In Ephesians 2:3, Paul writes: "And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience; among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest" (ASV).
Calvinists see the phrase, "by nature the children of wrath", as describing the state of total depravity into which all of us are born by reason of the sin of Adam. As a result of this inborn corruption, we are told, the natural man is totally unable to anything spiritually good - his will is enslaved to his evil nature, and he is irresistibly drawn to Satan. He is blind and deaf to spiritual truth, unteachable in the things of God.
Certainly, Paul is picturing man before conversion as being spiritually dead. However, the question is: how did he get into this condition? Was he born that way, or is it the result of the way he has chosen to live his life?
Much hinges on the meaning of the word "nature" in the text. The Greek word used is PHUSIS, which was sometimes used to refer to what a person is as a result of his birth - e.g. Galatians 2:15, "We who are Jews by nature." However, there is another way in which the word was used. Thayer's Lexicon gives this definition as "a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature." (Thayer then gives Ephesians 2:3 as an illustration of this usage.)
What we need to determine is: Which way is Paul using the word PHUSIS in Ephesians 2:3? Is he saying that we were born spiritually dead, or that we became so by a course of conduct? A consideration of the immediate context suggests the latter. Notice the language of verses 1 and 2:
"wherein (trespasses and sins) ye once walked (lived)"
"sons of disobedience"
"we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh"
"doing the desires of the flesh"
Does that sound like something inherited or a "mode of acting which by long habit has become nature?" Perhaps the real clincher is in verse one. Unfortunately, by the omission of the word "your", the King James Version fails to bring out the full force of the statement: "ye were dead through your trespasses and sins"
It is not the sins of my father, or grandfather, or anyone else back to and including Adam that render me spiritually dead. In the words of Ezekiel, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him" (18:20).
Whenever we find ourselves in the condition described in Ephesians 2:1-3, we cannot blame someone else. It is not the result of our being born totally depraved. Solomon correctly observed: "Behold, this only have I found: that God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions" (Ecclesiates 7:29).
~In Gospel Power, Anderson, Alabama, 4/25/99.