93: Are We Born Sinners or Do We Become Sinners? What 'By Nature' Really Means in Ephesians 2:3

I'm Eddie Lawrence, and this is Ready for Eternity, a podcast and blog for inquisitive

Bible students. Most people reading Ephesians 2 verse 3 don't slow down at the phrase, by nature.

They don't need to, because it seems obvious enough. We are, the thinking goes, born corrupt and sinful.

It's in our DNA, inherited from Adam and baked into us before we take our first breath.

The phrase, by nature, children of wrath gets read as Paul's confirmation of what

Augustine called original sin, a corrupted human nature passed down through the generations like a genetic defect.

There's just one problem. That's not what Paul meant. Before reaching for a theological framework, it's worth letting the passage speak for itself.

Look what Paul actually says in verses 1 -3. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world, and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts.

Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2, 1 -3.

Notice the language Paul uses. Walking, following, living, carrying out.

These aren't words describing a condition you're born with. They're words describing a pattern of life you actively participate in.

Paul frames the entire passage in terms of behavior and choice, not biology.

Now notice something else. Two verses before calling people children of wrath,

Paul calls them sons of disobedience. That's a similar idiom applied to the same people.

New Testament authors use this construction in several places. For example,

Ephesians 5 -8 and 1 Thessalonians 5 -5 refer to the children of light. Sons of Perdition is used in John, also in 2

Thessalonians, and Mark chapter 3 talks about the sons of thunder. In every case it characterizes a person, not a condition they inherited at birth.

Given that the immediate context describes a pattern of behavior, sons of disobedience clearly portrays people characterized by disobedience, not people born with it, transmitted in their

DNA. Children of wrath works exactly the same way. These are people whose pattern of life naturally produces wrath as its consequence.

Paul has actually given us the interpretive key in his own passage, we just have to use it.

The phrase, by nature, translates a single Greek word, thusai, a form of another

Greek word, thusis. This word shows up only a handful of times in the

New Testament. As with many words in both Greek and English, we determine meaning by the context.

This is exactly why it needs careful handling here. The standard

Greek dictionary used by scholars gives thusis several distinct definitions.

One of them does refer to inherited characteristics or qualities present from birth.

That's the definition most readers unconsciously import in Ephesians 2 .3.

But there's another definition equally well supported, natural character or disposition that develops through habitual conduct.

In other words, the expected condition or logical outcome of a particular way of living.

Given everything Paul has just said in verses 1 -3, the walking, the following, the carrying out of desires, the second definition fits the context better.

James makes the same connection independently. In James 1, he says that desire gives birth to sin, and sin, when fully grown, produces death.

The sequence is always behavior leading to consequence, never a birth condition leading to inevitable outcome.

By nature, children of wrath isn't a statement about what you were born as, it's a statement about what you've become, and what you therefore deserve as the natural consequence of how you lived.

A small but telling substitution makes this clear. Read the verse this way, we were naturally children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Naturally, meaning as a matter of course, as the expected outcome, as the logical result of following selfish desires wherever they lead.

This rendering doesn't change the meaning, it brings it out. At this point, many people will be thinking, but hasn't the church always taught we have an inherited sinful nature?

Isn't that just basic Christianity? Actually, no.

Scholars who specialize in early church history, such as Ali Bonner, Kenneth Wilson, and Adam Harwood, have reached a striking consensus.

The idea of an inherited, corrupted human nature was not standard teaching before Augustine in the late 4th and early 5th centuries.

Before Augustine, Christians understood sin primarily in terms of imitation and habit, not biological inheritance.

Augustine, who was enormously influential, introduced this Gnostic concept and it reshaped

Western Christianities in ways that today are nearly unquestioned.

An inherited sin nature isn't the timeless consensus it's often presented as.

It's a tradition with a specific starting point, and a specific architect.

This isn't just a debate about words. The way you read this phrase shapes how you understand human beings, sin, and grace.

If by nature means an inherited, corrupted nature, then sin is essentially something that happens to you before you ever make a choice.

You are guilty by birth. Wrath is your destiny not because of what you've done, but because of what you are.

Grace in that framework becomes the solution to a biological problem. But if by nature means the natural, expected outcome of a life lived chasing selfish desires, then the picture changes.

You're not a victim of your birth. You're someone who has made choices, followed patterns, cultivated habits, and those choices have consequences.

Scripture is unambiguous on this point. Paul notes in Romans 3 .23

that all have sinned. This is a universal statement about what people have done, not what they were born as.

And the prophet Ezekiel cuts even deeper. Inherited guilt isn't just absent from Paul's argument.

It's explicitly contradicted elsewhere in Scripture. Children of wrath is what you've become, not what you were made to be.

That reading doesn't diminish grace. It clarifies it. Grace in Ephesians 2 isn't correcting a factory defect.

It's rescuing people from the very real consequences of the very real lives they've chosen to live.

That's not a smaller gospel. It is the gospel. And it's right there in the text, if we're willing to read it carefully.