Helaman had no doubt heard somewhat concerning his father’s miraculous conversion. (See Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2: p. 274 ff.) But, evidently, never before from his father’s own lips. In relating this experience to his son, Alma went into great detail. He gave Helaman to understand that by no wisdom of his own did he know these things, but that God, Himself, had vouchsafed to him many wonderful blessings that culminated in his firmness and steadfast devotion. Alma knew whereof he spoke, “not of the temporal but of the spiritual, not of the carnal mind but of God?”
Alma remembered the words of Jacob, the younger brother of the Prophet Nephi, which were written upon the Smaller Plates:
2 Ne. 9:30)
Not of the carnal mind … The word carnal is used in the Book of Mormon to distinguish between that of the flesh and that of the spirit. It does not necessarily infer sin, but when it is contrasted with spirit it sometimes is so intended. It comes from the Latin carnis, which means flesh.
A better understanding of its use and meaning is to be had by studying its employment in both the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
In spite of my own unworthiness, Alma confided to Helaman, the Lord made me aware by the mouth of His holy angel that these things whereof I speak are true. Beginning with the underlying reason therefor, Alma recounted his sinful past; that with the sons of King Mosiah he went about molesting the Saints of God, thereby seeking to destroy His Church. One day as they went about seeking to employ their impiously devised plans on the faithful and true, “God sent His holy angel,” Alma said to Helaman, “to stop us by the way.” Alma related in quite some detail that never-to-be-forgotten rebuke given them by the angel from God’s presence. In a voice like thunder, the reverberations of which shook the earth upon which they stood, Alma was commanded to arise from the ground onto which he had fallen and to stand forth.
We repeat what we have said of this marvelous incident in our comments, previously referred to, on Chapter 27, Book of Mosiah, Volume 2, Commentary on the Book of Mormon.
One day as Alma and his company were going about persecuting the members of the Church, an holy angel descended in a cloud and stopped them in the way. When the angel spoke, his voice was as thunder that caused the earth under their feet to tremble. Naturally, this manifestation of God’s power spread terror and dismay in the hearts of those who witnessed it. They fell to the ground, and so confused and terrified were they that they failed to understand the words of the holy messenger.
“Alma, arise and stand forth,” he cried. And when Alma arose, his eyes were opened to see who stood before him. It was an angel sent down from Heaven. He had a divine mission to perform—to rebuke Alma and his companions.
The earth continued to shake as the angel spoke to them; the ground around them seemed ready to come apart. Again, they fell to the ground. We can understand their thoughts more forcefully if the words of the Psalmist are remembered: “Fearlessness and trembling are come upon me, and honor hath overwhelmed me.” (Ps. 55:5)
“Why persecuteth thou the Church of God?” the angel asked of Alma. Knowest thou not, “that the Lord hath said, This is My Church, and I will establish it.” Further the Lord sayeth, “Nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of My people.”
Besides these things, the angel spoke to Alma of his father’s captivity in the Lands of Helem and Nephi, and of their miraculous deliverance therefrom. But Alma heard nothing of these latter sayings because of the terrors of the first salutation that had overpowered him.
Even if thou wilt of thyself be cast off. This warning to Alma undoubtedly means, "Even if thou will not thyself be cast out of God’s presence.
When the angel departed, Alma was dismayed and overcome; soul stricken, he sank to the ground. His companions gathered around him, and found he could not move, neither could he speak. Outwardly, he was dead to the world. The torments of the damned had taken hold of his soul, and, in the most bitter pain and mental anguish he lay racked with the remembrance of all his past sins. The thought of standing before the Bar of God to be judged for his iniquities overwhelmed him with dread. He desired to become extinct, both body and spirit, so that he could not be brought before his creator. Thus for three days and three nights he suffered the pains of Hell. (See Alma 36:16.) (According to the author of the Book of Mosiah, Alma’s father and other Church members fasted and prayed for the younger Alma for two days and, two nights. We have no way of telling how much time was consumed by Alma’s companions in carrying him to his father. The difference between two and three days may have been used in so doing.) Whichever it may have been, in his racked conscience, it must have seemed an eternity.
