Alma 9:27
27 And behold, he cometh to
redeem those who will be baptized unto repentance, through faith on his name.
The ordinance of baptism is not
explicitly an important aspect of Nephite religion until Alma1. By
the time of Alma2, the ordinance has become to definitive that the
Messiah enters mortality at least partially to be baptized. What this means in
terms of Book of Mormon doctrine is that the ordinance of baptism has completely
supplanted the Jewish rite of animal sacrifice for atonement. Alma’s address is
a milestone in showing the movement away from the sacrificial cult of Israel
and toward a more spiritualized worship that is reminiscent of Christianity and
even of Israel after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple by the Romans. It
seems probable that separation from both the physical temple in Jerusalem and
from the Levite priestly lineage led to responses that were similar among both
the Old World Christians the pre-Christian Nephites in the New World. Both
instances shifted religion from the communal to the individual.
For example, Alma states unequivocally
that the Atoning Messiah is coming to “redeem those who will be baptized until
repentance.” There is absolutely no indication of any other required sacrifice.
The religion has been transformed into a spiritual relationship with Yahweh
rather than a communal relationship maintained by animal sacrifice. (Brant A.
Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of
Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 4:161)