Nature

God's creation, often with special reference to plant and animal life.

Nature is God's creation

Psalm 89:11 See also Isaiah 45:12; Jeremiah 27:5; Acts 4:24, Acts 14:15, Acts 17:24; Revelation 4:11, Revelation 10:6

The heavens are Yours, and also the earth. The earth and its fullness You founded.

Plants

Genesis 1:11–12 See also Genesis 2:4–9; Psalm 104:14–16

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees, each bearing fruit with seed according to its kind.” And it was so. The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Land and sea

Psalm 24:1 See also Genesis 1:9–10; Job 38:4–11; Isaiah 40:12; Amos 5:8; Jonah 1:9

A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.

The sun, moon and stars

Job 9:9 See also Genesis 1:14–18; Psalm 8:3, Psalm 148:3–5; Jeremiah 31:35

He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, of the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.

Animals

Genesis 1:20–22 See also Job 12:7–10; Psalm 104:25

And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters teemed according to their kinds, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”

Human beings

Exodus 4:11; Isaiah 45:12 Genesis 1:26–27, Genesis 2:7; Psalm 95:6, Psalm 100:3; Proverbs 22:2; Jeremiah 27:5

And the LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Or who makes the mute or the deaf, the sighted or the blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

It is I who made the earth and created man upon it. It was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I ordained all their host.

The distinction between humanity and the rest of nature

God created human beings alone in his image

Genesis 1:26–27; Colossians 3:9–10 See also Genesis 5:1, Genesis 9:6; James 3:9

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Do not lie to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Humanity is the steward of nature

Psalm 115:16 See also Genesis 1:26–30, Genesis 2:15; Psalm 8:5–8

The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth He has given to mankind.

God is active in nature

In sustaining nature

Matthew 10:29 parallel Luke 12:6 See also Psalm 147:1–17; Acts 17:24–28; Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 2:10

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

In providing for plant life

Leviticus 26:4; Matthew 6:28–29 parallel Luke 12:27 See also Job 38:25; Psalm 104:14–16; Jonah 4:6–10

I will give you rains in their season, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.

And why do you worry about clothes? Consider how the lilies of the field grow: They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these.

In the elements and seasons

Psalm 135:7 See also Genesis 8:22; Job 5:10, Job 36:27, Job 37:11–13; Jeremiah 10:13

He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

God makes himself known through the natural order

Job 36:24–26 See also Psalm 8:1–4, Psalm 19:1–3; Acts 14:15–17, Acts 17:24–28; Romans 1:18–21

Remember to magnify His work, which men have praised in song. All mankind has seen it; men behold it from afar. Indeed, God is great — beyond our knowledge; the number of His years is unsearchable.