229. 3. There are many kinds of profanation of what is holy, but this is the worst of all. In everyday language, profanation is understood to mean all kinds of irreverence, so the category of profane people includes everyone who at heart denies God and the holiness of the Word and therefore the spiritual gifts of the church. These are the very holy things that even irreverent people talk about.

I am not talking about these people, though, but about people who confess God, insist on the holiness of the Word, and acknowledge the spiritual gifts of the church, most of whom do so only verbally. The reason they are committing profanation is that there is something holy from the Word within and among them. It is this something within them, something that is part of their own discernment and volition, that they are profaning. In irreverent people, people who deny the Divinity and divine matters, there is nothing holy for them to profane. It is the former who commit profanation, then, even though they are not irreverent.