Ex nihilo. It sounds like something you would buy at Wal-Mart for a lower back injury, a miracle cream to heal your aching muscles. It’s actually a Latin term that means “out of nothing”.
Christian theologians use the term to explain the way that God created the world. It means that when God went about making things like stars, dung beetles, New Jersey, and the eucalyptus plant, he did it with no beginning matter. He simply spoke it into being. “Let there be the sloth!” And for the first (and last) time, the sloth did something instantly; namely, existed.
“The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep…”
My heart feels that way sometimes. Not cold and dark or empty in the depressing “I can’t feel anything” type of way. Though occasionally it does. I mean cold and dark and empty in the “it just isn’t there” way.
It’s like what would happen if I told my three-year old to conjugate Greek verbs. For starts, she doesn’t know what conjugate means. So she’d likely just pick up some markers and start drawing stick figures.* Even if I gave her a chart with all the verbs and their various inflections, she would still be clueless. There’s nothing for her to draw from.
I feel that way in various points of living the Christian life. I understand the list of “put to death’s” in Colossians 3. I know those guys. They’ve lived in my heart for years. When you tell me to boot them out—and do it with a sword—I can at least visual them. I know what their faces look like. But not the “put ons”. Those guys didn’t exist before God said, “Let there be light” to my rebel heart. I can’t pick Mr. Compassionate Heart out of a lineup.
I need the church. She helps me to be holy in my nothings. She puts a name to those faceless graces that Christ purchased on my behalf. She helps me see that Mr. Compassionate Heart has a mustache and a canyon shaped scar running down his cheek. He’s a broken man that hurts in his gut when other people hurt.
God gives the church to help us see in places where we once had nothing. But the Lord is even more dedicated than that. Even when we don’t have models he still creates personal holiness out of nothing. Even if you never had something modeled for you, or even it was only in imperfect glimpses, He still can create holiness where we had emptiness. That’s how big our God is.
—
*Which, by the way, is close to what I do when conjugating Greek verbs.
