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/kj2000'>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.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring unto the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
Do not drink wine nor strong drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations:
You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with another kind: you shall not sow your field with mixed seed: neither shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you.
You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks upon you: I am the LORD.
They shall not make any bald place upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
You shall not offer unto the LORD that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut; neither shall you make any offering of it in your land.
And whether it be cow or ewe, you shall not kill both it and her young on the same day.
You are the children of the LORD your God: you shall not cut yourselves, nor make any bald place on your foreheads for the dead.
You shall not sow your vineyard with different seeds: lest the fruit of your seed which you have sown, and the fruit of your vineyard, be defiled. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. read more. You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, as of woolen and linen together.
A man of illegitimate birth shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
[To the Chief Musician upon gittith. A Psalm of David.] O LORD our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth! who have set your glory above the heavens.
[To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.] The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork.
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap: he lays up the depth in storehouses.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for his mercy endures forever.
The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth was. read more. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the first of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he drew a circle upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his command: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, like a master workman: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;
Thus says the LORD, your redeemer, and he that formed you from the womb, I am the LORD that makes all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreads abroad the earth by myself;
For, lo, he that forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares unto man what is his thought, that makes the morning darkness, and treads upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.
You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost its savor, how shall it be salted? it is thereafter good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?
And why take you thought for clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
And he spoke many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up: read more. Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and immediately they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Another parable spoke he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfills the law, judge you, who by the letter and circumcision do transgress the law?
For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also not spare you.
For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, who are 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 shame unto him?
And that which you sow, you sow not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may by chance be wheat, or of some other grain: But God gives it a body as it has pleased him, and to every seed its own body.
We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
But then, when you knew not God, you did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
Among whom also we all had our behavior in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind:
By which are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
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
See Verses Found in Dictionary
Does not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man has long hair, it is a shame unto him?
Among whom also we all had our behavior in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
By which are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
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.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, who are 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 shame unto him?
We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
Among whom also we all had our behavior in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.