'Nature' in the Bible

"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jonah," said Jesus; "for mere human nature has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven.

"Moses," He replied, "in consideration of the hardness of your nature permitted you to put away your wives, but it has not been so from the beginning.

who were begotten as such not by human descent, nor through an impulse of their own nature, nor through the will of a human father, but from God.

Since then we are God's offspring, we ought not to imagine that His nature resembles gold or silver or marble, or anything sculptured by the art and inventive faculty of man.

For, from the very creation of the world, His invisible perfections--namely His eternal power and divine nature--have been rendered intelligible and clearly visible by His works, so that these men are without excuse.

This then is the reason why God gave them up to vile passions. For not only did the women among them exchange the natural use of their bodies for one which is contrary to nature, but the men also,

in just the same way--neglecting that for which nature intends women--burned with passion towards one another, men practising shameful vice with men, and receiving in their own selves the reward which necessarily followed their misconduct.

This we know--that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him, in order that our sinful nature might be deprived of its power, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin;

I find therefore the law of my nature to be that when I desire to do what is right, evil is lying in ambush for me.

For what was impossible to the Law--powerless as it was because it acted through frail humanity--God effected. Sending His own Son in a body like that of sinful human nature and as a sacrifice for sin, He pronounced sentence upon sin in human nature;

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither the lower ranks of evil angels nor the higher, neither things present nor things future, nor the forces of nature,

and if you were cut from that which by nature is a wild olive and contrary to nature were grafted into the good olive tree, how much more certainly will these natural branches be grafted on their own olive tree?

As one who lives in union with the Lord Jesus, I know and am certain that in its own nature no food is 'impure'; but if people regard any food as impure, to them it is.

For us, however, God has drawn aside the veil through the teaching of the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, including the depths of the divine nature.

No temptation has you in its power but such as is common to human nature; and God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength. But, when the temptation comes, He will also provide the way of escape; so that you may be able to bear it.

Does not Nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it is a dishonor to him,

For so it must be: this perishable nature must clothe itself with what is imperishable, and this mortality must clothe itself with immortality.

But when this perishable nature has put on what is imperishable, and this mortality has put on immortality, then will the words of Scripture be fulfilled, "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

For we, alive though we are, are continually surrendering ourselves to death for the sake of Jesus, so that in this mortal nature of ours it may also be clearly shown that Jesus lives.

For even after our arrival in Macedonia we could get no relief such as human nature craves. We were greatly harassed; there were conflicts without and fears within.

But we see that the child of the slave-girl was born in the common course of nature; but the child of the free woman in fulfilment of the promise.

Yet just as, at that time, the child born in the common course of nature persecuted the one whose birth was due to the power of the Spirit, so it is now.

For the cravings of the lower nature are opposed to those of the Spirit, and the cravings of the Spirit are opposed to those of the lower nature; because these are antagonistic to each other, so that you cannot do everything to which you are inclined.

Against such things as these there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their lower nature with its passions and appetites.

He who sows in the field of his lower nature, will from that nature reap destruction; but he who sows to serve the Spirit will from the Spirit reap the Life of the Ages.

For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any importance; but only a renewed nature.

For He is our peace--He who has made Jews and Gentiles one, and in His own human nature has broken down the hostile dividing wall,

with darkened understandings, having by reason of the ignorance which is deep-seated in them and the insensibility of their moral nature, no share in the Life which God gives.

to put away, in regard to your former mode of life, your original evil nature which is doomed to perish as befits its misleading impulses,

Although from the beginning He had the nature of God He did not reckon His equality with God a treasure to be tightly grasped.

Nay, He stripped Himself of His glory, and took on Him the nature of a bondservant by becoming a man like other men.

For it is in Christ that the fulness of God's nature dwells embodied, and in Him you are made complete,

In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not performed by hand, when you threw off your sinful nature in true Christian circumcision;

Since then the children referred to are all alike sharers in perishable human nature, He Himself also, in the same way, took on Him a share of it, in order that through death He might render powerless him who had authority over death, that is, the Devil,

by the new and ever-living way which He opened up for us through the rending of the veil--that is to say, of His earthly nature--

For we often stumble and fall, all of us. If there is any one who never stumbles in speech, that man has reached maturity of character and is able to curb his whole nature.

And the tongue is a fire. That world of iniquity, the tongue, is placed within us spotting and soiling our whole nature, and setting the whole round of our lives on fire, being itself set on fire by Gehenna.

For brute nature under all its forms--beasts and birds, reptiles and fishes--can be subjected and kept in subjection by human nature.

That is not the wisdom which comes down from above: it belongs to earth, to the unspiritual nature, and to evil spirits.

when, all the while, you do not even know what will happen to-morrow. For what is the nature of your life? Why, it is but a mist, which appears for a short time and then is seen no more.

Elijah was a man with a nature similar to ours, and he earnestly prayed that there might be no rain: and no rain fell on the land for three years and six months.

Instead of that, it should be a new nature within--the imperishable ornament of a gentle and peaceful spirit, which is indeed precious in the sight of God.

It is by means of these that He has granted us His precious and wondrous promises, in order that through them you may, one and all, become sharers in the very nature of God, having completely escaped the corruption which exists in the world through earthly cravings.

For the things in the world--the cravings of the earthly nature, the cravings of the eyes, the show and pride of life--they all come, not from the Father, but from the world.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world--men who do not acknowledge Jesus as Christ who has come in human nature. Such a one is 'the deceiver' and 'the anti-Christ.'