The Book of Alma

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS FROM THE BOOK OF ALMA FROM FRAGMENTS OF CHAPTERS 32-36

(Panel consists of four BYU Professors, Robert Millet, Joseph McConkie, Camille Fronk and Andrew Skinner, beginning with Alma Chapter 32 and nourishing the word as a seed):

"This is a marvelous metaphor.  The seed is not just faith, the word or Jesus Christ.  The seed is Divine Sonship.  If I plant that seed and it grows up to be a tree, then I'm going to pluck fruits off of the tree.  Every single fruit that is sweet to the taste grows out of the doctrine of Divine Sonship.

If Jesus is literally God's Son, that means that God has to be a corporeal (tangible) Being; He has a body, parts and passions and that He really has a Son.  Now that means that in the resurrection, a man will be a man and a woman, praise the Lord, will be a woman. That means gender; we've resurrected gender and the chemistry that exists between a man and a woman as a result.

From that follows the family and the doctrine of eternal marriage, all rooting back to the seed.  We can be heirs because we are His children, joint heirs and obtain all that the Father has.  Every single principle we have discussed points back to having the right seed.

So our critics in the world say, 'You can't believe that; you can't have that; we don't find that in the Bible; that isn't part of our theology.

True enough, because they didn't plant that seed.  If you plant the seed of the Holy Trinity and you can call it what you will that grows out of it, but I don't think it's a beautiful tree.  You can search that tree endlessly, but never will you be able to find those fruits."

Then, the topic of the atonement is mentioned. "If a person stands up at fast and testimony meeting and says, 'How bad I feel that my sins are added to the suffering of the Savior.'  "It isn't an infinite atonement, plus my sins or minus my sins.   Infinite is infinite."

Next is the topic of death.  "Death doesn't change your nature.  What you are in this life is what you will be in the world of the spirits.  It is the same attitude, propensity, appetite, desire and disposition that you had in earth life.  If you are a fish in this life you are a fish in the next.  If you are a grumpy old bear in this life, you will be so in the next.

How does that square with a statement uttered by Melvin J. Ballard that it is ten times as hard to repent in the next life as it is here?  He is teaching the value of the physical body working in conjunction with spirit in accomplishing the work of salvation.

We should not anticipate getting into the next world and then doing our religious work.  Death can't put you on the path but it will not walk you off.  You just continue in your great journey."

Next, dramatic spiritual experiences are discussed.  "What is the unusual circumstance in Alma's conversion story?  There is a potential danger in the way that we teach extraordinary events, if we leave the impression in the minds of those we teach that they haven't had a true conversion if it isn't as dramatic as Alma's. 

It is a little like the evening newspaper headline.

What you are getting in the headline is not the normal routine experiences that you and I have had during the day.  Instead, it's the peculiar and the unusual.  For that reason, it is news.

For example, Moses parting the Red Sea is unusual but a prophet doesn't do that sort of thing every afternoon.  Most of us make progress in small increments, not the dramatic.

Once a young woman came to my office, after a Book of Mormon class, and sat before me and began to weep.  I asked her, 'what's wrong?'  She said that she was ashamed to say and I thought that she was going to confess some serious sin.  Finally, she said, 'I've never had a conversion experience like Alma had.' 

What do I say back to her?  Something like, 'Well, hang on, it will come or 'Really.  I'm sorry to hear that.'

No, it was very clear to me by her countenance and presence that this was a righteous individual.  Instead I said, 'No and you probably never will.  Most of us do not.'

Next on repentance, "I was sitting with a missionary companion; I think I had been on my mission for two days and we were having study time concerning forgiveness and repentance.  My companion said to me, 'Now Elder, keep in mind, if you can still remember your sins, the Lord hasn't forgiven you.'

I was shocked.  'Is that true?' I said.  He said, 'That's what the scriptures teach.'  Of course, that is not what they teach, but I didn't know that and for two weeks I went into depression.  I remembered my sins vividly and in Technicolor.

My companion meant well but the only problem was is that it was not true.  Obviously Alma was remembering and remembering graphically.

There is another lesson that needs to be learned here.  If you sin, there is no such thing as cheap grace or easy believeism.

You're not going to get rid of that sin without suffering.  Don't think you're getting away with anything.  Sin hurts: I got thru this; I repented but it was painful.  There is a great doctrine here and it is, there is no sin worth committing.  It isn't worth the suffering that's associated with it. 

A good wife is a woman that will stick with you thru all the problems you'd never have had if you hadn't have married her in the first place.  However, all of that increases thru the growth and development, joy and happiness and eternal blessings that you also wouldn't have had if you had not been true to that covenant that was tough to keep.  You learn an important lesson.  The amount of trust you place in God is the amount of support you will receive from Him."