Alma has previously indicated that he operates “according to the holy order of God.… ” While it is easy to assume, following modern practice, that this phrase means the priesthood, it is not altogether clear that Alma is using the term with the same understanding.
To the Zarahemlaites, Alma declares that he has been called to “speak after this manner, according to the holy order of God, which is in Christ Jesus; yea, I am commanded to stand and testify unto this people the things which have been spoken by our fathers concerning the things which are to come” (Alma 5:44). The “holy order” does not provide Alma’s authority to speak, but rather his subject matter—“the things which have been spoken by our fathers.”
Later in that same sermon he asks: “Yea, will ye persist in supposing that ye are better one than another; yea, will ye persist in the persecution of your brethren, who humble themselves and do walk after the holy order of God, wherewith they have been brought into this church.… ” (Alma 5:54). Again Alma is not declaring his authority, but rather suggesting that church members may “walk after the holy order of God,” which will result in their having “been brought into this church.”
That is the message given to the Gideonites: “I have said these things unto you that I might awaken you to a sense of your duty to God, that ye may walk blameless before him, that ye may walk after the holy order of God, after which ye have been received” (Alma 7:22). This is not an admonition to receive the priesthood, but rather to “walk” the path of God, here called the “holy order of God.” It appears that, as Alma uses the “holy order of God,” the term means the gospel, not the Melchizedek Priesthood. Certainly the true order of God includes the priesthood, but Alma is exhorting these people to follow the gospel, not that they should receive a priesthood.
His message to the Melekites is therefore the same as his message in Zarahemla and Gideon. The people should follow the Nephite gospel, the holy order of God. Although Mormon records this message, events in Melek have little interest and he quickly moves on to the part of this journey that he finds more important.