordinances.” As noted in previous blogs, King Benjamin used this word to describe the ritual he administered to his people at the temple. Indeed, Welch notes, the word mysteries “was often used” “in ancient religions, for example from the Hellenistic world . . . to describe ‘cultic rites . . . portrayed before a circle of devotees,’ who ‘must undergo initiation’ and who are promised ‘salvation by the dispensing of cosmic life,’ which is sometimes ‘enacted in cultic drama,’ accompanied by a strict vow of silence.’”[5]
Why would Alma2 teach a so-called “temple text” to a wicked people? Welch guesses that Alma2 felt he needed to “to warn them completely before sealing them to destruction, and thus he taught them the fullness of the gospel according to the most sacred pattern he knew.”[6] Moreover, as LDS temple-goers know, much of the temple endowment includes “mysteries” about the Plan of Salvation that Adam received and was commanded to teach “freely unto your children” (Moses 6:58). Since then, the Plan of Salvation, with its first principles and ordinances, have been taught by every prophet in every dispensation.[7]
Alma 12-13—A temple text. After prefacing his teachings with the caveat that he would share only that “portion” of the sacred “mysteries” he had received through revelation “which [God] doth grant unto the children of men” (Alma 12:9), Alma2’s sermon, according to Welch, “apparently retrace[s] the steps of a sacred Nephite” “symbolic ritual, since Alma says that it was performed ‘in a manner’ that looked forward to the redemption of the Son of God (Alma 13:2)” and “that evidently involved an ordination to the priesthood (see Alma 13:1) and prepared the way for obedient people to ‘enter into the rest of the Lord’ (Alma 13:16).” [8]
The “manner” or form of the rite “is mentioned by Alma only in veiled terms,” Welch adds. But the text suggests that the Nephites administered “some form of priesthood ordination that called people to a life's work of repentance, peace, and righteousness. . . . Presumably these rites were administered primarily at the temple in Zarahemla but possibly also at other sanctuaries or sacred places under the direction of a high priest.”[9]
The doctrinal themes associated with the ritual Alma2 describes echo the themes in the ritual King Benjamin administered at the Zarahemla temple 42 years earlier:
Theme of God’s goodness as the author of the “plan of redemption” prepared “from the foundation of the world” Leading up to his overview of the Nephite’s temple rite described in Alma 12-13, Alma2 describes the nature of God, including His “supreme goodness” (Alma 12:32), His “glory, . . . his power, and . . . his might, majesty, and dominion,” “that all his judgments are just; that he is just in all his works, and that he is merciful unto the children of men, and that he has all power to save every man that believeth on [Christ’s] name and bringeth forth fruit meet for repentance”.( Alma 12:15). Because of God’s mercy, man could be “redeemed” (Alma 12:18) if he does not “harden his heart,” but gives “heed and diligence” to the “word which [God] doth grant unto the children of men” (Alma 12:9-10). Otherwise, he “cannot be redeemed according to God’s justice” and suffers not only a temporal, but a “spiritual death” (Alma 12:16-18). All of this, Alma2 teaches, is according to the “plan of redemption which [God] laid from the foundation of the world,” which plan he refences nine times (Alma 12:25, 26, 30, 32, 33). Such plan of redemption is so foundational, in fact, Alma2 teaches, that it came before God gave Adam and his posterity commandments. The “why” preceded the “what” of the gospel (Alma 12:32).[10]
Theme of creation, fall and mortality as a “probationary” period. Alma2 introduced this theme in response to the wicked chief ruler Antionah’s question why “God placed cherubim and a flaming sword on the east of the garden of Eden.” In his response, Alma2 references “our first parents” and Adam’s “fall” when he partook “of the forbidden fruit.” “[T]hus we see,” Alma2 taught, “by [Adam’s] fall, all mankind became a lost and fallen people.” However, he added, by placing cherubim to guard the way of the tree of life, man’s “temporal death” was delayed. “[T]here was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state which has been spoken of by us, which is after the resurrection of the dead”.( Alma 12:21-24, 26).
Theme of agency or learning from experience to distinguish between “good and evil,” including the principle that even during that preexistent period before the creation, when “the foundation of the world” was laid or planned, God’s spirit children had agency. In that “first [preexistent] place,” God’s faithful spirit children having been “left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, [were] called [foreordained] with a holy calling . . . on account of their faith [in Jesus Christ].[11] “Others” of His children, on the other hand, referring no doubt to the one-third of Father’s children who followed Lucifer (Rev. 12:3-4, 7-9; Isa. 14:12-15; Jude 1:6; 2 Peter 2:4), “would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren. Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren; thus this holy calling being prepared from the foundation of the world for such as would not harden their hearts” (Alma 13:3-5).
