Wesley Corpus

“And, 1. To consider that text, “And were by nature chil dren of wrath, even as others.” (Eph. ii. 3.) In the beginning of the chapter, St. Paul puts the Ephesians in mind of what God had done for them. This led him to observe what they had been before their conversion to God: They had been ‘dead in trespasses and sins; but were now “quickened, made alive to God. They had “walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh with energy in the children of disobedience.’ ‘Among such,” saith the Apostle, ‘we all had our conversation in times past; the whole time before our conversion; ‘fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature children of wrath, even as others.” On this I observe,-- “(1.) The persons spoken of are both the believing Ephe sians and the Apostle himself. For he says not, “Ye were,’ speaking in the second person, as he had done, verses 1, 2; but, “We were,’--plainly with a design the more expressly to include himself. Indeed, had he still spoken in the second Terson, yet what is here affirmed would have been true of him as well as them. But for the sake of more explicitly including himself, he chose to say, ‘We were; ’--you, Ephesians, who were descended of heathen parents, and I who was born in the visible Church. “(2.) The ‘wrath’ here spoken of, means either God’s displeasure at sinners, or the punishment which he threatens and inflicts for sin.” (Pages 25-28.) “(3.) ‘Children of wrath,” is an Hebraism, and denotes persons worthy of, or liable to, wrath. And this implies the being sinners; seeing sin only exposes us to God's displea sure and the dreadful effects of it. “(4.) This charge the Apostle fixes on himself and them, as they had been before their conversion. He does not say, We are, but “we were, children of wrath.’ (Page 29.) “ (5.) He speaks of himself and the converted Ephesians as having been so equally with others. There is an emphasis on the words, “even as others; even as the stubborn Jews and idolatrous Heathens; even as all who are still “strangers and enemies’ to Christ. These are still ‘children of wrath: ’ But whatever difference there is between us and them, we were once what they are now.