While studying the topic of “the holy order of God,” the Lord gave me a visual representation of what I was learning.
He showed me a set of matryoshka dolls. Most people don’t know them by that name. Most people call them “Russian nesting dolls” or “tea dolls.” He showed me how progress through his “orders” can be represented by those dolls.
When you have a set of those dolls that is completely taken apart and disordered, there is only one way in which the pieces can be brought together and ordered to form a complete whole. You start with the smallest, singular doll, you encase that doll with the two pieces of the doll of the next larger size, and you repeat until you make the largest doll possible.
The smallest singular doll is like someone in their natural, fallen, sinful condition. When a person is in this state, that person is not part of God’s order1.
When someone repents, it is like that person is encased in the doll of the next larger size. They “level up.” A change is wrought in their heart. Not only are they forgiven of their past sins, but they also become a new creature in Christ, with “no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” (Mosiah 5:2) Steadfast continuance in this state results in a perpetual state of sinlessness because that person yields to the word of the Lord in all situations and circumstances.
This state of sinlessness allows the Spirit of the Lord to flow more abundantly to individuals who have attained it. As they seek to know the Lord better, they are endowed with greater measures of his Spirit, which gives light and understanding—new information, to which an individual in this state must continuously conform.
It is inevitable that individuals who progress in this state will be called out of this one and into another. Having received information through the Spirit, and having completely conformed their lives to the information they have received, they qualify, and are called, to teach others who have not yet done so to do the same. Those who accept that call “level up” again. It is as if they are encased by the doll of the next larger size.
Individuals in this next state preach true repentance. The Lord only calls individuals who have practiced true repentance to this state—this “order”2 —because anyone who has not truly repented would be a hypocrite in preaching the principle. Not having experienced that “mighty change,” they wouldn’t know what it is like and, therefore, could not teach it to others. This is one of the reasons why Jesus was so vocal in calling the Pharisees out on their hypocrisy:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. (Matthew 23:15)
Alma calls this “order”—this class of individuals—“the holy order of God.” They are distinguished from those who “walk after the holy order of God.” (Alma 5:54, Alma 7:22) Those who “walk after the holy order of God” are those who believe in the words of those who belong to “the holy order of God.” They are those who actually repent and who continue in God’s word. They are part of “the order of God,” but they are not part of “the holy order of God” because they have not yet qualified themselves to testify according to the spirit of revelation and the spirit of prophecy.
1–“Order,” here, meaning “regular disposition or methodical arrangement of things.”
2–“Order,” here, meaning “rank, class, division of men.”