Moreover, Alma2 taught the whole purpose and effect of the fall was to enable agency. Echoing the creation account recounted in the brass plates, men became “as Gods,” he taught, “knowing good from evil, placing themselves in a state to act, or being placed in a state to act according to their wills and pleasures, whether to do evil or to do good—Therefore God gave unto them commandments, after having made known unto them the plan of redemption, that they should not do evil, the penalty thereof being a second death, which was an everlasting death as to things pertaining unto righteousness; for on such the plan of redemption could have no power” (Alma 12:31-32).[12]
Theme of the “atonement of the Only Begotten Son” (Alma 13:5), Jesus Christ. That Christ’s “redemption” (used ten times in these two chapters) is the centerpiece of the “plan of redemption,” together with the Nephite ordinances administered pursuant to it, are abundantly attested to, including Alma2 characterizing the plan itself by reference to the “name of the Son”: “But God did call on men, in the name of his Son, (this being the plan of redemption which was laid) saying: If ye will repent and harden not your hearts, then will I have mercy upon you, through mine Only Begotten Son” (Alma 12:33; see also Alma 13:2). Christ’s centrality was also attested in his description as “the Only Begotten of the Father, who is without beginning of days or end of years, who is full of grace, equity, and truth” (Alma 13:9).
Theme of God sending angels to explain the Plan of Salvation, including “after God had appointed that [there should be a probationary period and then a temporal death] behold, then he saw that it was expedient that man should know concerning the things whereof he had appointed unto them; Therefore, he sent angels to converse with them, who caused men to behold of his glory (Alma 12:28-29)."
Themes of faith in Jesus Christ and repentance, including that knowledge of the Father's plan “was made known unto [man] according to their faith and repentance” (Alma 12:30). “If ye will repent and harden not your hearts, then will I have mercy upon you, through mine Only Begotten Son; Therefore, whosoever repenteth, and hardeneth not his heart, he shall have claim on mercy through mine Only Begotten Son, unto a remission of his sins; and these shall enter into my rest. And whosoever will harden his heart and will do iniquity, behold, I swear in my wrath that he shall not enter into my rest” (Alma 12:33-35). “Humble yourselves before God, and bring forth fruit meet for repentance” (Alma 13:13).
Themes of sacrifice and consecration implicit in ordinations to serve. Implicit in the way Alma2 describes how God’s children qualified (in the preexistence) and qualify (in mortality) for ordination (or today, for sisters, we would say "setting apart") to their “holy calling[s]” in God’s kingdom are the phrases “on account of their exceeding faith and repentance and their righteousness before God” and “on account of their exceeding faith and good works” (Alma 13:10, 3). Righteousness, faithfulness and good works encompass, to my mind, the fill breadth of the “law and the prophets”—including the laws of obedience, sacrifice, the gospel of Jesus Christ and consecration, that is to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” and to “love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matthew 22:37-40).
Theme of “garments” “being made white, being pure and spotless before God” (Alma 13:12).
The ultimate purpose of the “holy ordinance,” or form of endowment Alma2 appears to be patterning his teaching around, is to prepare the recipient to symbolically (and ultimately actually) “enter into” the presence of the Lord, as attested by his use of the word “rest,” referring to the rest of the Lord, nine times. Moreover, those who harden their hearts and reject God’s word and “holy ordinance,” Alma2 emphasized, “provoke” God, just as the Israelites did in their “first provocation” at Mount Sinai (Alma 12:36).
At Sinai, we learn from Joseph Smith’s later translation of the Bible, the Israelites rejected the “words” and the “ordinances” of the “everlasting covenant of the holy priesthood” that God had inscribed with His finger on the first set of stone tablets Moses took to the top of the Mount. Such higher or temple ordinances would have enabled all the hosts of Israel to enter the “rest” or presence of the Lord. But because they rejected them, the Lord declared, “I will take away the priesthood out of their midst . . . my holy order, and the ordinances thereof.”
“Thus, they lost the promised blessing of having the Lord’s presence ‘go up in their midst.’ ‘But I will give unto them the law as at the first, but it shall be after the law of a carnal commandment; for I have sworn in my wrath, that they shall not enter into my presence, into my rest, in the days of their pilgrimage’ (JST, Exodus 34:1–2).”[13] Alma2 understood perfectly that the ordinances of exaltation--temple ordinances--are necessary to return to the presence of the Father and the Son. Whether the Lord taught this doctrine in Alma2’s Divine Council experience, or he learned it through his later study of the scriptures, we do not know. However, it appears that these things were clearly taught in the brass plates.[14] Moreover, Joseph Smith would eventually come to realize that they were understood by all Book of Mormon prophets.
