Ephesians 2:3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore the flesh is not worthy of condemnation, but the thought that draws one toward passionate pleasures. Or it may be understood in this way: we defile the mind by thinking evil, and the flesh by carrying it out. You may count adultery and the like as works of the flesh. Envy, remembrance of wrongs, and the like are works of the thoughts.

“And were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.” This is said instead of: we insult and anger God, and in truth we were nothing other than wrath. As a human child is by nature human, so also were we. As those worthy of Gehenna and perdition are called sons of Gehenna and sons of perdition, so those who do what deserves wrath are called children of wrath. The phrase “by nature” is used instead of “truly and actually,” “like the rest,” for no one was free from wrath.

What, then, is the depravity of the natural man, the seed of evil speech from the beginning, and those born in captivity and perdition, by nature children of wrath? Was this implanted in Adam’s nature? By no means. Rather, nature was corrupted in him. From him it passed, and still passes, through all by its natural course. Nothing can preserve us from this perdition except the mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The desires of the thoughts may be called judgments that are not confirmed by Scripture. Such are those of which it is said: “casting down thoughts and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,” and thoughts that are not “brought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:4-5).

Therefore it is necessary and safe always and everywhere to keep what David said: “And Your testimonies are my counsels” (Ps 118:24). See Eph 5:6.

In my judgment, there is this difference between a sin of the flesh and a sin of thought. A sin of the flesh is shamelessness and incontinence, and whatever service to it is performed in passionate movements. Transgressions of thought belong to teachings contrary to the truth and to heretical corruption.

Thus we may say that very many heretics, though this is rare, fulfill the desires of thought and not the lusts of the flesh. Many, in contrast to those belonging to the Church, fulfill the lusts of the flesh and not of the mind. And there are very many who fulfill the lusts both of the flesh and of the thoughts.

Nature is determined by the will, for man is judged according to the will and not according to nature. Without any doubt, all martyrs and justified persons are good. Yet they are so not because they were born believers, but because they were born anew.

In this brief but powerful depiction of the spiritual and moral transformation accomplished in Christians by Jesus Christ, the commentators especially note divine goodness. Thus St. John of Damascus writes: “You Gentiles, says the Apostle, were held in death because of sin, in which you lived under the evil devil, who ruled over you by evil thoughts. God deemed you worthy of mercy and grace, and changed your deadness in sin into life through communion with Christ.”

“What a dark end belongs to the condition of sin! The sinner is spiritually dead, under the tyranny of the devil, possessed by the spirit of the world, and dragged without restraint by the movements of the flesh. He is enslaved to passions of soul and tossed by sinful thoughts. For all this he is a son of sin and therefore liable to eternal punishment.

How can those delivered from such misery fail to glorify the sovereign might of the Deliverer? By His grace He raises the sinner from the death of sin and leads him into the bright life of pleasing God and holiness” (Bishop Theophan).

“All our deeds were worthy not of love, but of wrath and severe punishment. Therefore, if God loved us, it was solely according to His great mercy. Do you see the exceeding greatness of His power in us who believe? Do you see the hope of the calling: He raised us together with Him and seated us together? Do you see the glory of His inheritance?

Yes, you will say, it is clear that He raised us together. But by what does the Apostle prove that He seated us together in the heavens in Christ Jesus? By the same thing by which he proves that He raised us together. No one would ever have risen unless the Head had risen. And when our Head rose, we too were raised.

In exactly the same way He seated us together. When the Head sits, the body sits with Him. “If we endure with Him, we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim 2:12). If we have died with Him for sin, we shall also live with Him. Truly, the gift of the Spirit and of revelation is needed to understand the depth of these mysteries.

“If we also wish to know how He seated us together, listen to what Christ Himself says to the disciples: ‘You shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Mt 19:28). To sit at the right hand is an honor higher than every honor, after which there is no further dignity.

To sit with Christ is truly ineffable wealth. It is truly the exceeding greatness of His glory. Consider with whom you will sit. But who are you? Dead, a child of wrath by nature. What right thing have you done? Nothing. Now it is truly fitting to cry out: ‘O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!’ (Rom 11:33)” (Chrysostom).

Therefore it seems better to refer εν οις to παραπτωμασι, transgressions. He derives spiritual deadness from two causes, from transgressions and sins. Applying this principle to the Gentiles and the Jews, he says to the first: εν αις, that is, αμαρτιαις, “in which,” meaning in sins.

But applying it to the Jews, he says εν οις, that is, παραπτωμασι, “in which,” meaning in transgressions. Blessed Jerome understands this connection in the same way.

“‘In which’ must be referred to transgressions. Above he sets forth two things, transgressions and sins. Then, referring to sins, he said: ‘in which you once walked.’ But there he said nothing by way of explanation and application about transgressions.

