The subject of divine order and chaos has been something that has fascinated me for a while. It's a theme throughout Scripture, in the Old Testament narrative, in the New Testament narrative, and even in the epistles of Paul. Divine Order is a big deal!
Understanding the creation account as more than just God creating, but God bringing order to chaos is the first step in understanding this concept.
Genesis 1:1-3 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light.”
John Walton, an ancient Near East scholar and author of the book, The Lost World of Genesis 1, says that Genesis Chapter One is about God’s ordering of the Cosmos, and Genesis, Chapter Two is about God’s ordering of the Earth.
This makes sense of why chapters 1 & 2 seem to repeat some things.
It’s also important to notice the connection between the sea and chaos. In the opening passage of Genesis, we see that the earth is without form and void, and darkness was hovering over the deep. Where do we find the Spirit of God? Hovering over the waters.
Is this just a coincidence? Or is there something going on here?
The ancient Israelites believe in a three-story world.
Chad Bird describes this well,
“Understanding ancient Israelite cosmology is helpful when reading the Bible. Needless to say, they didn’t think of our planet or solar system as we do today. The simplest way to explain the Israelite view is that they conceived of a Three-Story World or Three-Decker Universe.
This is reflected, for instance, in Exodus 20:4, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” Here are the “three stories” or “three decks”: (1) the heaven above, (2) the earth beneath, and (3) the water under the earth.
The top level is the heavens, which Genesis 1 describes as a vast vault, in which are the sun, moon, and stars. On the other side of that vault are storehouses of wind, hail, rain, and snow. Here, too, is the dwelling place of God. Heaven is sometimes called the throne of God. He “looks down” from heaven. A few times, the OT mentions the “highest heaven,” which seems to be the uttermost heights of heaven itself. Later, during the intertestamental era, and into the NT, there were envisioned various levels of heaven, such as the “third heaven” that Paul mentions in 2 Cor. 12:2.
The middle level is where we dwell, “in the earth beneath.” All lands are conceived of as islands, which rest atop the sea. As Psalm 24 says, “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.” As the heavens are above the earth, so the seas are below the land.
The lowest level is “the water under the earth,” that is, the seas and oceans of the world, which are thought of as one vast and deep body of water, upon which the islands of the world rest. This base level of the world is also described as the Deep or Abyss, which becomes iconic of Sheol and later Gehenna. In the Israelite imagination, the seas are a space of chaos and confusion. Thus, the Gentile world is often pictured with imagery drawn from the sea. That is also why, in Revelation 20, there is no sea in the new heavens and new earth, because all chaos and confusion are gone.
This Three-Story World has many other nuances in the biblical narrative, but it forms the basic structure of—what we might call—the “moral world” of heaven and earth and hell.
To understand any literature, we need to get into the mind of the one who wrote it, as well as their addressees. So also, when reading the Bible, we need to see the world as a three-story world. When we do, much of the imagery and assumptions and symbolism of the biblical narrative become clearer.”
Psalm 74:12-17 “Yet God my king is from old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. You split open spring and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams. Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.”
In the ancient Near East context, Leviathan was a chaos monster, where did he live? In the sea.
Now, let’s look at something I just learned about!
Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
God gave this command to mankind, to subdue the earth and the animals. The fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every living thing that moves on the earth. As we move into Chapter 2 we see Adam naming the animals. The naming of the animals is more than just giving them a name. It was about subduing them and taking dominion over them.
Genesis 2:20 “The man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.”
Notice this, Adam named or subdued the birds and the land animals, but the fish in the sea are not here. Why?
Again, sea and chaos go hand in hand. Sin, chaos, and disorder, it’s where evil resides.
Revelation 21:1 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.”
In the New Creation, the sea is no more. This means chaos and evil are gone and there's no more confusion.
We see this same concept over and over.
Revelation 13:1 “And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten crowns, and on his heads were blasphemous names.”
Daniel 7:2-3 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.”
Isaiah 27:1 “On that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, With His fierce and great and mighty sword, Even Leviathan the twisted serpent; And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.”
In Job, one of the challenges God gives to Job is to ask him if he was able to subdue Leviathan.
Job 41:1 “Can you drag out Leviathan with a fishhook, And press down his tongue with a rope? “Can you put a rope in his nose, And pierce his jaw with a hook?”
So we see that in Genesis chapter one God brought order into chaos. This is what God does, but why is this significant to us today?
Going back to the story of Adam subduing and naming the animals, the sea creatures were not subdued. In the story of Job, God basically tells Job that he’s not capable of subduing Leviathan, the chaos monster of the sea.
So we see the nature of sin, evil, and chaos. Humans have no ability to subdue it or rule over it. But someone came and subdued the one thing man was unable to subdue, in the process he restored something that was lost in the garden.
Mark 4:35-41 “On that day, when evening came, He said to them, “Let’s go over to the other side.” After dismissing the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. And a fierce gale of wind developed, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling with water. And yet Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who, then, is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Jesus proved in one moment that he was God! Only God had been able to subdue the sea! Only God was able to bring order to chaos!
This is the contrast between Adam and Christ. Adam was unable to subdue evil, this picture is seen in the fall of Man. Jesus came as the God-man and finished the work that Adam was unable to do. This work of Christ defeated chaos, evil, and sin, and it restored the dominion of man.
Romans 5:12-19
12 “So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned –
13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law.
14 Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed.
15 But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many!
16 And the gift is not like the one who sinned. For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, led to condemnation, but the gracious gift from the many failures led to justification.
17 For if, by the transgression of the one man, death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ!
18 Consequently, just as condemnation for all people came through one transgression, so too through the one righteous act came righteousness leading to life for all people.
19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one man many will be made righteous.”
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