Alma 13: Verse 3 Puts the Choice Before the Calling

Verse 3 of Alma 13 is a single long sentence, and nearly everything people carry out of the chapter comes from the front half of it: "called and prepared from the foundation of the world." The condition Alma attaches comes a few clauses later and gets read at a much faster speed.

The Sunday after my twelfth birthday, March 17, 1991, I sat in a chair in the bishop's office in Bountiful with my feet an inch short of the floor while Brother Haws and several other men put their hands on my head. My father's hand was on my right shoulder. I remember the weight of it better than anything that was said, and I remember that nobody asked me a single question. That chair is where I'd put the usual Sunday School version of this chapter, the one where a man's calling was settled long before anyone sat him down. So this morning I wanted to see what Alma actually says about how it was settled.

What does Alma 13 mean by the holy order of God?

Alma is preaching in Ammonihah, and he starts verse 1 with "And again, my brethren," so he's picking up a thread from the sermon before. He says the Lord ordained priests "after his holy order, which was after the order of his Son, to teach these things unto the people." Verse 2 gives the purpose in a sentence: the people were to learn "in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption."

By verse 6 he's calling it "the high priesthood of the holy order of God," and in verses 7 and 8 he says it has no beginning of days or end of years. Those are the words he uses for it throughout: holy order, order of his Son, high priesthood. The phrase Melchizedek Priesthood doesn't appear anywhere in Alma 13. Melchizedek shows up in verse 14 as a man who held this priesthood, and the name by which we call it now comes from a later explanation. D&C 107:2 says the first is called the Melchizedek Priesthood "because Melchizedek was such a great high priest," and verse 3 says that before his day it was called "the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God."

When Alma says "this same order," he isn't naming a program with a handbook. He's pointing at something older than any one man who held it.

Left to choose, then called

Here's the part of verse 3 I'd put on a card:

in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling

Alma 13:3

Being left to choose comes first and having chosen good comes second. The faith follows after that, and the word "called" is the last thing in the sentence to arrive. The same verse says it was all "according to the foreknowledge of God," so I'm not going to pretend the foreknowledge isn't there. Both are in the sentence. But the chapter doesn't give a list of who got which assignment, and it never says a man was handed an office with no say in it. Verse 4 goes the other direction and says some "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."

That last clause stopped me, because "as great privilege" means the men who didn't become high priests could have. Verse 5 repeats it: "in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren." The difference Alma names is a hard heart, and nothing else. I'd say the calling in this chapter is closer to an open door than to a placement.

I don't know how that fits with every teaching on premortal callings, and the chapter doesn't try to settle it. The student manual treats the idea of specific premortal assignments as a question leaders have raised and doesn't present it as closed. What Alma 13 itself says is narrower, and it's enough to work with.

Why Melchizedek is the example

In verse 13 Alma turns from the priests to everybody in the room: "humble yourselves before God, and bring forth fruit meet for repentance, that ye may also enter into that rest." Then in verse 14 he picks his example, "the people in the days of Melchizedek."

I'd have guessed he would point to the man's holiness. He points to the town. Verse 17 says Melchizedek was king over the land of Salem and that his people "had all gone astray; they were full of all manner of wickedness." Verse 18 is the turn:

But Melchizedek having exercised mighty faith, and received the office of the high priesthood according to the holy order of God, did preach repentance unto his people. And behold, they did repent; and Melchizedek did establish peace in the land in his days

Alma 13:18

A king preached to a people who had gone as far wrong as people go, and the people repented. Alma wants his audience, which had just been told in chapter 12 about the second death, to hear that this is possible for a whole population. The title "prince of peace" in the same verse is explained on the spot: he established peace in his days. The chapter doesn't tell us where Salem was, and I'd leave it at that.

Verse 15 has Abraham paying tithes to him, "one-tenth part of all he possessed." Verse 16 says these ordinances were given so people could look forward to the Son, "it being a type of his order, or it being his order." The verse gives two readings and doesn't pick between them, and I've stopped trying to pick for it. Verse 19 closes the portrait with the line I chose as the featured verse. There were many before him and many after, none greater, which is why "of him they have more particularly made mention." Alma is saying the record is selective. Melchizedek is the one we heard about, and the chapter assumes there were others.

Look at how Alma uses the example. The calling gets verses 1 through 12, and the repentant town gets verses 17 and 18. He puts the town second and tells the whole room to be like it.

The last third of the chapter

I'll keep this short, since the second half of Alma 13 reads more like the end of a sermon than a doctrinal argument. Verse 20 has the warning that people who "wrest" the scriptures do it "to your own destruction," and Alma follows it a verse later by stretching out his hand and saying "Now is the time to repent." Verse 25 has a sentence I like a lot: "Would to God that it might be in my day; but let it be sooner or later, in it I will rejoice." Verse 27 asks them, "with great anxiety even unto pain," not to put off repentance. Verse 31 says Alma said many more words that aren't in the book.

If you want something to read next to this chapter, Alma 11 covers the courtroom scene that sets up these sermons in Ammonihah. The question of who is appointed to what, and by whom, comes up from another side in D&C 104.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Melchizedek the name of the priesthood in Alma 13?

No, Alma calls it the holy order and the high priesthood, and Melchizedek is a man who held it. The later name comes from D&C 107:2 to 4, which says the priesthood was once called the Holy Priesthood after the Order of the Son of God and was renamed in ancient days out of respect for God's name.

Does Alma 13:3 mean every man was assigned an office before birth?

I don't read it that way, since the verse says these men were called and prepared according to God's foreknowledge, on account of their faith and good works, after being left to choose. Nothing in the chapter hands out offices to individuals. If someone teaches premortal assignments as settled, I'd ask which verse they're standing on, because it's not this one.

What is the "rest of the Lord" in Alma 13?

Alma uses the phrase in verses 6, 12, 13, 16 and 29 and never defines it. From the way he uses it, it's where the sanctified end up (verse 12) and where he wants his listeners to end up (verse 13). Beyond that I'd be adding to the text.

Why does Alma mention Abraham paying tithes?

Verse 15 is the only place he does, and it works as a marker of who Melchizedek was. If Abraham paid him a tenth, he held real standing. Verse 16 then says the ordinances were meant to point people toward the Son.

What I'd like to hear from you

When you read verse 3, which phrase do you hear first, "prepared from the foundation of the world" or "left to choose good or evil"? And who taught you to hear it that way? I'd like to know, because I suspect the answer has more to do with the person than the verse.

— D.