Scripture: Alma now explains the saving relationship of the Atoning Messiah to those who have accepted his name and covenant while continuing his warning to those who have verbally accepted the Messiah but whose behavior fails to measure up.
In the day of judgment, Alma suggests, atonement is not universal. Only those whose “garments are washed white” will be “saved.” The image uses the garment as a metaphor for the person, and the garment’s washing represents cleansing the individual. The only way to be washed clean is “through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins.” Alma again alludes to his listeners’ ancestors, since this difference between the tradition of the Nephite “fathers” (prophets) is one of the points of contention between believers and the order of the Nehors. The washing of the garments/person comes through the Atonement as symbolized in baptism, a Nephite practice, particularly after Alma1 established the church.
Baptism, or washing in water, is a clear image; but Alma specifies that the repentant one is “washed white” through “blood,” which, on the face of it, seems to be a contradictory image. He draws this image, of course, from the law of Moses in which regular blood sacrifices performed by an authorized priest took guilt from the people. The blood of the sacrificial lamb, painted on Israelite doorposts in Egypt, had the power to save those within from the angel of death (Ex. 12:5–7). Thus, this imagery of blood and salvation is combined with that of washing garments in water to complete the symbolism. The ultimate type of this symbol is the Savior’s voluntary sacrifice. For this reason, John 1:29 calls Jesus the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Because Alma is speaking to the already-baptized, he did not see baptism as providing universal salvation. Rather, it offered temporary cleansing that could be maintained by righteous actions or denied by a return to an un-Christian lifestyle. This accords well with our modern understanding of baptism as an entrance ordinance, while our lives after baptism need to conform to the gospel so that the cleansing effects will continue to apply to us.