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/mkjv'>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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And the earth was without form and empty. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.
The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of Jehovah your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
The first of the first-fruits of your land you shall bring to the house of Jehovah your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
Do not drink wine nor strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest you die, a statute forever throughout your generations.
You shall keep My statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with different kinds. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed. And you shall not allow clothing mixed of linen and wool to come on you.
You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks on you. I am Jehovah.
They shall not make baldness on their head, nor shall they shave the corner of their beard, nor make any cutting in their flesh.
You shall not offer to Jehovah that which is bruised or crushed, or broken or cut. You shall not make any offering of it in your land.
But a bull or sheep, it and its young one, you shall not kill it in one day.
You are the sons of Jehovah your God. You shall not cut yourselves nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of 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 an ass together. read more. You shall not wear a garment of different kinds, of wool and linen together.
A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of Jehovah. Even to his tenth generation he shall not enter into the congregation of Jehovah.
To the Chief Musician, on the harp. A Psalm of David. O Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens!
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the expanse proclaims His handiwork.
By the Word of Jehovah were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathered the waters of the sea like a heap, setting the depths 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.
Jehovah possessed me from the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was anointed from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth ever was. read more. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no springs heavy with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth. before He had made the earth, or the fields or the highest part of the dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there; when He set a circle upon the face of the deep; when He set the clouds above; when He made the strong fountains of the deep; when He gave to the sea its limit that the waters should not pass His command; when He appointed the foundations of the earth; even I was a workman at His side; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him;
So says Jehovah, your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb, I am Jehovah who makes all things; who stretches out the heavens alone; who spreads out the earth; who was with Me?
For lo, He forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what his thought is. He who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth; Jehovah, the God of Hosts, is His name.
You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and to be trodden underfoot by men.
Behold the birds of the air; for they sow not, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them; are you not much better than they are?
And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin,
And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, Behold, the sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them. read more. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth. And they sprang up immediately, because they had no deepness of earth. And the sun rising, 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. And some fell on the good ground and yielded fruit, indeed one a hundredfold, and one sixty, and one thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
He spoke another parable to them: The kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened.
For this cause, God gave them up to dishonorable affections. For even their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature.
For when the nations, who do not have the Law, do by nature the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law unto themselves;
And the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfills the Law, shall it not judge you, who through letter and circumcision become transgressors of the Law?
For if God did not spare the natural branches, fear lest He also may not spare you either!
For if you were cut out of the natural wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more these being according to nature will be grafted into their own olive-tree?
Does not even nature itself teach you that if man has long hair, it is a shame to him?
And what you sow, you do not sow the body that is going to be, but a bare grain (perhaps of wheat or of some of the rest). And God gives it a body as it has pleased Him, and to each of the seeds its own body.
We Jews by nature, and not sinners of the nations,
But then, indeed, not knowing God, you served as slaves to those not by nature being gods.
among whom we also had our way of life in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
For every kind of animals, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of sea-animals, is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind.
through which He has given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, so 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
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Does not even nature itself teach you that if man has long hair, it is a shame to him?
among whom we also had our way of life in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
For truly they chastened us for a few days according to their own pleasure, but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness.
through which He has given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, so 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.
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For if you were cut out of the natural wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more these being according to nature will be grafted into their own olive-tree?
Does not even nature itself teach you that if man has long hair, it is a shame to him?
We Jews by nature, and not sinners of the nations,
among whom we also had our way of life in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.