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Divine Providence # 231
231. "Profanation of what is holy" means profanation by people who know the truths that their faith discloses and the good effects of caring taught by the Word, and who in one way or another acknowledge them. It does not mean people who have no knowledge of such things or who simply reject them out of irreverence. What follows, then, is about the former people, not the latter.
There are many kinds of profanation, some less serious and some more, but they boil down to the following seven kinds.
The first kind of profanation is committed by people who make light of the Word or use it lightly, or who do the same with the divine gifts of the church. Some people do this because of habitual immorality, pulling words and phrases out of the Word and including them in conversations of questionable quality, sometimes indecent ones. This necessarily involves some disrespect for the Word, when in fact the Word is divine and holy throughout and in every detail. At the heart of everything it says, there is something divine lying hidden; and it is through this that it is in touch with heaven. This kind of profanation is more or less serious, though, depending on the recognition of the Word's holiness and on the indecency of the conversation into which the supposed humorists inject it.
[2] A second kind of profanation is committed by people who understand and acknowledge divine truths but who violate them in their lives. This is less serious, though, if they simply understand the truths and more serious if they actually acknowledge them. All our discernment does is teach, much the way a preacher does. It does not automatically unite the teaching with our volition. Acknowledgment, on the other hand, does unite itself. There can be no acknowledgment unless our volition agrees. Still, this union may vary, and the severity of the profanation depends on the closeness of the union when our lives violate the truths that we acknowledge. For example, if we acknowledge that vengefulness and hatred, adultery and promiscuity, fraud and deceit, slander and lying, are sins against God and still commit them, we are guilty of this more serious kind of profanation. The Lord says, "The slave who knows the Lord's will and does not do it will be beaten severely" (Luke 12:48 [Luke 12:47]). Elsewhere, "If you were blind you would not have sin, but now you say that you can see, so your sin remains" (John 9:41).
Acknowledging things that are apparently true, though, is different from acknowledging things that are really true. If we acknowledge things that are really true and violate them with our lives, then in the spiritual world we seem to have no light or warmth in our voice and speech, as though we were completely listless.
[3] A third kind of profanation is committed by people who use the literal meaning of the Word to justify their evil loves and false principles. This is because the justification of falsity is the denial of truth and the justification of evil is the rejection of goodness; and at heart the Word is pure divine truth and divine goodness. In its outermost meaning, its literal meaning, this does not come out as real truth except where it tells about the Lord and the actual path of salvation. Rather, it comes out in those outer garments of truth that we may call "appearances of truth." As a result, this level of meaning can be persuaded to support all kinds of heresy; and if we justify our evil loves we do violence to things that are divinely good, while if we justify our false principles we do violence to things that are divinely true. This latter violence is called "the falsification of what is true," while the former is called "the adulteration of what is good." Both are meant by "blood" in the Word.
There is something spiritual and holy in the details of the literal meaning of the Word--the spirit of truth that emanates from the Lord. This holy content is damaged when the Word is falsified and adulterated. Clearly, this amounts to profanation.
[4] A fourth kind of profanation is committed by people who utter devout and holy words and whose voice and body language seem to express loving feelings, but who at heart neither believe nor love what they are pretending. Most of these are hypocrites and Pharisees. Everything true and good is taken from them after death, and they are dismissed into outer darkness. People of this sort who have also become fixed in their rejection of Divinity, the Word, and the holy gifts of the church sit in silence in the darkness, incapable of speech. They want to utter devout and holy words the way they did in this world, but they cannot, because in the spiritual world speech must be in accord with thought. Hypocrites, though, want to say what they do not really think. This gives rise to a resistance in the mouth, and the result is that they can only be silent.
However, there are less and more serious forms of hypocrisy depending on how resolute the opposition to God is, and on the outward arguments in favor of God.
[5] A fifth kind of profanation is committed by people who claim divine qualities for themselves. These are the people meant by Lucifer in Isaiah 14 "Lucifer" there means Babylon, as we can tell from verses 4 and 22 of the same chapter, which also tell of their fate. These are the same people who are described as a harlot sitting on a scarlet beast in Revelation 17:3.
There are many mentions of Babylon and Chaldea in the Word. "Babylon" means the profanation of what is good and "Chaldea" the profanation of what is true. In each case, it applies to people who claim divine qualities for themselves.
[6] A sixth kind of profanation is committed by people who accept the Word but still deny the divine nature of the Lord. These are the people known as Socinians and Arians in the world. Both kinds of person ultimately find themselves praying to the Father, not to the Lord. They pray constantly to the Father for admission to heaven (some also praying for the sake of the Son), but their prayers are in vain. Eventually, they lose all hope of salvation and are sent down into hell with people who deny God. These are the people meant by those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit, who are not forgiven in this world or the next (Matthew 12:32).
The reason is that God is one in both person and essence, comprising a Trinity; and this God is the Lord. Since the Lord is heaven as well, and since this means that the people who are in heaven are in the Lord, people who deny the Lord's divine nature cannot be granted admission to heaven and be in the Lord. I have already explained [28, 60-67] that the Lord is heaven and that therefore people who are in heaven are in the Lord.
[7] A seventh kind of profanation is committed by people who at first accept divine truths and live by them but later backslide from them and deny them. The reason this is the worst kind of profanation is that these people are mixing what is holy with what is profane to the point that they cannot be separated, and yet they need to be separated for people to be either in heaven or in hell. Since this is impossible for such individuals, their whole human volition and discernment is torn away from them and they become no longer human, as already noted [226, 227].
