Reference: Nature
Hastings
The term 'nature' is not used in the OT. nor was the conception current in Hebrew thought, as God alone is seen in all, through all, and over all. The idea came from the word physis from Hellenism. Swine's flesh is commended for food as a gift of nature in 4Ma 5:7. In the NT the term is used in various senses: (1) the forces, laws, and order of the world, including man (Ro 1:26; 11:21,24; Ga 4:8); (2) the inborn sense of propriety or morality (1Co 11:14; Ro 2:14); (3) birth or physical origin (Ga 2:15; Ro 2:27); (4) the sum of characteristics of a species or person, human (Jas 3:7), or Divine (2Pe 1:4); (5) a condition acquired or inherited ('/Ephesians/2/3/type/emb'>Eph 2:3, 'by nature children of wrath'). What is contrary to nature is condemned. While the term is not found or the conception made explicit in the OT, Schultz (OT Theol. ii. 74) finds in the Law 'the general rule that nothing is to be permitted contrary to the delicate sense of the inviolable proprieties of nature,' and gives a number of instances (Ex 23:19; 34:26; Le 22:28; 19:19; De 22:9-11; Le 10:9; 19:28; 21:5; 22:24; De 14:1; 23:2). The beauty and the order of the world are recognized as evidences of Divine wisdom and power (Ps 8:1; 19:1; 33:6-7; 90:2; 104; 136:6 ff., Ps 147; Pr 8:22-30; Job 38; 39); but the sum of created things is not hypostatized and personified apart from God, as in much current modern thinking. God is Creator, Preserver, and Ruler: He makes all (Isa 44:24; Am 4:13), and is in all (Ps 139). His immanence is by His Spirit (Ge 1:2). Jesus recognizes God's bounty and care in the flowers of the field and the birds of the air (Mt 6:26,28); He uses natural processes to illustrate spiritual, in salt (Mt 5:13), seed and soil (Mt 13:3-9), and leaven (Mt 13:33). The growth of the seed is also used as an illustration by Paul (1Co 15:37-38). There is in the Bible no interest in nature apart from God, and the problem of the relation of God to nature has not yet risen on the horizon of the thought of the writers.
Alfred E. Garvie.
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Now, the earth, had become waste and wild, and darkness, was on the face of the roaring deep, - but, the Spirit of God, was brooding on the face of the waters,
The beginning of the firstfruits of thy ground, shalt thou bring into the house of Yahweh thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in the milk of its dam.
The beginning of the firstfruits of thy ground, shalt thou bring into the house of Yahweh, thy God, Thou shalt not boil a kid, in the milk of its dam.
Wine and strong drink, thou mayest not drink, - thou nor thy sons with thee when ye enter into the tent of meeting, so shall ye not die, - an age-abiding statute to your generations;
My statutes, shall ye observe, Thy beasts, shalt thou not cause to breed in two kinds, Thy field, shalt thou not sow with two sorts of seed, - And a garment woven of diverse threads, shalt thou not suffer to come upon thee.
Cuttings for a dead person, shall ye not make in your flesh. And punctures in your persons, shall ye not print, - I, am Yahweh.
They shall not make a baldness behind in their head, And the border of their beard, shall they not cut off, - And, in their flesh, shall they not make incisions.
But that which is bruised in the stones or broken therein, or torn or cut, shall ye neither bring ear unto Yahweh, nor on your own land, shall ye offer.
Whether cow or ewe - it and its young, shall ye not slaughter on one day.
Sons, are ye unto Yahweh your God, - ye shall not cut yourselves, neither shall ye put baldness between your eyes for the dead.
Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with two sorts of seed, - lest the fulness of the seed which thou sowest, and the increase of thy vineyard be profaned. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together, read more. Thou shalt not put on linsey-woolsey, of wool and flax together.
A bastard shall not enter into the convocation of Yahweh, - even to the tenth generation, shall none of his enter into the convocation of Yahweh.
O Yahweh, our Lord! How majestic is thy Name, in all the earth, Who hast set thy splendour upon the heavens.
The heavens, are telling the glory of GOD, And, the work of his hands, the expanse is declaring;
By the word of Yahweh, the heavens were made, and, by the spirit of his mouth, all their host: Who gathered as into a skin-bottle the waters of the sea, Delivering, into treasuries, the roaring deeps.
To him that stretched out the earth above the waters, For, age-abiding, is his lovingkindness.
Yahweh, had constituted me the beginning of his way, before his works, at the commencement of that time; At the outset of the ages, had I been established, in advance of the antiquities of the earth; read more. When there was no resounding deep, I had been brought forth, when there were no fountains, abounding with water; Ere yet the mountains had been settled, before the hills, had I been brought forth; Or ever he had made the land and the wastes, or the top of the dry parts of the world: When he prepared the heavens, there, was I! When he decreed a vault upon the face of the resounding deep; When he made firm the skies above, when the fountains of the resounding deep, waxed strong; When he fixed for the sea its bound, that, the waters, should not go beyond his bidding, when he decreed the foundations of the earth: - Then became I beside him, a firm and sure worker, then became I filled with delight, day by day, exulting before him on every occasion;
Thus, saith Yahweh Who hath redeemed thee, Who hath fashioned thee from birth, - I - Yahweh, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens, alone, Spreading forth the earth, of myself;
For lo! He that fashioned the mountains, and created the wind, and who telleth the son of earth what is his thought, who turneth dawn into darkness, and marcheth upon the high places of the earth, Yahweh, God of hosts, is his name!
