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/leb'>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, and darkness [was] over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God [was] hovering over the surface of the waters.
" 'The best of the firstfruits of your land you will bring to the house of Yahweh your God. " 'You will not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
The beginning of the firstfruits of your land you will bring [to] the house of Yahweh your God. You will not boil a young goat in its mother's milk."
"You and your sons with you may not drink wine or strong drink when you come to [the] tent of assembly, so that you will not die--[it is] a lasting statute for your generations--
" 'You must keep my statutes: [as for] your domestic animals, you shall not cause two differing kinds to breed; [as for] your field, you shall not sow two differing kinds of seed; and, a garment of two differing kinds [of] woven material should not be worn on you.
And you shall not make a slash in your body for a dead person, nor shall you make on yourselves a tattoo's mark; I [am] Yahweh.
" 'And they shall not shave bald patches on their head, and they shall not shave off the corner of their beard, and they shall not make a cut in their body.
And you shall not present [anything] for Yahweh [with] bruised or shattered or torn or cut-off [testicles], and you shall not {sacrifice} [such] in your land.
And you shall not slaughter an ox or a sheep and {its young} on {the same day}.
"You [are] children of Yahweh your God; [therefore] you must not gash yourself, and {you must not make your forehead bald} for [the] dead.
"You shall not sow your vineyard [with] differing kinds [of seed], so that you shall not forfeit {the whole harvest}, [both] the seed that you sowed and the yield of the vineyard. "You shall not plow with an ox and with a donkey [yoked] together. read more. "You shall not wear woven material [made of] wool and linen [mixed] together.
An illegitimate child may not come into the assembly of Yahweh; even [to] the tenth generation none {of his descendants} may come into the assembly of Yahweh.
Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic [is] your name in all the earth, who put your splendor above the heavens.
The heavens [are] telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands.
By the word of Yahweh [the] heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. [He] gathered the waters of the sea like a heap. [He] put [the] deeps in storehouses.
Before [the] mountains were born and you brought forth [the] earth and [the] world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you [are] God.
To [him who] spread out the earth above the waters, for his loyal love [endures] forever.
"Yahweh possessed me, [the] first of his ways, before his acts {of old}. From eternity, I was set up from [the] first, from the beginning of the earth. read more. When there were no depths, I was brought forth, when there were no springs of {abounding} water. Before mountains had been shaped, before hills, I was brought forth. When he had not yet made earth and fields, or the first dust of the world, {when he established} the heavens, there I [was], {when he drew} a circle upon the face of the deep, {when he made} skies from above, when he founded fountains of the deep, {when he assigned} his limits to the sea, that waters shall not transgress his {command}, {when he marked} the foundations of the earth, I was {beside} him, a master workman, and I was delighting day by day, rejoicing before him {always},
Thus says Yahweh, your redeemer, and he who formed you in [the] womb: "I [am] Yahweh, who made everything, who stretched out [the] heavens alone, who spread out the earth--who [was] with me?--
Yes, here is the one who forms [the] mountains, and the one who creates the wind, and the one who reveals to humans what his thoughts [are], and the one who treads on the heights of the earth; Yahweh, the God of hosts, [is] his name!"
"You are the salt of the earth. But if salt becomes tasteless, by what will it be made salty? It is good for nothing any longer except to be thrown outside [and] trampled under foot by people.
Consider the birds of the sky, that they do not sow or reap or gather [produce] into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they [are]?
And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe the lilies of the field, how they grow: they do not toil or spin,
And he spoke many [things] to them in parables, saying, "Behold, the sower went out to sow, and while he was sowing, {some seed} fell on the side of the path, and the birds came [and] devoured it. read more. And other [seed] fell on the rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up at once because it did not have [any] depth of soil. But [when] the sun rose it was scorched, and because it did not have [enough] root, it withered. And other [seed] fell among the thorn plants, and the thorn plants came up and choked it. But other [seed] fell on the good soil and produced grain, this one a hundred [times as much] and this one sixty and this one thirty. The one who has ears, let him hear!"
He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took [and] put into three measures of wheat flour until the whole [batch] was leavened."
Because of this, God gave them over to degrading passions, for their females exchanged the natural relations for those contrary to nature,
For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things of the law, these, [although they] do not have the law, are a law to themselves,
And the uncircumcised person by nature who carries out the law will judge you who, [though provided] with {the precise written code} and circumcision [are] a transgressor of the law.
For if God did not spare the {natural} branches, neither will he spare you.
For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are {natural branches} be grafted into their own olive tree?
And does not nature itself teach you that a man, if he wears long hair, it is a dishonor to him?
And what you sow [is] not the body which it will become, but you sow the bare seed, whether perhaps of wheat or of some of the rest. But God gives to it a body just as he wishes, and to each one of the seeds its own body.
We [are] Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles,
But at that time [when you] did not know God, you were enslaved to the things which by nature are not gods.
among whom also we all formerly lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and of the mind, and we were children of wrath by nature, as also the rest of [them] were.
For every species of animals and birds, of reptiles and sea creatures, is being tamed and has been tamed by the human species,
through which things he has bestowed on us his precious and very great promises, so that through these you may become sharers of the divine nature [after] escaping from the corruption [that is] in the world because of evil desire,
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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And does not nature itself teach you that a man, if he wears long hair, it is a dishonor to him?
among whom also we all formerly lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and of the mind, and we were children of wrath by nature, as also the rest of [them] were.
For they disciplined [us] for a few days according to what seemed [appropriate] to them, but he [does so] for our benefit, in order that [we] can have a share in his holiness.
through which things he has bestowed on us his precious and very great promises, so that through these you may become sharers of the divine nature [after] escaping from the corruption [that is] in the world because of evil desire,
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 what is by nature a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are {natural branches} be grafted into their own olive tree?
And does not nature itself teach you that a man, if he wears long hair, it is a dishonor to him?
We [are] Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles,
among whom also we all formerly lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and of the mind, and we were children of wrath by nature, as also the rest of [them] were.