Ephesians 2:3

also we all Better we also all, the "also" emphasizing the "we." "We all:" all present Christians, whether Jews or heathens by origin. St Paul often insists on this one level of fallen nature, wholly unaffected by external privilege. Cp. Romans 3:9; Romans 3:23; Galatians 3:22. It is met by the glorious antithesis of equal grace. Cp. just below, and Romans 1:16; Romans 3:29; Romans 10:12, &c. Observe the emphatic statement that man as (fallen) man, whether within or without the pale of revelation, begins as a "child of disobedience." Observe too the change of person, from the second (Ephesians 2:2) to the first. The Apostle willingly, and truly, identifies his own experience with that of his converts.

had our conversation Lit., moved up and down; engaged in the activities of life. Conversatioin Latin, like the Gr. word here, means precisely this; the goings in and out of human intercourse;not specially the exchange of speech, to which the word "conversation" is now restricted. In Philippians 3:20 the Gr. original is different.

the lusts of our flesh Better, the desires. "Lusts" is narrowed in modern usage to a special class of sensual appetites, but the older English knew no such fixed restriction; see e.g.Psalms 34:12, in the Prayer Book (Cranmer's) Version; "what man is he that lusteth to live?" and Galatians 5:17, where the Spirit, as well as the flesh, "lusteth." Sinful "lusts" are thus all desires, whether gross or fine in themselves, which are against the will of God.

" Our flesh:" this important word, wherever it occurs in N.T. in connexion with the doctrine of sin, means human nature as conditioned by the Fall, or, to word it otherwise, either the state of the unregenerate being, in which state the sinful principle dominates, or the state of that element of the regenerate being in which the principle, dislodged, as it were, from the centre, still lingers and is felt; not dominant in the being, but present. (For its permanence, till death, in the regenerate, see the implied statements of e.g.Galatians 5:16; Philippians 3:3.) We may account for the use of the word fleshas a symbol for this phenomenon by the fact that sin works so largely under conditions of bodily, fleshly, life in the literal sense of those words. See further, note on Romans 8:4 in this Series.

fulfilling the desires Lit., doing the wishes. This (see last note) does not mean that "we" were loose livers, in the common sense; we might or might not have been such. But we followed the bent of the unregenerate Ego, whatever on the whole it was.

of the mind Lit., of the thoughts; in the sense generally of reflection and impression. The word is used (in the singular) e.g.Matthew 22:37; "with all thy mind," representing the Heb. "heart" in Deuteronomy 6:5; and 1 John 5:20; "He hath given us an understanding." Here probably the distinction is between sin in imagination and sin in positive action ("of the flesh"); one of the many warnings of Scripture that moral evil lies as deep as possible in the texture and motion of the fallen nature. Cp. Mat 15:19; 2 Corinthians 7:1, and see Proverbs 24:9.

by nature the children of wrath On the phrase "children of wrath" see last note on Ephesians 2:2. "By nature we were connected with, we essentially were exposed to, wrath, the wrath of God." It has been suggested that "children of wrath" may mean no more than "beings prone toviolent anger," or even to "ungoverned impulse" generally. But the word "wrath" is frequent with St Paul, and in 13 out of the 20 places it unmistakably means the Divine wrath, even where "of God" is not added, and where the definite article is absent. See for passages specially in point Romans 4:15; Romans 5:9; Romans 9:22; below, ch. Ephesians 5:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:9. Add to this that this passage deals with the deepest and most general facts, and it is thus unlikely that any one special phase of sin would be instanced. N. T. usage gives nosupport to the suggested explanation "ungoverned impulse" mentioned above. The word must mean "wrath," whether of man or of God. Translate, certainly, with A. V. and R. V. On the truth that the fallen being, as such, lies under Divine "wrath," see John 3:36, where "the wrath of God remainethagainst" the soul which does not submit to the Son. Not to "possess eternal life" is to have that "wrath" for certain still impending.

And what is the Divine wrath? No arbitrary or untempered passion in the Eternal, but the antagonism of the eternal Holiness to sin; only the antagonism of an Eternal Person. Von Gerlach, quoted by Monod on this verse, writes: "The forgetfulness at the present day of the doctrine of the wrath of God has exercised a baneful influence on the various relations in which man holds the place of God, and in particular on the government of the family and the state." The antithesis to the truth about it is the dictumof the "Absolute Religion," that "there is nothing in God to fear;" words in complete discord with great lines of revelation.

" By nature:" i.e., by our unregenerate state in itself, not only by circumstances. For illustration see Galatians 2:15, ("Jews by nature") and Ephesians 4:8, ("by nature no Gods"). Such was our state antecedent to the new process, ab extra, of regeneration. We have here the doctrine of "Original or Birth Sin," as given in Art ix. of the Church of England. "That which provokes the wrath of God is not only in the individual, but in the race and in the nature" (Monod). A greater mystery we could not state; but neither could we name a surer fact "Original sin is, fundamentally, simply universalsin. That is the fact which is at once the evidence and the substance of it … Universal sin must receive the same interpretation that any other universal does, namely that it implies a law, in consequence of which it is universal. Nobody supposes that anything takes place universally by chance … we know there must be some law working in the case … What we callthe law is a secondary question. The great thing is to see that there is a law. If all the individuals who come under the head of a certain nature have sin in them, then one mode of expressing this law is to say that it belongs to the nature, the nature being the common property and ground in which all meet" (J. B. Mozley, Lectures, ix. pp. 136, &c.). See further, Appendix B.

even as others Lit, as also the rest; the unregenerate world at large.

C. ORIGINAL SIN. (Ch. Ephesians 2:3.)

The theological literature, ancient and modern, of this great subject (the title of which we owe to St Augustine), is very extensive. The English reader will find information in Commentaries on the XXXIX Articles, such as those of Bps Beveridge and E. H. Browne. Art. ix deals expressly with the subject, and its statements underlie those of several following Articles, especially x, xi, xiii, xv, xvii. Among English discussions of the subject we specially recommend three of the late Prof. Mozley's Lectures(one of which is quoted in the notes); "Christ alone without Sin," "Original Sin," and "Original Sin asserted by Philosophers and Poets." To the quotations given in this last Essay we may add the lines of Mr Browning:

"I still, to suppose it" [the Christian faith] "true, for my part,

See reasons and reasons; this, to begin;"

Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart

At the head of a lie taught Original Sin,

The Corruption of Man's Heart."

Gold Hair; a story of Pornic.

See, for some admirable pages on Original Sin, Prof. Shedd's Sermons to the Natural Man, especially Sermons v. and xiv. On the Pelagian Controversy, see Hagenbach's Dogmengeschichte, or English Translation (History of Doctrines), and Period, B., i. 2; Shedd's Hist. of Christian Doctrine, Book iv. ch. 4; Cunningham's Historical Theology, Vol. 1 Chronicles 11. A popular but able account of the controversy is given in Milner's History of the Ch. of Christ, Cent. 5, cch. 3, 4.