Greidanus, Sidney. From Chaos to Cosmos: Creation to New Creation. Short Studies in Biblical Theology 7. Wheaton: Crossway, 2018. 203pp excluding end matter.
Summary and Critique
Overall, Greidanus succeeds in demonstrating the theme of Chaos-Cosmos from Scripture, showing how it binds all of Scripture together and works toward a goal of perfect cosmos. The final chapter brings the theme of Chaos-Cosmos together in a coherent whole through the seven messages/sermonettes that Greidanus provides.
There are two major negatives to this book, that none of the others in this series have (thankfully) adopted. First, there are too many Scripture quotes. The quotations in this book comprise well over half the text. I would guess that 70% of the book is just quotes. Greidanus states his goal in the quotations is to highlight key terms and clauses and show the reader where the theme of chaos and cosmos can be found in the passage. Although a noble goal, it is not necessary in most of the passages he quotes. It should be assumed that the reader has a Bible and can look up the Scriptures for himself or knows the Scriptures well enough that he doesn’t need them typed out for him (after all, Greidanus is quoting very well-known passages most of the time). Oftentimes, Greidanus does not explain the quote, he simply presents it. In fact, some entire sections are only quotes. For example, the section entitled “God So Loved the Cosmos” is entirely quotes with the exception of “In John 3:16–17 Jesus declares” and “In his first letter, John echoes Jesus’ words” (123). Because of the way he interacts with his quotes (i.e., frequently not at all), this book reads like a first semester Bible College student’s paper—nothing but quotes, with no explanation, introduction, or meaningful interaction. Because of this, the book is very frustrating to read and it is unnecessarily twice as long as most of the other books in this series.
The second negative is the copious amounts of footnotes, many of which are not needed. For example, after quoting Genesis 9:1, the footnotes speak about Atrahasis and how the Genesis flood story is not like the Babylonian flood story (39, note 45). In a short study, these types of footnotes are unhelpful. Not only does the average reader of this series not know the Babylonian flood story, but there seems to be no point in even mentioning it if the conclusion is that the Genesis flood story is nothing like it! In a series of short studies, Greidanus should have used footnotes sparingly and meaningfully.
Summary of Each Chapter
Chapter 1: The Chaos-Cosmos Theme in Genesis, Exodus, and Joshua
The following is Greidanus’s chapter summary, which wonderfully summarizes the entire chapter (50–52):
“At its original level, chaos refers to the primeval chaotic waters that kept life from taking a foothold on earth. Although this was 100 percent chaos without any cosmos, it was not evil as the pagan myths. It was God who had created these waters and God who subsequently turned this chaos into cosmos through his creative words. But God did not eliminate the waters entirely; rather, he tamed them by confining them to the ‘Seas’ which he called ‘good’ (Gen. 1:10). Next God placed Adam and Eve in a fruitful garden watered by quiet rivers. The garden of Eden, Paradise, was truly harmonious, 100 percent orderly cosmos.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command, however, God banished them from Paradise. Living east of Eden, as we do today, involves chaos, disorder. This chaos is evil in that, as a result of sin, it involves pain, suffering, and death. But because of God’s grace and faithfulness to his creation, there is still some order east of Eden: the succession of seasons and of day and night; the earth bringing forth vegetation; creatures thriving in the waters, the sky, and the earth; and human beings bearing children and finding food. Struggling for a living east of Eden is a mix of evil chaos and cosmos.
Subsequently, human sin ushered in other forms of evil chaos: Cain murdered his brother Abel; Lamech boasted of killing people for little or no reason (the chaos of anarchy). When the violence increased to the point of threatening God’s orderly creation, God unleashed a worldwide flood. The chaotic waters cleansed the earth so that God could make a new start with those safe in the ark.
Later, at Babel, when people threatened God’s design for his creation by disobeying God’s mandate to fill the earth, God confused their language—another form of chaos. This confusion forced people to spread across the earth so that God could make a new start with Abram and his descendants, Israel.
Israel’s enslavement in Egypt was another form of evil chaos. But God made a new start with Israel by controlling the wind and the Red Sea to send his people on their way to freedom in the Promised Land. When Israel approached the Promised Land, they could not enter because the waters of the Jordan were overflowing. Again God demonstrated his sovereignty over the turbulent waters by stopping the waters at Adam so that his people could pass safely on dry ground into the Promised Land.
Thus the overall message of the chaos-cosmos theme from Genesis to Joshua is that God is sovereign over both cosmos and chaos.”
Chapter 2: The Chaos-Cosmos Theme in Wisdom, Psalms, and Prophets
“Wisdom Literature and Psalms not only confirm the chaos-cosmos theme of the earlier Bible books but add greater specificity with the personifications of chaos in Leviathan and Rahab, calling Israel’s enemies ‘Leviathan’ and ‘Rahab,’ focusing on death, Sheol, and the grave as forms of chaos, holding out the hope that the sovereign Lord can triumph over chaos” (79).
“The new dimension the prophets add is that they project God’s control of chaos into the future toward a well-ordered cosmos, a new creation, paradise on earth” (81).
Chapter 3: The Chaos-Cosmos Theme in the New Testament
“The New Testament uses some of these same words for chaos but it focuses especially on the contrast between darkness (skotos) and light (phõs) and various synonyms. Moreover, it centers the chaos-cosmos theme primarily in the battle between Satan, the Prince of Darkness, and Jesus, ‘the light of the world’ (John 8:12; 9:5). Another new element is that creation is viewed Christologically. Jesus Christ . . . is . . . the maker of the coming new creation” (121–22).
By the time Revelation 22 comes, chaos has been completely overcome: “no more evil sea (21:1), no more death, no more mourning, crying, or pain (21:4–5), no more night/darkness (21:25; 22:5), no more anything accursed (22:3). God’s curse on this fallen creation will be lifted, and God will restore his creation to the orderly, harmonious cosmos he intended it to be from the beginning” (171).
Chapter 4: Preaching or Teaching a Series on the Chaos-Cosmos Theme
This final chapter is the best of the book. This chapter provides two different ways to study and teach on the theme of Chaos-Cosmos. Greidanus also provides an overview of seven messages based on a particular passage related to this theme, instructing on how to teach it, including the main point.
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