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/isv'>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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When the earth was as yet unformed and desolate, with the surface of the ocean depths shrouded in darkness, and while the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters,
"You are to bring the best of the first fruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God. "You are not to boil a young goat in its mother's milk."
"You are to bring the best of the first fruits of the ground to the house of the LORD your God. "You are not to boil a young goat in its mother's milk."
"You and your sons with you are not to drink wine that is, any intoxicating drink when you enter the Tent of Meeting. That way, you won't die. This is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations.
"Observe my statutes. "You are not to let your cattle breed with a different species. "You are not to sow your fields with two different kinds of seeds. "You are not to wear clothing made from two different kinds of material.
"You are not to make incisions in your flesh on account of the dead nor submit to cuts or tattoos. I am the LORD.
"They are not to cut their hair in ritualistic patterns on their heads, deface the edges of their beards, or make incisions in their flesh.
You are not to bring to the LORD an animal that has been emasculated, crushed, torn, or cut apart. You are not to practice this in your land.
However, you are not to slaughter a bull or a ewe along with its offspring on the same day.
"You are children of the LORD your God. You must not lacerate yourselves or shave your foreheads on account of the dead,
"Don't plant two kinds of seeds in your vineyard. Otherwise, the entire crop will have to be forfeited, both the seed that you have sown and the produce from it. "Don't plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. read more. "Don't wear material made from wool and linen mixed together.
Furthermore, no one born due to an illicit sexual relationship may participate in the assembly of the LORD, including his descendants to the tenth generation.
LORD, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth! You set your glory above the heavens!
The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and their expanse shows the work of his hands.
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made; all the heavenly bodies by the breath of his mouth. He gathered the oceans into a single place; he put the deep water into storehouses.
Before the mountains were formed or the earth and the world were brought forth, you are God from eternity to eternity.
to the one who spread out the earth over the waters, for his gracious love is everlasting
"The LORD made me as he began his planning, before his ancient activity commenced. From eternity I was appointed, from the beginning, from before there was land. read more. When there were no ocean depths, I brought them to birth at a time when there were no springs. Before the mountains were shaped, before there were hills, I was bringing them to birth. Even though he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the world's first grains of dust, when he crafted the heavens, I was there when he marked out a circle on the face of the deep, when he made the clouds from above, when the springs of the depths were established, when he set a boundary for the sea so the waters would not exceed his limits, when he marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was with him, his master craftsman I was his delight daily, continuously rejoicing in his presence,
"This is what the LORD says, your Redeemer and the one who formed you in the womb: "I am the LORD, who has made everything, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth Who was with me at that time?
Look! The one who crafts mountains, who creates the wind, who reveals what he is thinking to mankind, who darkens the morning light, who tramples down the high places of the land the LORD, the God of the Heavenly Armies is his name.
"You are the salt of the world. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty again? It's good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled on by people.
Look at the birds in the sky. They don't plant or harvest or gather food into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You are more valuable than they are, aren't you?
And why do you worry about clothes? Consider the lilies in the field and how they grow. They don't work or spin yarn,
Then he began to tell them many things in parables. He said, "Listen! A farmer went out to sow. As he was sowing, some seeds fell along the path, and birds came and ate them up. read more. Other seeds fell on stony ground, where they did not have a lot of soil. They sprouted at once because the soil wasn't deep. But when the sun came up, they were scorched. Since they did not have any roots, they dried up. Other seeds fell among thorn bushes, and the thorn bushes grew higher and choked them out. But other seeds fell on good soil and produced a crop, some 100, some 60, and some 30 times what was sown. Let the person who has ears listen!"
He told them another parable: "The kingdom from heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."
For this reason, God delivered them to degrading passions as their females exchanged their natural sexual function for one that is unnatural.
For whenever gentiles, who do not possess the Law, do instinctively what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law.
The man who is uncircumcised physically but who keeps the Law will condemn you who break the Law, even though you have the written Law and circumcision.
For if God did not spare the natural branches, he certainly will not spare you, either.
After all, if you were cut off from what is naturally a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much easier it will be for these natural branches to be grafted back into their own olive tree!
Nature itself teaches you neither that it is disgraceful for a man to have long hair
and what you plant is not the form that it will be, but a bare kernel, whether it is wheat or something else. But God gives the plant the form he wants it to have, and to each kind of seed its own form.
However, in the past, when you did not know God, you were slaves to things that are not really gods at all.
Indeed, all of us once behaved like them in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and senses. By nature we were destined for wrath, just like everyone else.
For all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures can be or have been tamed by humans,
Through these he has given us his precious and wonderful promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, seeing that you have escaped the corruption that is in the world caused by 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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Nature itself teaches you neither that it is disgraceful for a man to have long hair
Indeed, all of us once behaved like them in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and senses. By nature we were destined for wrath, just like everyone else.
For a short time they disciplined us as they thought best, but God does it for our good, so that we may share in his holiness.
Through these he has given us his precious and wonderful promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, seeing that you have escaped the corruption that is in the world caused by 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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After all, if you were cut off from what is naturally a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much easier it will be for these natural branches to be grafted back into their own olive tree!
Nature itself teaches you neither that it is disgraceful for a man to have long hair
Indeed, all of us once behaved like them in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and senses. By nature we were destined for wrath, just like everyone else.