Now Alma moves to the time of the solution instead of the gap in which the problem is most obvious. Verse 14 gives us the conclusion to the problem aspect of his argument. The fall placed man in a desperate situation. They were subject to physical death, and they were capable (and likely) to sin and therefore distance themselves from God. There was no way around those two problems. They were in the “grasp of justice” because these were consequences of actions that were taken. The action of eating the fruit brought on death (just as God had said) and the actions of agency inevitably brought sin. Since “no unclean thing can dwell with God” (1 Nephi 10:21), our sins also inevitably brought spiritual separation from God, a situation termed spiritual death.
Into that bleak picture of justice enters mercy. It was never part of God’s plan to leave us in the state that Alma describes. What was required was a way to reconcile the death of the body and the spirit. That way was the atonement. For Alma, since God imposed justice, “God himself” would apply the atonement – the merciful counter to justice.
In this verse we have another instance of the Nephite understanding of the Atoning Messiah as God. The Nephite understanding clearly associates the Atoning Messiah with Jehovah. See the comments following 1 Nephi 11:18 for more information. Talmage notes:
“We claim scriptural authority for the assertion that Jesus Christ was and is God the Creator, the God who revealed Himself to Adam, Enoch, and all the antediluvial patriarchs and prophets down to Noah; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Israel as a united people, and the God of Ephraim and Judah after the disruption of the Hebrew nation; the God who made Himself known to the prophets from Moses to Malachi; the God of the Old Testament record; and the God of the Nephites. We affirm that Jesus Christ was and is Jehovah, the Eternal One.” (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ: A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1983], 30.)