Form: The participants must us the proper words and actions. They may not simply make up their own.

Minister: The minister of the sacrament must be someone who is properly empowered and authorized to administer it. For example, a lay person may not administer the sacrament of confession.

Matter: In those sacraments that require specific matter (like water in baptism), the sacrament is invalid if the proper matter is omitted. You can’t baptize with engine oil.

Recipient: The recipient or participant in the sacrament must be a proper recipient. This has two levels. On an obvious level, you can’t marry a horse. On an internal, unknown level, the recipient must not have obstacles in his life that reject the grace being offered. This latter issue may or may not invalidate a sacrament, depending on the specifics.

Intention: The minister must actually intend to bring about the proper sacramental reality. If his intention or understanding are culpably deficient, then the sacrament may be invalid. For example, if a minister performing a baptism actually does not believe in the baptism and intends something different, like a mockery, then a valid baptism does not occur. The recipient may still have received the grace of baptism, since God’s grace is not limited to the sacraments or by faulty ministers, but the formal sacrament, itself, didn’t happen.

If the above criteria are apparently met, then the sacrament is assumed valid.

Note that none of this touches upon the piety or impeccability of the minister. A minister may be in a seriously fallen state, and the sacrament can still be valid.

However in practice, orderly procedures should be followed to remove an unrighteous authority. The more orderly they are followed, hopefully a church can avoid splintering on one hand and being imposed upon by unrighteous leaders on the other. We see these tensions play out in the Old Testament. Some times those disagreeing with a prophet figure or dealt with very harshly by divine intervention. I think of some of the complainers and apostates in Moses’ time. Sometimes the superior authority was the problem. I think of the prophet/king David as the ranking priesthood authority of his time after Samuel’s death. So when court prophet Nathan approaches David about his wrongdoing, he cleverly gets David to pass judgment on himself.

There could have been a problem with Alma’s manuevering against his religous superior, but essentially King Noah’s failure to perform his kingly/priestly duties was effectively a way of resigning the post to a more righteous priest. Perhaps what is more telling is when Alma’s people reunite with King Mosiah’s people. Mosiah would have been the ranking authority but he defers to Alma and accepts Alma’s reforms.

It seems clear that, to some extent, divine authority remained with the appointed person, regardless of standing before God. Note also Paul’s deference to the High Priest when beaten by one of his captors.

The Old Testament is, of course, littered with examples of “fallen prophets” who nonetheless retained the gift of prophecy and authority to speak for God.