Almost the same thing happens to people who at heart acknowledge the divine contents of the Word and the church but submerge them completely in their own sense of self-importance. This is the love of being in control of everything that has been mentioned several times before [38, 112, 146, 215]. When they become spirits after death, they are absolutely unwilling to be led by the Lord, only by themselves; and when the reins of their love are loosened, they try to control not only heaven but even the Lord. Since they cannot do this, they deny the Lord and become demons.
It is important to realize that for all of us, our life's love, our predominant love, stays the same after death and cannot be taken away.
[8] This kind of profanation is meant by the lukewarm church described in the Book of Revelation: "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. If only you were cold or hot! Since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth" (Revelation 3:14, 15 [Revelation 3:15-16]). This is how the Lord describes this kind of profanation in Matthew: "When an unclean spirit leaves someone, it wanders in dry places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, 'I will go back to the home I left.' Then it does go back and finds it empty, swept clean and furnished for itself. It goes off and allies itself with seven other spirits worse than itself, and they come in and live there; and the latter times of that individual are worse than the earlier ones" (Matthew 12:43, 45 [Matthew 12:43-44, 45]). The departure of the unclean spirit describes our turning; and the return of the unclean spirit with seven worse spirits to the house made ready for them describes our turning back to our former evils once our true and good qualities have been banished. The profanation of what is holy is described by the profanation that makes our later times worse than our former ones.
The following passage from John means much the same: "Jesus said to the man who had been healed at the Pool of Bethesda, 'Do not sin any more, or something worse will happen to you'" (John 5:14).
[9] The following passage tells of the Lord's provision that we do not inwardly acknowledge truths and then backslide and become profane: "He has closed their eyes and blinded their hearts so that they do not see with their eyes or understand with their hearts and turn themselves, and I heal them" (John 12:4 [John 12:40]). "So that they do not turn themselves and I heal them" means so that they do not acknowledge truths and then backslide and so become profane. This is also why the Lord spoke in parables, as he himself explained--see Matthew 13:13. The Jewish prohibition against eating fat and blood (Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 7:23, 25 [Leviticus 7:23, 26]) meant that they should not profane holy things. The fat meant what is divinely good and the blood what is divinely true. Once we have turned to what is good and true, we should remain turned to the end of our life, as the Lord tells us in Matthew: "Jesus said, 'Whoever will have remained faithful to the end will be saved'" (Matthew 10:22; likewise Mark 13:13).
Matthew 13
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On that day Jesus went out of the house, and sat by the seaside.
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Great multitudes gathered to him, so that he entered into a boat, and sat, and all the multitude stood on the beach.
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He spoke to them many things in parables, saying, "Behold, a farmer went out to sow.
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As he sowed, some seeds fell by the roadside, and the birds came and devoured them.
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Others fell on rocky ground, where they didn't have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of earth.
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When the sun had risen, they were scorched. Because they had no root, they withered away.
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Others fell among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked them.
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Others fell on good soil, and yielded fruit: some one hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty.
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He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
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The disciples came, and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?"
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He answered them, "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is not given to them.
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For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have abundance, but whoever doesn't have, from him will be taken away even that which he has.
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Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they don't see, and hearing, they don't hear, neither do they understand.
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In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, 'By hearing you will hear, and will in no way understand; Seeing you will see, and will in no way perceive:
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for this people's heart has grown callous, their ears are dull of hearing, they have closed their eyes; or else perhaps they might perceive with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and should turn again; and I would heal them.'
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"But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.
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For most certainly I tell you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which you see, and didn't see them; and to hear the things which you hear, and didn't hear them.
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"Hear, then, the parable of the farmer.
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When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom, and doesn't understand it, the evil one comes, and snatches away that which has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown by the roadside.
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What was sown on the rocky places, this is he who hears the word, and immediately with joy receives it;
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yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. When oppression or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.
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What was sown among the thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of this age and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.
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What was sown on the good ground, this is he who hears the word, and understands it, who most certainly bears fruit, and brings forth, some one hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty."
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He set another parable before them, saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field,
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but while people slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel weeds also among the wheat, and went away.
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But when the blade sprang up and brought forth fruit, then the darnel weeds appeared also.
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The servants of the householder came and said to him, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where did this darnel come from?'
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"He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' "The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and gather them up?'
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"But he said, 'No, lest perhaps while you gather up the darnel weeds, you root up the wheat with them.
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Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the harvest time I will tell the reapers, "First, gather up the darnel weeds, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn."'"
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He set another parable before them, saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field;
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which indeed is smaller than all seeds. But when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches."
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He spoke another parable to them. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, until it was all leavened."
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Jesus spoke all these things in parables to the multitudes; and without a parable, he didn't speak to them,
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that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying, "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world."
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Then Jesus sent the multitudes away, and went into the house. His disciples came to him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the darnel weeds of the field."
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He answered them, "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man,
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the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the children of the Kingdom; and the darnel weeds are the children of the evil one.
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The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.
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As therefore the darnel weeds are gathered up and burned with fire; so will it be at the end of this age.
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The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his Kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and those who do iniquity,
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and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
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Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
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"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.
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"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls,
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who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
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"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet, that was cast into the sea, and gathered some fish of every kind,
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which, when it was filled, they drew up on the beach. They sat down, and gathered the good into containers, but the bad they threw away.
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So will it be in the end of the world. The angels will come forth, and separate the wicked from among the righteous,
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and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth."
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Jesus said to them, "Have you understood all these things?" They answered him, "Yes, Lord."
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He said to them, "Therefore, every scribe who has been made a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a householder, who brings out of his treasure new and old things."
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It happened that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed from there.
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Coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom, and these mighty works?
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Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother called Mary, and his brothers, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?
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Aren't all of his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all of these things?"
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They were offended by him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and in his own house."
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He didn't do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
