Alma does not simply charge the people to repent, but tells them how to do it.
“Humble yourselves” is the essential first step. Humility requires that we see ourselves against the measuring stick of gospel ideals and recognize our shortcomings. Acknowledging the difference in where we are and where we want to be is the first step. There are two possible human but dangerous ways we decline to repent in the face of such a gap. The first is denial, perhaps as mild as making excuses or justifying ourselves. The second is an extreme rejection, perhaps taking the form of exploding in anger and violence against whatever showed us the difference. Many of the Ammonihahites took this second path.
The proper reaction to seeing the difference is humility, which includes the ability to be willing to change, to admit that we are mistaken. Humility accepts that it is we who must change, not the gospel or the person who shows us our faults.
The second and third steps are to “call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually.” Repentance is not a solo journey. It is a road we walk with our hand in the Savior’s. We call on his name. This injunction invokes the ancient concept of the power of the name, calling his presence into our lives. We are not to simply request an affidavit of forgiveness but to implore the comforting blessing of the Atonement in our lives. Alma tells us to pray continually for that blessing and watch continually so that we are following the true road.
One purpose of constant prayer is “that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear.” This promise is an important one. Although we desire to repent and we begin the process, temptations do not cease. In fact, they may actually increase as we turn away from them. Through learning to resist those temptations we become stronger, until we can be as those Alma has said: “Now they, after being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, having their garments made white, being pure and spotless before God, could not look upon sin save it were with abhorrence” (Alma 13:2). While Alma’s reminder of the need to be continually alert may suggest the possibility of irresistible temptation, this is not the case. Paul tells us: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
Paul, like Alma, recognizes the reality of temptation, but both men promise that we will not be tempted above our capacity to resist. With every temptation will come “a way to escape” or resist. Thus, should we ever succumb to temptation, it will always be our own fault. We can never blame God for confronting us with an overwhelming temptation. We must accept the fault ourselves and repent of it ourselves.
The effect of daily pleading with God is that we can “be led by the Holy Spirit,” or Comforter. This Spirit is the close and intimate reminder of God’s goodness that will uphold us through our weaknesses.
The effect of the Spirit will result in our “becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering.” It may seem ironic that this list of virtues begins with humility, which was also the trait necessary to begin the process of repentance. However, those engaged in this process know that the Spirit stands always ready to assist, even if our first efforts at humility are inadequate. The Spirit aids those beginning steps, strengthening our humility and leading to meekness and submission. These are not the traits of a weak character, but rather the traits of one who is growing in greater gospel understanding. As we repent, the Spirit is more strongly with us, leading us to desire greater understanding. The reward of humility is more humility, an increased outpouring of knowledge about God’s ways as revealed by the Spirit, and greater love for God and greater experience of his love for us.
For the Ammonihahites, their first step would be an acceptance of the Atoning Messiah—even if it was a shaky and doubtful one. Then, by humbly exercising faith and seeking enlightenment of the Spirit, they would achieve “a hope” of “eternal life.” Hope is not well defined in the scriptures, but Paul links it with understanding and having faith of in Christ’s resurrection and in our own. Paul uses an agrarian metaphor: “Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope” (1 Cor. 9:10; emphasis mine).
Paul’s farmer would not engage in the labor of planting if he had no hope of a future harvest. That future, for Paul, is the domain of hope. Hope looks to future benefit as a guide to our current actions. Colossians 1:27 adds: “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The riches promised by the gospel are not those of the world but rather the riches of heavenly glory, a mystery to the Gentiles but clear to Christians who have faith in Jesus Christ hope, or expectation, through him of future glory. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14, Paul contrasts the sorrow of those who have lost loved ones but who “have no hope” in a resurrection with the Christian’s assurance: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”
In this passage, hope, for Paul, is not glory, but a future state, the stage of existence that comes after death. Nonbelievers have no hope, or expectation, that life will continue because they do not understand Christ’s mission. Paul’s emphasis on hope in the Christian’s future explains his statement: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:19). Paul implicitly contrasts the misery of those whose hopes must be limited to this world alone; Christians are the happiest of mortals because they have hope in Christ of the world to come. If Christians’ hope in Christ was limited to this life, they would be disappointed, for following Christ is often more difficult than the way of the world. We walk Christ’s path, not primarily for its present rewards, but because of our hope in the future, just as the farmer plants now in hope of the later harvest. Alma’s hope is similarly one of expecting a future, rather than an earthly, promise.