In keeping with the resurrection/new birth theme, Alma declares that when he arises form his affliction that he is “born of the Spirit.” Alma tells the people that while he has been “gone” that he has both repented of his sins and been redeemed from them.
This redemption is the critical piece of teaching information in this experience. Not only is Alma the Younger’s experience prefiguring the death and resurrection of the atoning Messiah, it is the confirmation of that atoning mission – these are the very things that Alma the Younger had been denying and fighting against.
Thus when Alma awakens, his theme is to so completely reverse his persecution that he is the embodiment of the meaning of that future mission of the Messiah.
Textual: This verse begins a quotation from the words of Alma. This citation will continue through verse 31. While these are Alma’s words, it is most probable that Alma is not recording them. Alma the Younger would not have been a keeper of the records at this point, and so we are receiving his words through another scribe that Mormon had been editing.