Alma’s response to the time disjunction is to point out that it is not really there. While the coming of the Atoning Messiah is in the future, that does not mean that the present is left unattended. Alma first asks: “Is is not as necessary that the plan of redemption should be made known unto this people as well as unto their children?” Of course the answer is yes, but if we assume that very simple answer we miss the real import of Alma’s statement. Alma’s statement has two levels simultaneously.
The first is the simple justice question of whether or not the current population has the same rights before God as their children; to which the answer is clearly yes. The second aspect, however, is that the plan of redemption is being taught now, and thus this proves God’s current concern. What Alma is saying is that the evidence for the current attention from God is that the current people have the same understanding of the plan of redemption as the future children who are born after the Atoning Messiah comes.
Alma’s second statement is similarly dual. The first level is the simple question of whether or not it is “as easy” for the Lord to send an angel now as to send a messenger then. Of course the answer must be yes, but this is not the real message. The real message is that the angel has already been sent. While Alma does not explicitly recount his conversion story here as he did for Helaman and Shiblon, it is impossible to imagine that this was not a well known event for all of his sons. Thus Corianton would instantly know that his rather was making a very personal reference here. Is it just as easy? Not only just as easy, but it has already happened. What Alma has done to combat this question of the disjunction between justice and time is to suggest that while the event may be in the future, the benefits of that event (knowledge of the plan and the declaration by an angel) have already been made.
Textual: There is no chapter break in the 1830 edition, and it is somewhat unfortunate that it was place here. While there is a slight subject change, what follows must be considered intimately connected to this scenario of a Corianton on the brink of a repentance of his apostasy, an apostasy that apparently centered on his rejection of some of the some of the crucial doctrines of the Atoning Messiah, doctrines that he must now fully understand so that he may apply them to his repentance process.