Meaning
from phuo, "to bring forth, produce," signifies (a) "the nature" (i.e., the natural powers of constitution) of a person or thing, Eph 2:3, Jam 3:7 ("kind"); 2Pe 1:4; (b) "origin, birth," Rom 2:27, one who by birth is a Gentile, uncircumcised, in contrast to one who, though circumcised, has become spiritually uncircumcised by his iniquity; Gal 2:15; (c) "the regular law or order of nature," Rom 1:26, against "nature" (para, "against"); Rom 2:14, adverbially, "by nature" (for Rom 11:21, Rom 11:24, see NATURAL, Note); 1Co 11:14, Gal 4:8, "by nature (are no gods)," here "nature" is the emphatic word, and the phrase includes demons, men regarded as deified, and idols; these are gods only in name (the negative, me, denies not simply that they were gods, but the possibility that they could be).
<2,,1078, genesis>
is used in the phrase in Jam 3:6, "the wheel of nature," RV (marg., "birth"). Some regard this as the course of birth or of creation, or the course of man's "nature" according to its original Divine purpose; Major (on the Ep. of James) regards trochos here as a wheel, "which, catching fire from the glowing axle, is compared to the widespreading mischief done by the tongue," and shows that "the fully developed meaning" of genesis denotes "the incessant change of life ... the sphere of this earthly life, meaning all that is contained in our life." The significance, then, would appear to be the whole round of human life and activity. Moulton and Milligan illustrate it in this sense from the papyri. See NATURAL, B.