Alma became dumb, and his companions carried him to his father. When his companions found that Alma could neither speak nor move his limbs, they carried him to his father and related to him all that had happened. Strange as it must have appeared to them, the elder Alma’s heart was filled with joy, and he praised God when he saw the apparently dead body of his much-loved son, for he realized it was the Lord’s power that had brought this manifestation, and that his long-continued prayers had now been answered.
In his joy, Alma’s father gathered the people together so that they might witness this great showing of the goodness and power of God. He assembled the priests, sought their cooperation, and unitedly they fasted and prayed for the stricken youth.
If we would recall the parable told by Jesus concerning another son who chose to do evil and thereby brought misery to his devoted father, we can understand, somewhat more fully, the joy that flowed from the elder Alma’s heart when he beheld his own son lying unconscious before him.
Jesus told of a father who had two sons, the younger of whom asked that he be given his portion of his father’s estate. When he had gathered it all together, he went to a distant land “and there wasted his substance in riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine,” a labor thought by the Jews to be contemptible.
The son grew hungry and no one gave unto him, whereupon he was glad to eat the food prepared for the swine.
One day as he meditated his lot, the Prodigal son, for by this name is he known, thought of his home with his father. He remembered the fine clothes he there wore, and the abundance of good food there. Even his father’s servants had more to eat than what they needed “and I perish with hunger,” he said.
The poor Prodigal was afar off, serving a strange master in a strange land, feeding on husks.
“I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, ”Father I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee!"
His father in the meantime had all along expected his son to return, and when he saw him coming, he was yet a long way off. However, the father prepared for his son, the ring for his withered finger, the robe for his naked body, the shoes for his sore feet; and the father called to his servants to prepare the fatted calf which he always had in readiness for the time when his son should come home. Not only that did the father do, but he sent his servants to ask his neighbors to come and rejoice and make merry, for he said, “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.” (Luke 15:11-24)
Also, let us hear the Prophet Habakkuk. The East Wind had sowed destruction broadcast throughout the land. The fig tree did not blossom, there was no fruit on the vines, the labor of the olive failed, and the field yielded no meat. The flock was cut off from the fold, and there was no herd in the stalls; “Yet” said the prophet, “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” (Hab. 3:17)
This some exultant cry left the heart of the elder Alma as he beheld his son, for he “knew it was the power of God.”
For two days they continued their supplications to Heaven. In the 27th Chapter of the Book of Mosiah, verses 23-31 is an account of what Alma said upon regaining consciousness:
And it came to pass after they had fasted and prayed for the space of two days and two nights, the limbs of Alma received their strength, and he stood up and began to speak unto them, bidding them to be of good comfort:
For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit.
And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and woman, all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming His sons and daughters;
And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the Kingdom of God.
I say unto you, unless this be the case, they must be cast off; and this I know, because I was like to be cast off.
Nevertheless, after wandering through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God.
My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more.
I rejected my Redeemer, and denied that which had been spoken by our fathers; but now that they may foresee that He will come, and that He remembereth every creature of His creating, He will make Himself manifest unto all.
Yea, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before Him. Yea, even at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of Him, then shall they confess that He is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the world, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of His all-searching eye.
From then on to the end of his mortal career, Alma labored without ceasing to bring souls to Christ, and to guide his fellowmen in the Paths of Salvation.
It is well to note the effect this heavenly visit had upon the sons of King Mosiah. From that moment they were changed men. When the voice of the angel reached their astonished ears, the understanding of divinity entered their souls. They knew, they felt, they realized there was a God, and that they had been fighting against Him. The sense of their own unworthiness filled their hearts; remorse and anguish reigned supreme therein, and they condemned themselves as the vilest of sinners.
Finally, the bitterness of their remorse was swallowed up in their faith in the coming of Christ, and they determined that, with the help of the Lord, they would undo the evil that their previous course had wrought. These resolutions they faithfully carried out. If they had been energetic in their wrongdoings, they would in the future be doubly active in works of restitution. They journeyed from city to city, from land to land, and everywhere bore triumphant testimony of their miraculous conversion. And in no equivocal tones they proclaimed the glorious Gospel of Christ, the love of God, and the Salvation of Mankind.
