8943. 'You will profane it' means that no worship in that case exists. This is clear from the meaning of 'profaning' as bringing about the nonexistence of any worship. For in itself the product of self-intelligence is devoid of life, indeed is spiritually dead, since the human proprium or self is nothing but evil. Consequently if the worship of God has its origin in the self that worship is no different at all from the worship of an idol or a graven or molten image, which have no spirit, that is, no life, within them. But what springs from the Word, only this can be of service for offering worship to God, since this is in itself living. For within the Word, in every single part, there is a spiritual sense, which deals with the Lord's kingdom; and within that internal sense there is the Divine, since the Word in its inmost sense deals with the Lord alone. This is the source of the holiness and life of the Word; it derives them from no other source. The Word may be likened to a Divine human being; the literal sense is so to speak his body, while the internal sense is so to speak his soul, from which it is evident that the literal sense receives life through the internal sense. It seems as though the literal sense disappears or dies through the internal sense; but the contrary is the reality. It does not disappear, still less does it die; rather it receives life through the internal sense. From all this it is now clear that a true worship of God has its origin in things of the Word and not at all in those of self-intelligence. So it is that 'if you move a chisel over the altar, you will profane it' means that if you have fashioned such things as are to constitute the worship of God, and they are not products of the Word but of self-intelligence, no worship exists.

5125. 'And will restore you to your position' means that the impressions received through the senses subject to the understanding part were restored to order, to occupy the lowest position. This is clear from the representation of 'the cupbearer', regarding whom these words are said, as the powers of the senses subject to the understanding part, dealt with in 5077, 5082, and therefore the impressions received through the senses in the external natural (for it is not the actual powers of the senses that are restored to order but the impressions which have come through the senses into the person's false notions); and from the meaning of 'restoring to a position' as restoring to order. And because sensory impressions, that is, images which have come in from the world by way of the external sensory organs, occupy the lowest position, where they minister to or serve more interior things, those impressions too are meant. In the case of regenerate persons sensory impressions do occupy the lowest position, but in the case of those who are not regenerate they occupy the first, see 5077, 5081, 5084, 5089, 5094.

[2] A person can easily tell, if he pays the matter any attention, whether sensory impressions occupy the first or else the last and lowest position in him. If he says yes to everything his senses urge or desire and plays down all that his understanding tells him, then sensory impressions occupy the first position. When this is the case that person is carried along by natural desires and is ruled completely by his senses. The condition of a person like this is little different from that of animals, which are not endowed with reason; for animals are carried along by nothing else than their senses. Indeed that person's condition is worse than theirs if he misuses his power of understanding or reason to lend support to evils and falsities which the senses urge and tend towards. But if he does not say yes to these, but from within himself recognizes that they can mislead him into false beliefs and incite desires for evil in him, and he strives to discipline them - thereby bringing them into a position of subservience, that is, making them subject to the understanding part and the will part which belong to the interior man - sensory impressions are in that case restored to order, to occupy the last and lowest position. When sensory impressions occupy that position, happiness and bliss radiate from the interior man into the delights of the senses and make these delights a thousand times better than they were before. Having no understanding of this, one who is ruled by his senses has no belief in it either; and feeling no other delight than that of the senses, and so imagining that no higher kind of delight exists, he regards the happiness and bliss that can be inwardly present in the delights of the senses as worthless. For what a person has no knowledge of is not thought by him to have any real existence.