The eleven questions that start in verse 15 and go to verse 24, ask, "Can you imagine the judgment day?" Do we often imagine what it will be like when we stand before God to be accounted, to be judged according to the deeds that we have done in this mortal body? Do we think about being accountable?
Think about the 19th question, "Can you imagine yourself that you hear the voice of the Lord saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold your works have been works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?" (5:16). Can you imagine that? Can you think of that? Do you think of hearing, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant?" Does that come to your mind as you hear those questions?
Getting the people to think about judgment day and to realize "I am going to be held accountable” is a very powerful spiritual motivator. On the Feast of Tabernacles, the Israelites celebrated God’s kingship. The king eventually was the judge, and on the Feast of Tabernacles—supposing that is when this occurred—the people would have come expecting to give an accounting of how they had done. In effect, they would have expected to go through a fiery furnace of judgment before God, so that they could repent and renew their covenants. They would have been able to walk out of that important hearing-and-renewal of the law reconciled with God and placed where they could progress. This theme of judgment, then, is a powerful one in the context of what is happening here.
As I read these verses, I really like remembering that Alma was a judge by career. For eight years he had served as the chief judge of the Nephite court system. We do not know how many cases he tried, but probably quite a few. I am sure as he sat on the bench looking down on these people, he probably heard them making up excuses and pleading for mercy and saying, "Oh I really did not do it," and Alma was likely thinking, "There was not a one of them that I could not see through." We do not fool the judge, and we are not going to fool God. When Alma thought about himself as a judge, and the position of God at the judgement, he was likely thinking: "On that judgment day, do you think you are going to be able to fool him any better than any of these people have fooled me?" We are getting the voice of a person who has been there. It would have made sense to them, and it resonates with us.
Was Alma actually alluding here to his own conversion experience? I think so. He did not say explicitly, "You’d better believe, because this is what happened to me," but he knew, and he could speak with conviction because he had been there, and he had experienced the things that he was teaching. As I read verse 21, I imagine being brought before the tribunal of God. Perhaps that was one of the things that happened to Alma during his three days of stunned silence. He said of that experience that he feared that he was going to become banished and extinct. His soul was filled with guilt and remorse, racked with eternal torment. He had a perfect recollection of his guilt. I suppose he had told that story of his own conversion enough times that his audience would have felt and said, "Alma knows what he is talking about and I ought to really take this to heart."
Often, when we hear Alma 5 mentioned, we just think of one verse, "Have you received his image in your countenance?" (5:19). But Alma did not let them off so easily. It’s not just a matter of receiving. There will also be things testifying against them, and against us. Did that hit you? He asked, "What will these things that you have done, what will they testify of? Will they not testify that ye are murderers, yea, and also that ye are guilty of all manner of wickedness?" (5:22–23). To whom was he talking here? There may have been people in his audience who had committed murders, but nobody had been there to witness it, and so nobody could convict them. If a judge could not prove that someone had committed murder, because it was done in secret, they sometimes thought they could get away with it.
But more than that, Alma once referred to himself as having murdered many people (Alma 36:14), meaning that he had seriously damaged them spiritually. However, whether literally or spiritually, Alma said that no one was going to get away with it. He was addressing the most crucial, the most wicked of all crimes—murder. He did not let his audience off easily.
Further Reading
Ed J. Pinegar and John W. Welch, Experiencing a Mighty Change of Heart: Alma’s Guide to a Deep, Lasting Conversion (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2020), chapter 7 "Standing before God at the Judgment Day."