ACC ~ Ephesians 2 v3c

THE LORD DOES NOT DIRECTLY WILL WRATH APART FROM HUMAN CHOICE. TERTULLIAN: As a Jew Paul had been one of the “children of unbelief” in whom “the devil was at work,” especially when he persecuted the church and the Christ of the Creator. On this account he says, “We were by nature children of wrath.” But he says “by nature” so that a heretic could not argue that it was the Lord who created evil. We create the grounds for the Creator’s wrath ourselves. AGAINST MARCION 5.17.9-10.

“BY NATURE” DEFINED AS HUMAN WILLING. PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE: Undoubtedly the will passes for nature—for it is from their will, not their nature, that people are judged. Similarly all the martyrs and the justified are upright not because they were born faithful but because they were reborn so. QUESTIONS ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS 115.11.

“BY WRATH” IMPLIES BY CHOICE. GREGORY OF NYSSA: When [Scripture] speaks of “sons of men” or “sons of rams,” it indicates an essential relation between the one begotten and the source of his begetting. But when it speaks of “sons of power” [as at 1 Sam 14:52] or “children of wrath,” it asserts a connection made by choice. AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.1.116.

WHETHER SIN IS RIGHTLY SPOKEN OF AS NATURAL. AUGUSTINE: We speak of “nature” in two ways. When we are speaking strictly of nature itself, we mean the nature in which humanity was originally created—after God’s own image and without fault. The other way we speak of nature refers to that fallen sin nature, in which we are self-deceived and subject to the flesh as the penalty for our condemnation. The apostle adopts this way of speaking when he says “for we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.” ON NATURE AND GRACE 81.

HOW THE CORRUPTION OF OUR NATURE IS STILL RUNNING ITS COURSE. AUGUSTINE: What then is meant by this wickedness of the natural man and of those who … “by nature” are children of wrath? Could this possibly be the nature created in Adam? That created nature was debased in him. It has run and is running its course now through everyone by nature, so that nothing frees us from condemnation except the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ON MARRIAGE AND CONCUPISCENCE 2.20.