What do Alma2 (and other Book of Mormon prophets) teach about the ultimate blessings of priesthood ordinances? In his article on “The Holy Order of God,” Robert L. Millet argues that Alma2’s references to “entering the rest of God” can be understood on three different levels, all of which, I would argue, have temple connotations.
First, upon entering the covenant path, and particularly receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, individuals come to know the “peace of the Spirit,” what the Savior promised when He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Such “peace” and “rest” of the Lord are byproducts of such explicit temple blessings as being “armed with [God’s] power,” having His “name upon” us,” His “glory . . . round about us” and His “angels hav[ing] charge over” us (D&C 109:22, 39).
Second, individuals “enter the rest of God when they enter paradise, the home of the righteous in the postmortal spirit world at the time of death (Alma 40:11-12; 60:13)." The Spirit World is, in fact, the “heaven” we refer to when we say the temple is where “heaven and earth meet.” It is the place where the gospel is preached and where proxy ordinances performed on earth are received and sanctioned in heaven.[15]
Third, entering the rest of the Lord refers to entering the celestial kingdom and receiving exaltation. Alma2 described those from the first dispensation onward who, having been “called after this holy order,” “were sanctified, and their garments were washed white through the blood of the Lamb. Now they, after being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, having their garments made white, being pure and spotless before God, could not look upon sin save it were with abhorrence; and there were many, exceedingly great many, who were made pure and entered into the rest of the Lord their God” (Alma 13:11-12).[16]
The Lord would later describe this “exceedingly” large group of Saints from former dispensations as “the church of the Firstborn” (D&C 76:54), those who had and “have the privilege of receiving the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to have the heavens opened unto them, to commune with the general assembly and church of the Firstborn, and to enjoy the communion and presence of God the Father, and Jesus the mediator of the new covenant” (D&C 107:18).[17]
Moreover, as Joseph Smith would later learn, being “called after the holy order” of God may not necessarily refer only to a priesthood office which men alone can hold. As I explained in Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple, it applies to both men and women who are endowed and sealed through the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. “In order to obtain the highest [heaven or degree of the celestial glory], a man [and woman] must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]” (D&C 131:2).[18] “Order” in this context, as defined in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, refers to a “rank; class; division of men [and women]; as the order of nobles; the order of priests [and priestesses]; the [order] of [celestial] society.”[19]
When we are sealed and enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, the promises associated with which, of course, are conditioned on our faithfulness (D&C 132:7), we receive the “the fulness of the priesthood” the Lord promised to restore in an 1841 revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith (D&C 124:26–28). In my youth, the realization that these supernal blessings appear to have already been realized by so many over the millennia of the earth’s history was very encouraging. It was (and is) a testimony to the power and goodness of our Father and the efficacy of the great Plan of Happiness He presented in that Divine Council we all attended and sustained before the world was. To use an expression popular then and now, knowing that so many had “made it” into the rest of the Lord, so to speak, meant that “you can do this!” too. You were faithful then and you can be faithful now!
Now, in my more “advanced” years, I have come to realize a greater truth. As we simply apply or live by the doctrine of Christ we learn at home, at church and in the temple, walking daily with the Lord, we no longer need to “do it” on our own. We can trust in His promise—“I am able to make you holy” (D&C 60:7).
[1] Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” 118-19. Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery testified that she “often sat by and saw and heard [Joseph and Oliver] translate and write for hours together.” As to the spiritual demands the process required, Sarah Heller Conrad recalled seeing Joseph and one or more of the Whitmer brothers who were assisting as scribes at the time “come down from [the] translating room several times when they looked so exceedingly white and strange that she inquired of Mrs. Whitmer the cause of their unusual appearance.” Ibid. 109.
[3] Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” 103. [4] Smoot notes: “Alma’s throne theophany came after a near-death experience, which is consistent with an ancient Mesoamerican but not an ancient Near Eastern religious experience. Given Alma’s theophany occurred centuries after Nephite integration in Mesoamerica, this would be entirely expected. See Wright, ‘According to Their Language, Unto Their Understanding,’ 58–64; Neal Rappleye, ‘“Put Away Childish Things”: Learning to Read the Book of Mormon with Mature Historical Understanding,’ presented at the 2017 FairMormon Conference, 32–33, online at https://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Rappleye_2017FM_Presentation.pdf.” Smoot, “The Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible and the Book of Mormon,” 175 n. 69.