Ye, are the salt of the earth; but, if the salt become tasteless, wherewith shall it be salted? it is good, for nothing, any more, save, being cast out, to be trampled on by men.
Observe intently, the birds of the heaven, - that they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet, your heavenly Father, feedeth, them: Are no, ye, much better than, they?
And, about clothing, why are ye anxious? Consider well the lilies of the field, how they grow, - they toil not neither do they spin;
And he spake unto them many things, in parables, saying: Lo! the sower went forth to sow, - and, as he sowed, some, indeed, fell by the pathway, and, the birds, came, and devoured it; read more. And, some, fell on the rocky places, where it had not much earth, - and, straightway, it sprang up, because if had no depth of earth; and, the sun arising, it was scorched, and, because it had no root, it withered away; And, some, fell upon the thorns, and the thorns came up, and choked it; But, some, fell upon the good ground, and did yield fruit, - this, indeed a hundred fold, and, that, sixty, and, the other, thirty. He that hath ears, let him hear.
Another parable, spake he unto them: - The kingdom of the heavens is like, unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until, the whole, was leavened.
For this cause, God gave them up unto dishonourable passions; for, even their females, exchanged away the natural use into that which is against nature, -
For, whensoever the nations which have not law, by nature, the things of the law, may be doing, the same, not having law, unto themselves, are a law, -
And the uncircumcision by nature, completing the law, shall judge, thee, who, notwithstanding letter and circumcision, art a transgressor of law!
For, if, God, hath not spared, the natural branches, neither, thee, will he spare!
For, if, thou, out of the naturally wild olive was cut out, and, beyond nature, hast been engrafted into the good olive, how much rather, shall these, the natural branches be engrafted into their own olive tree?
Doth not, even nature herself, teach you - that, if, a man, have long hair, it is a dishonour to him;
And, what thou sowest, not the body that shall come into existence, dost thou sow, but a naked kernel - if it so happen, of wheat, or of any of the rest, - Howbeit, God, giveth it a body, as he pleased, and, unto each of the seeds, a body of its own.
But, at that time - not knowing God, ye were in servitude unto them who, by nature, are not Gods;
Among whom also, we all, had our behaviour, at one time, in the covetings of our flesh, doing the things desired by the flesh and the mind, and were children, by nature, of anger - even as the rest, -
For, every nature - both of wild beasts and of birds, both of reptiles and of things in the sea, is to be tamed, and hath been tamed, by the human nature;
Through which, his precious, and very great, promises, have, unto us, been given, in order that, through these, ye might become sharers in a divine nature - escaping the corruption that is in the world by coveting.
Morish
The inherent qualities of a being manifested in the various characteristics which mark and display its existence: the aggregate of such qualities is what is termed its nature, and one class or order of being is thus distinguished from another. Men by nature are the children of wrath, Eph 2:3; whereas the Christian becomes morally partaker of the divine nature, 2Pe 1:4; of which love is the characteristic: he is made partaker of God's holiness. Heb 12:10. The work of God in the Christian which forms his nature thus finds its expression in him. The Creator can design and predicate the nature of a being before that being has an actual existence in fact; but we, as creatures, can discern the nature only from the existent being, and cannot therefore rightly speak of the nature save as characteristic of the being.
Nature is also a term descriptive of the vast system of created things around us, to each part of which the Creator has given not only its existence, but its use, its order, its increase, its decay
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Doth not, even nature herself, teach you - that, if, a man, have long hair, it is a dishonour to him;
Among whom also, we all, had our behaviour, at one time, in the covetings of our flesh, doing the things desired by the flesh and the mind, and were children, by nature, of anger - even as the rest, -
For, they, indeed, for a few days, according to that which seemed good to them, were administering discipline; but, he, unto that which is profitable, with view to our partaking of his holiness:
Through which, his precious, and very great, promises, have, unto us, been given, in order that, through these, ye might become sharers in a divine nature - escaping the corruption that is in the world by coveting.
Watsons
NATURE. In Scripture the word nature expresses the orderly and usual course of things established in the world. St. Paul says, to ingraft a good olive tree into a wild olive is contrary to nature, Ro 11:24; the customary order of nature is thereby in some measure inverted. Nature is also put for natural descent: "We who are Jews by nature," by birth, "and not Gentiles," Ga 2:15. "We were by nature the children of wrath," Eph 2:3. Nature also denotes common sense, natural instinct: "Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame to him?" 1Co 11:14.
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For, if, thou, out of the naturally wild olive was cut out, and, beyond nature, hast been engrafted into the good olive, how much rather, shall these, the natural branches be engrafted into their own olive tree?
Doth not, even nature herself, teach you - that, if, a man, have long hair, it is a dishonour to him;
Among whom also, we all, had our behaviour, at one time, in the covetings of our flesh, doing the things desired by the flesh and the mind, and were children, by nature, of anger - even as the rest, -