“If I Had Not Been Born of God I Should Not Have Known These Things”
Helaman had no doubt heard somewhat concerning his father’s miraculous conversion. (See Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2: p. 274 ff.) But, evidently, never before from his father’s own lips. In relating this experience to his son, Alma went into great detail. He gave Helaman to understand that by no wisdom of his own did he know these things, but that God, Himself, had vouchsafed to him many wonderful blessings that culminated in his firmness and steadfast devotion. Alma knew whereof he spoke, “not of the temporal but of the spiritual, not of the carnal mind but of God?”
Alma remembered the words of Jacob, the younger brother of the Prophet Nephi, which were written upon the Smaller Plates:
2 Ne. 9:30)
Not of the carnal mind … The word carnal is used in the Book of Mormon to distinguish between that of the flesh and that of the spirit. It does not necessarily infer sin, but when it is contrasted with spirit it sometimes is so intended. It comes from the Latin carnis, which means flesh.
A better understanding of its use and meaning is to be had by studying its employment in both the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
In spite of my own unworthiness, Alma confided to Helaman, the Lord made me aware by the mouth of His holy angel that these things whereof I speak are true. Beginning with the underlying reason therefor, Alma recounted his sinful past; that with the sons of King Mosiah he went about molesting the Saints of God, thereby seeking to destroy His Church. One day as they went about seeking to employ their impiously devised plans on the faithful and true, “God sent His holy angel,” Alma said to Helaman, “to stop us by the way.” Alma related in quite some detail that never-to-be-forgotten rebuke given them by the angel from God’s presence. In a voice like thunder, the reverberations of which shook the earth upon which they stood, Alma was commanded to arise from the ground onto which he had fallen and to stand forth.
We repeat what we have said of this marvelous incident in our comments, previously referred to, on Chapter 27, Book of Mosiah, Volume 2, Commentary on the Book of Mormon.
One day as Alma and his company were going about persecuting the members of the Church, an holy angel descended in a cloud and stopped them in the way. When the angel spoke, his voice was as thunder that caused the earth under their feet to tremble. Naturally, this manifestation of God’s power spread terror and dismay in the hearts of those who witnessed it. They fell to the ground, and so confused and terrified were they that they failed to understand the words of the holy messenger.
“Alma, arise and stand forth,” he cried. And when Alma arose, his eyes were opened to see who stood before him. It was an angel sent down from Heaven. He had a divine mission to perform—to rebuke Alma and his companions.
The earth continued to shake as the angel spoke to them; the ground around them seemed ready to come apart. Again, they fell to the ground. We can understand their thoughts more forcefully if the words of the Psalmist are remembered: “Fearlessness and trembling are come upon me, and honor hath overwhelmed me.” (Ps. 55:5)
“Why persecuteth thou the Church of God?” the angel asked of Alma. Knowest thou not, “that the Lord hath said, This is My Church, and I will establish it.” Further the Lord sayeth, “Nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of My people.”
Besides these things, the angel spoke to Alma of his father’s captivity in the Lands of Helem and Nephi, and of their miraculous deliverance therefrom. But Alma heard nothing of these latter sayings because of the terrors of the first salutation that had overpowered him.
Even if thou wilt of thyself be cast off. This warning to Alma undoubtedly means, "Even if thou will not thyself be cast out of God’s presence.
When the angel departed, Alma was dismayed and overcome; soul stricken, he sank to the ground. His companions gathered around him, and found he could not move, neither could he speak. Outwardly, he was dead to the world. The torments of the damned had taken hold of his soul, and, in the most bitter pain and mental anguish he lay racked with the remembrance of all his past sins. The thought of standing before the Bar of God to be judged for his iniquities overwhelmed him with dread. He desired to become extinct, both body and spirit, so that he could not be brought before his creator. Thus for three days and three nights he suffered the pains of Hell. (See Alma 36:16.) (According to the author of the Book of Mosiah, Alma’s father and other Church members fasted and prayed for the younger Alma for two days and, two nights. We have no way of telling how much time was consumed by Alma’s companions in carrying him to his father. The difference between two and three days may have been used in so doing.) Whichever it may have been, in his racked conscience, it must have seemed an eternity.
