You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/alma/13?lang=eng.
In this chapter, Alma continues his explanation of important truths about God’s plan and how He shares it with men and women on the earth. He tells his audience that God’s doctrine spreads under the direction of priests. And the pattern God uses to instruct his servants to find and ordain priests is to have them be as close to Jesus Himself in how they follow the Lord’s commandments and serve others. Quite simply, Christlike priests should point us in the direction of Christ because every person needs salvation through Him.
In our Church, every man who seeks to serve the Lord and His children, and consistently follows the Lord’s commandments, has an opportunity to hold priesthood responsibilities. Under the authority of the priesthood, the Lord’s servants direct the teaching of the gospel (the good news and truth that our Heavenly Father has a plan for our salvation with Jesus at the center of it) and perform ordinances (such as baptism) to help provide the blessings of salvation to all men and women who choose it.
Alma goes on to relay that men who hold priesthood responsibilities are prepared for this calling even before they are born on the earth. In his words, everyone dwells with God in spirit before coming to earth and receive preparation for mortal life. The most important thing during this preexistence is to choose good over evil. So it is that Alma reveals that the holy calling of the priesthood is reserved “from the foundation of the world for such as would not harden their hearts” during this time of preparation while living with God before coming to earth (verse 5).
I firmly believe that the same principle applies to all willing men and women—that they are prepared for sacred roles and callings to serve God and His children during the time their spirits live with God before being born into a mortal body.
None of us can fully remember this prologue to our birth. Perhaps some of us may receive glimmers of what might have come before, or feel as though a relationship or memory is strangely familiar. So in a sense, Alma is helping us fill in the blanks. He is teaching something he has learned either from heavenly messengers or the guidance of the Holy Ghost. That is simply that our Heavenly Father knows us very, very well because we were with Him and had our first lessons about the nature of existence and right and wrong under His care. And with the deep bond that comes from truly being His children, He invites all to follow Jesus’ example of righteousness, purity, and dedication to the salvation of all willing to accept the gift that Jesus freely gives. Thus, if we accept an ordination to the priesthood in this life and the sacred responsibility that comes with it, we can trace our preparation back to our first lessons during the time when we dwelled personally and closely with our Father Himself.
Alma teaches that those ordained to serve the Lord do so forever—there is no end to our ability to act on His behalf, so long as we are willing to turn back to Him constantly through faith and repentance to make the changes and adjustments necessary in life to associate ourselves with Him and His righteous way of doing things. Humility and righteousness lead to purity and power through Jesus Christ. Without these qualities, we wither and suffer in distancing ourselves from God’s healing and sanctifying presence.
Alma then commends the example of Melchizedek to his audience. Melchizedek was a great high priest from the time of Abraham, and Melchizedek also served as the king of Salem—presumably the ancient site of Jerusalem. In the languages of the ancient Near East, Salem uses the same root word (S-L-M) for “peace” as the common Hebrew greeting shalom and its Arabic counterpart salaam. Melchizedek’s great accomplishment was to persuade his people to turn from wickedness and strife and embrace peaceful coexistence. In doing so, he became known as the “prince of peace,” a name Isaiah also famously used in describing the Messiah that we believe to be Jesus.
And so it is that Melchizedek is inseparably connected throughout time to Jesus as the preeminent example of someone who has fully taken on the responsibility to properly and fully represent God to His children through the priesthood. Writing more than 100 years after Alma, the apostle Paul also emphasized the connection between Melchizedek and Jesus through the priesthood in the 6th and 7th chapters of his epistle to the Hebrews. Later, the Lord clarified through Joseph Smith in a revelation in 1835 (D&C 107:2-4) that we substitute Melchizedek’s name for the Savior’s when referring to the highest priesthood so that we don’t overuse references to the sacred name of our God.
It is at this point that Alma switches from explaining how priests spread the truth to actually spreading it with this audience. He demonstrates exactly how the Lord’s servants exhort people throughout the world by calling on the people of Ammonihah to repent and be ready for the Lord’s day of salvation, whenever it may come in their lives. It’s one of many moments in the Book of Mormon where the words jump off the page, making us feel as though they are just as much for us here and now as for the original audience that received them.
The message is clear: the news of the gospel is intended to reach everyone, and it is this: accept the truth and align yourself with it now as we all prepare for Jesus to come again in person to earth and definitively establish the rule of righteousness. And Alma beautifully summarizes how we can do this (in verses 28-29):
watch and pray
continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus
be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of
love and all long-suffering;
Having faith on the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life; having the love of God always in your hearts, that ye may be lifted up at the last day and enter into his rest.
For the Lord does not want us to be separated from Him. This is right in line with how the apostle John explained our Savior’s purpose (in John 3:17): not to condemn the world, but to save it.
Also see the last
minute of this clip (starting at
2:30) for the end of Alma’s address in this chapter.
No comments:
Post a Comment