[6] Ibid. A. Keith Thompson suggests that the reason Alma2 may have chosen to speak of the “doctrines of the priesthood” and “priesthood qualification” to a wicked people was to contrast the response of the people of Melchizedek, who repented and thereafter received the ultimate blessing of entering into the rest of the Lord, with the response of the “children of Israel [who] failed to qualify for equivalent blessings, though the Priesthood was also made available to them.” “Were We Foreordained to the Priesthood, or Was the Standard of Worthiness Foreordained? Alma 13 Reconsidered,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 21 (2016), 249-75.
[7] Elder Bednar in General Conference urged parents to teach their children “more earnestly and more comfortably the things we can appropriately say about the purposes of the house of the Lord,” including “the basic purposes of and the doctrine and principles associated with temple ordinances and covenants.” Bednar, “Prepared to Obtain Every Needful Thing,” Ensign, May 2019, 103.
[9] Ibid. In an interesting gloss on the role of temples in the Book of Mormon, Mormon notes in connection with Alma 2’s ministry after the destruction of Ammonihah, that “Alma2 and Amulek went forth preaching repentance to the people in their temples, and in their sanctuaries, and also in their synagogues, which were built after the manner of the Jews” (Alma 16:13). In order to meet the demands of a growing church membership, there was a need not only for additional “high priests,” for example, in the land of Gideon (Mosiah 30:21) and over the people of Ammon (Alma 30:20), to administer sacred priesthood rites, but temples in which to administer them (which are clearly distinguished from places of worship, their sanctuaries and synagogues). Welch, “The Temple in the Book of Mormon,” 362-63. See also Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Temple and the Synagogue,” in The Temple in Antiquity: Ancient Records and Modern Perspectives, ed. Truman G. Madsen (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1984), 151–74; Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: An Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. Greg Kofford Books, 2007 (see commentary on Alma 16:13).
[10] See, for example, Dale G. Renlund, “Choose You This Day,” Ensign, November 2018 (“The pattern for us is the same as it was for Adam and Eve, wherein ‘God gave unto them commandments, after having made known unto them the plan of redemption.’”); Boyd K. Packer, “The Great Plan of Happiness,” Address to religious educators at a symposium on the Doctrine and Covenants and Church history, Brigham Young University, August 10, 1993, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teaching-seminary-preservice-readings-religion-370-471-and-475/the-great-plan-of-happiness?lang=eng (“If you are trying to give [youth] a ‘why,’ follow that pattern [after quoting Alma 12:32 three times]: ‘God gave unto them commandments, after having made known unto them the plan of redemption.’”).
[11] As to the doctrine of foreordination, Robert A. Millet quoted Wilford Woodruff, who, noting that Joseph Smith was foreordained and foreknown by God as was Jeremiah, added: “So do I believe with regard to this people, so do I believe with regard to the apostles, the high priests, seventies and the elders of Israel bearing the holy priesthood. I believe they were ordained before they came here.” “The Holy Order of God,” in The Book of Mormon: Alma, The Testimony of The Word, eds. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate, Jr. (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, 1992), 66, quoting Journal of Discources, 21:317).
While acknowledging that the principle of foreordination (including to the priesthood) “has ample authority in the words of the prophets beginning with the Prophet Joseph Smith himself ” and that Alma2’s reference to “in the first place” “may admit an oblique reference to the doctrine of [preexistent] foreordination to Priesthood office,” A. Keith Thompson argues that “what seems more likely, since it was the manner of that ordination to which Alma2 repeatedly drew attention, is that he was trying to focus their minds on the eternal principle that the receipt of all spiritual blessings is predicated upon obedience to spiritual law.” Thus, he reads Alma2’s citing the Ammonihahites “minds forward to the time when the Lord God gave these commandments unto his children” to Moses’s ordination of the Israelite priests. “While God gave commandments to men from the beginning, the coupling here of the giving of commandments and the ordination of priests, together with the reference two verses previously in Alma 12:36 to 'the first provocation,’ suggest Alma was referring to the ordination of Israelite priests in the wilderness — the time the Ten Commandments were given and Israel provoked God by worshipping the golden calf.” Thompson, “Were We Foreordained to the Priesthood, or Was the Standard of Worthiness Foreordained? Alma 13 Reconsidered," 249-75. For Thompson’s recitations of Church authorities who cite Alma 13 as authority for the doctrine that men were foreordained to the priesthood in the preexistence, see ibid. 249-51. See also Topics and Questions, “Foreordination,” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/foreordination?lang=eng; Fluckiger 85 n. 23.
