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/hcsb'>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 was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
"Bring the best of the firstfruits of your land to the house of the Lord your God. "You must not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
"Bring the best firstfruits of your land to the house of the Lord your God. "You must not boil a young goat in its mother's milk."
"You and your sons are not to drink wine or beer when you enter the tent of meeting, or else you will die; this is a permanent statute throughout your generations.
"You are to keep My statutes. You must not crossbreed two different kinds of your livestock, sow your fields with two kinds of seed, or put on a garment made of two kinds of material.
You are not to make gashes on your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves; I am the Lord.
"Priests may not make bald spots on their heads, shave the edge of their beards, or make gashes on their bodies.
You are not to present to the Lord anything that has bruised, crushed, torn, or severed [testicles]; you must not sacrifice [them] in your land.
But you are not to slaughter an animal from the herd or flock on the same day as its young.
"You are sons of the Lord your God; do not cut yourselves or make a bald spot on your head on behalf of the dead,
Do not plant your vineyard with two types of seed; otherwise, the entire harvest, both the crop you plant and the produce of the vineyard, will be defiled. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey together. read more. Do not wear clothes made of both wool and linen.
No one of illegitimate birth may enter the Lord's assembly; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, may enter the Lord's assembly.
Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is Your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with Your majesty.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of His hands.
The heavens were made by the word of the Lord, and all the stars, by the breath of His mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into a heap; He puts the depths into storehouses.
Before the mountains were born, before You gave birth to the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity, You are God.
The Lord made me at the beginning of His creation, before His works of long ago. I was formed before ancient times, from the beginning, before the earth began. read more. I was brought forth when there were no watery depths and no springs filled with water. I was brought forth before the mountains and hills were established, before He made the land, the fields, or the first soil on earth. I was there when He established the heavens, when He laid out the horizon on the surface of the ocean, when He placed the skies above, when the fountains of the ocean gushed forth, when He set a limit for the sea so that the waters would not violate His command, when He laid out the foundations of the earth. I was a skilled craftsman beside Him. I was His delight every day, always rejoicing before Him.
This is what the Lord, your Redeemer who formed you from the womb, says: I am the Lord, who made everything; who stretched out the heavens by Myself; who alone spread out the earth;
He is here: the One who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals His thoughts to man, the One who makes the dawn out of darkness and strides on the heights of the earth. Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name.
"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men.
Look at the birds of the sky: they don't sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you worth more than they?
And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don't labor or spin thread.
Then He told them many things in parables, saying: "Consider the sower who went out to sow. As he was sowing, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and ate them up. read more. Others fell on rocky ground, where there wasn't much soil, and they sprang up quickly since the soil wasn't deep. But when the sun came up they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered. Others fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them. Still others fell on good ground, and produced a crop: some 100, some 60, and some 30 times [what was sown]. Anyone who has ears should listen!"
He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into 50 pounds of flour until it spread through all of it."
This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual intercourse for what is unnatural.
So, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, instinctively do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law.
A man who is physically uncircumcised, but who fulfills the law, will judge you who are a lawbreaker in spite of having the letter [of the law] and circumcision.
For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either.
For if you were cut off from your native wild olive, and against nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these-the natural branches-be grafted into their own olive tree?
Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it is a disgrace to him,
And as for what you sow-you are not sowing the future body, but only a seed, perhaps of wheat or another grain. But God gives it a body as He wants, and to each of the seeds its own body.
We are Jews by birth and not "Gentile sinners";
But in the past, when you didn't know God, you were enslaved to things that by nature are not gods.
We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and by nature we were children under wrath, as the others were also.
For every creature-animal or bird, reptile or fish-is tamed and has been tamed by man,
By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires.
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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Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it is a disgrace to him,
We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and by nature we were children under wrath, as the others were also.
For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but He does it for our benefit, so that we can share His holiness.
By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires.
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 you were cut off from your native wild olive, and against nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these-the natural branches-be grafted into their own olive tree?
Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it is a disgrace to him,
We are Jews by birth and not "Gentile sinners";
We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and by nature we were children under wrath, as the others were also.