Continuing with Alma 13: 2:
“And those priests were ordained after the order of his Son, in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption.”
Now this is important stuff here. We are really being told something quite amazing. Look at these words!
To be “ordained after the order of his Son” it must be done “in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption.” Did you get that?
Think about these words carefully.
The “manner” must be in a way which will let people know or understand how to “look forward to His Son for redemption.”
So, let’s clear away the institutional garbage that surrounds our thinking.
Christ WAS NOT ordained by being sustained by a congregation.
Christ WAS NOT ordained by having hands laid upon Him by another man.
Christ DID NOT carry a credential with Him or a certificate of priestly authority.
Christ WAS NOT part of the established priestly hierarchy.
We have no record of His ordination at all. We only have established, priestly class officials asking Christ about where He got His authority from. And we have Christ simply refusing to answer their question.
Christ showed that He in fact held priestly authority by His demonstration of power. More importantly, He taught profound truths with such passing simplicity and convincing prose that His message necessarily came from a higher source. In word and deed He put on display His power and authority.
But what is the verse in Alma speaking about? How does one become “ordained” in such a manner that people learning of it will then know how to look forward (or back) to the Savior and understand His redeeming power?
Do they put on display, by the words and precepts they speak, the profound simplicity and convincing prose of the angels themselves? Are they able to show their ordination by speaking words of eternal life, as He did?
How does this “ordination” acquire or show redeeming power?
How can obtaining authority by ordination to this priesthood be something which will let people know their Lord better?
What is really going on for those who hold actual priestly authority, being ordained in the required manner? Do they acquire more than administrative authority from an institution? Do they receive power from on high? Can you get it anywhere other than from on high? Is this why the power of the priesthood is inseparably connected with the powers of heaven? What have we Saints been doing? Practicing? Holding ourselves forth to possess?
Where can we get this ordination after the order of the Son of God?
Forget what you’ve been taught. Read the Book of Mormon and remove the condemnation under which this people labor. Really study its words. They are alien to your prejudices and presumptions. But they ARE in fact the words of life. You really can get closer to God by abiding its precepts than through any other book! Amazingly, this is one of the very precepts which necessarily forces you to draw closer to God!
What a marvelous work and a wonder! Will the wonder never cease? (Only if you reject it.) It is a font of living water which constantly renews and floods forth more and new information endlessly, until at last we are also caught up in the visions of eternity and know our Lord. Then we needn’t ask another to know the Lord, for all shall know Him.
I labor to help you know Him; to bring you to Him. The primary means to accomplish that remains the Book of Mormon. But only if you actually let it speak to you and reveal its many hidden secrets.
I’m only asking questions here. You’ll have to figure out the answers.