[12] Millet, while asserting that “in the first place” in Alma 13:3 means “in the premortal world,” it is unclear whether its use in verse 5, or other references to God “ordaining” “priests” (verses 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, twice, and 10) refers to “righteousness and subsequent good works in premortality or mortality.” “Joseph Fielding Smith observed,” he noted, that “men chosen to positions of trust in the spirit world held priesthood” (quoting Doctrines of Salvation 3:81). However, it is not always clear from the context which timeframe is referenced—“Alma in fact moves back and forth between the past and the present.” However, “the principle is true in regard to both spheres: men are called to serve because of faith and obedience—there and here.” Millet, “The Holy Order of God,” 67.
[13] Fluckiger 76. See also D&C 84:24-25 (“But they [the Israelites] hardened their hearts and could not endure [God’s] presence; therefore, the Lord in his wrath, for his anger was kindled against them, swore that they should not enter into his rest while in the wilderness, which rest is the fulness of his glory. Therefore, he took Moses out of their midst, and the Holy Priesthood also”).
[15] See Fluckiger, Introduction, “Understanding Doctrine about the Spirit World Enhances our Temple Experience,” xviii-xx (quoting President Dallin H. Oaks’s statement (quoting the Prophet Joseph Smith) that “‘the spirits of the just are exalted to a greater and more glorious work . . . [in] the world of spirits. . . . They are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and motions’” and are “‘allowed to prompt’ their descendants in finding information needed to perform ‘their proxy ordinances on earth
so they can be baptized and enjoy the blessings of the Holy Ghost (see Doctrine and Covenants 138:30–37, 57–58).’”). See also notes 31-36 of the Introduction.
[16] Adam S. Miller provides another very helpful way of looking at Alma2’s teaching about entering into the “rest of the Lord.” Rather than viewing Christ’s redemption as something that “comes after death and judgment,” or “something that comes after we have exercised our agency and demonstrated obedience,” he argues that what Alma2 calls “a preparatory redemption” is available to us here and now as we exercise our faith in Him.
Alma2 teaches that priesthood and priesthood “ordinances were given after this manner, that thereby the people might look forward on the Son of God, it being a type of his order or it being his order—and this that they might look forward to him for a remission of their sins, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord”( Alma 13:16). Alma2 is saying, Miller argues, that “though the ordinances (i.e., the laws or rituals) are important, in the end they are not the point. Rather, what’s at stake here is not the ordinances themselves but the manner after which they were given.” This “manner,” Miller argues (examining the etymology of the Latin root of the word “manner” as a way of “handling” or thinking about something and “our English usage of ‘manners’ to describe the proper or fitting way to habitually act”), involved a specific way of looking at the atonement as if it had already happened. The idea was captured by Jarom, he notes, who explained that their priests taught “the law of Moses, and the intent for which it was given; persuading them to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him to come as though he already was” (Jarom 1:11).
This “redemptive manner of looking forward to Christ” allows individuals to experience the blessings of the atonement from day to day (similar, I would add, to King Benjamin’s teaching about “retaining a remission of your sins from day to day” (Mosiah 4:26)). Likewise, in describing the role of the priests who “were ordained after the order of his Son in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption” (Alma 13:2), Alma2 was not focusing on their ordinations per se, but the “manner” of their ordination “that will display for the people something crucial about ‘in what manner to look forward’ to the Son.”
This “manner” of ordination, Alma2 taught, was demonstrated by “our father Abraham [who] paid tithes of one tenth part of all he possessed” to Melchizedek (Alma 13:15), suggesting that when we in faith consecrate our property or our time to the Lord, we are effectively “looking forward” to the redemption of Christ. “The ritual of giving a consecrated tithe” or, “instead of giving a tithe on one’s property,” by accepting ordination, offering “up the whole of the priest’s life as an act of consecration,” “is a kind of looking forward that, by way of consecration, dispossesses itself of itself for the sake of the Son. It is a way of looking forward that gives itself up.”
“Rather than living in a preparatory state,” “living the present only in light of its hope for the future,” this way of looking at the atonement as a present reality in our lives allows us to live “the future as already given and created in the present.” We “take up what Paul calls ‘life in Christ’ (Romans 8:2),” “no longer preparing for death and judgment.” “‘[W]alking in newness of life’ (Romans 6:3–4),” we “can enter into that rest that has already, from the foundation of the world, been prepared” for us. Adam S. Miller, “A Preparatory Redemption,” in A Preparatory Redemption: Reading Alma 12-13, eds. Matthew Bowman and Rosemary Demos (Maxwell Institute Publications 2018), https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/4.
[17] Millet, “The Holy Order of God,” 75-79.
[19] Webster’s 1828 dictionary, “Order,” https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/order#:~:text=The%20orders%20are%20five%2C%20the,the%20frize%2C%20and%20the%20cornice.
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