Alma became dumb, and his companions carried him to his father. When his companions found that Alma could neither speak nor move his limbs, they carried him to his father and related to him all that had happened. Strange as it must have appeared to them, the elder Alma’s heart was filled with joy, and he praised God when he saw the apparently dead body of his much-loved son, for he realized it was the Lord’s power that had brought this manifestation, and that his long-continued prayers had now been answered.
In his joy, Alma’s father gathered the people together so that they might witness this great showing of the goodness and power of God. He assembled the priests, sought their cooperation, and unitedly they fasted and prayed for the stricken youth.
If we would recall the parable told by Jesus concerning another son who chose to do evil and thereby brought misery to his devoted father, we can understand, somewhat more fully, the joy that flowed from the elder Alma’s heart when he beheld his own son lying unconscious before him.
Jesus told of a father who had two sons, the younger of whom asked that he be given his portion of his father’s estate. When he had gathered it all together, he went to a distant land “and there wasted his substance in riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine,” a labor thought by the Jews to be contemptible.
The son grew hungry and no one gave unto him, whereupon he was glad to eat the food prepared for the swine.
One day as he meditated his lot, the Prodigal son, for by this name is he known, thought of his home with his father. He remembered the fine clothes he there wore, and the abundance of good food there. Even his father’s servants had more to eat than what they needed “and I perish with hunger,” he said.
The poor Prodigal was afar off, serving a strange master in a strange land, feeding on husks.
“I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, ”Father I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee!"
His father in the meantime had all along expected his son to return, and when he saw him coming, he was yet a long way off. However, the father prepared for his son, the ring for his withered finger, the robe for his naked body, the shoes for his sore feet; and the father called to his servants to prepare the fatted calf which he always had in readiness for the time when his son should come home. Not only that did the father do, but he sent his servants to ask his neighbors to come and rejoice and make merry, for he said, “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.” (Luke 15:11-24)
Also, let us hear the Prophet Habakkuk. The East Wind had sowed destruction broadcast throughout the land. The fig tree did not blossom, there was no fruit on the vines, the labor of the olive failed, and the field yielded no meat. The flock was cut off from the fold, and there was no herd in the stalls; “Yet” said the prophet, “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” (Hab. 3:17)
This some exultant cry left the heart of the elder Alma as he beheld his son, for he “knew it was the power of God.”
For two days they continued their supplications to Heaven. In the 27th Chapter of the Book of Mosiah, verses 23-31 is an account of what Alma said upon regaining consciousness:
And it came to pass after they had fasted and prayed for the space of two days and two nights, the limbs of Alma received their strength, and he stood up and began to speak unto them, bidding them to be of good comfort:
For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit.
And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and woman, all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming His sons and daughters;
And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the Kingdom of God.
I say unto you, unless this be the case, they must be cast off; and this I know, because I was like to be cast off.
Nevertheless, after wandering through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God.
My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more.
I rejected my Redeemer, and denied that which had been spoken by our fathers; but now that they may foresee that He will come, and that He remembereth every creature of His creating, He will make Himself manifest unto all.
Yea, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before Him. Yea, even at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of Him, then shall they confess that He is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the world, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of His all-searching eye.
From then on to the end of his mortal career, Alma labored without ceasing to bring souls to Christ, and to guide his fellowmen in the Paths of Salvation.
It is well to note the effect this heavenly visit had upon the sons of King Mosiah. From that moment they were changed men. When the voice of the angel reached their astonished ears, the understanding of divinity entered their souls. They knew, they felt, they realized there was a God, and that they had been fighting against Him. The sense of their own unworthiness filled their hearts; remorse and anguish reigned supreme therein, and they condemned themselves as the vilest of sinners.
Finally, the bitterness of their remorse was swallowed up in their faith in the coming of Christ, and they determined that, with the help of the Lord, they would undo the evil that their previous course had wrought. These resolutions they faithfully carried out. If they had been energetic in their wrongdoings, they would in the future be doubly active in works of restitution. They journeyed from city to city, from land to land, and everywhere bore triumphant testimony of their miraculous conversion. And in no equivocal tones they proclaimed the glorious Gospel of Christ, the love of God, and the Salvation of Mankind.