Now he says: ‘in which also we all lived,’ that is, in transgressions. He does this so that it may not seem that, out of pride, he excludes himself and the Jews from the number of sinners.”

It is noteworthy that, when speaking of the sinful deadness of the Gentiles, the Apostle explains that they were held in sins, or drawn toward them, by the deceits of the world and the snares of the prince of this age.

But when he brings the Jews under the same deadness, he says that they sank into transgressions because they lived in the lusts of the flesh. They were not drawn to them by an external force, but fell into sins by their own corrupted will.

They did the will of the flesh and of thoughts. The thought is given that neither the world nor the devil had such power over the people of God as they displayed over the Gentiles.

Indeed, all the orders of personal, family, ecclesial, and civil life among the Jews were established according to a pattern from above. All were sanctified by the will of God and led toward moral improvement and nearness to God.

The corrupting customs of the world could make their way among them only like thieves, by an unlawful path. Among the Gentiles, these customs constituted the very substance of their life. They were begotten from the passions, and they fed and inflamed the passions.

Likewise, the prince of the world lost power over the Jews as soon as they received the sign of God’s election, by which they became God’s portion.

The prince of the world, together with his customs, could enter the Jewish sphere only when they themselves summoned him. This happened when, casting off the yoke of God’s good will, they voluntarily gave themselves to his alien yoke.

The Apostle points to this when he says that we too were all in sins, living in the lusts of the flesh. The world and the prince of this age had no power over us. But we ourselves sank into sins, living in lusts.

We were enemies to ourselves. Our lusts took the place, for us, of the corrupting force of the world and of its prince. But if one could think thus about the Jews, should one not judge Christians in this way still more?

There would be no place among us for the world and the devil if we were not prone to lusts.

By the lusts of the flesh, or by the lustful flesh, one should understand here, in general, the sin-loving movements of the heart. Their distinguishing mark is self-pleasing. This is a disposition of the soul by which it does everything only to please itself.

It acts contrary to the demands of conscience and the promptings of the fear of God, which are openly and clearly presented. Self-pleasing has two forms of manifestation: the will of the flesh and of thoughts, of course sinful thoughts.

In other words, these are bodily passions and passions and inclinations of the soul. “Doing the will of the flesh and of thoughts” means that whatever the flesh desired and whatever the soul devised to please itself, that, or that alone, we did.

We followed the demands and attractions of the passions and inclinations of body and soul, all of them self-loving.

Chrysostom says: “We all lived, thinking of nothing spiritual. He says all, because it cannot be said that anyone was an exception in this case.

But so that no one might suspect that this is said with the intention of slandering the flesh, and so that he might not think its guilt too great here, see how the Apostle forestalls all such suspicions and thoughts.

He says, ‘doing the will of the flesh and of thoughts,’ that is, being willingly carried away by lusts and pleasures.”

In the word “thoughts,” Theodoret sees how sin is first conceived in sinful thoughts. Then, through the will’s joining itself to them, it is carried out in deed through the body.

“The Apostle,” he writes, “showed that not only the flesh, but the soul itself deserves blame. For it first receives into itself an inclination toward what is worse, and then, with the help of the flesh, puts into action what was conceived by the mind.”

But someone may think: why does he not call himself dead, as he called the Gentiles? This is already understood of itself. Since they were in sins, they were also dead. For where sin is, there also is spiritual death.

Besides this, he later directly numbers the Jews among the spiritually dead when he says: “even when we were dead through transgressions.” There, under “we,” he includes both Jews and Gentiles.

“And we were by nature children of wrath.” Since, by doing the will of the flesh and of thoughts, we sank into sins, for this reason we were also under God’s wrath.

“We provoked God, we angered Him, and we became only an object of God’s wrath, and nothing else,” says Chrysostom.

Theodoret writes the same: “The Apostle said ‘by nature children of wrath,’ that is, worthy of wrath and extreme punishment. Thus he called the Antichrist the son of perdition (2 Thess 2:3), that is, worthy of perdition.”

According to Oecumenius and Theophylact, they became children of wrath as those who do works worthy of wrath.

Basil the Great, in his 268th short rule, says: “One becomes a child of wrath insofar as he has made himself worthy of wrath. For the Apostle called those who are worthy of the Lord and do the works of light and day sons of light and sons of day (1 Thess 5:5).

So also must the words ‘we were children of wrath’ be understood.” “The word ‘by nature’ stands in place of ‘truly, genuinely,’ αληθως και γνησιως” (Oecumenius, Theophylact).

“As also the rest.” “This means that no one was free from wrath. But all of us, according to our deeds, were worthy of God’s wrath” (Chrysostom).

Sin made all equal, as St. Paul depicts more fully in the Epistle to the Romans, gathering various indications of this from the Old Testament Scriptures (Rom 3:10-18).

What a dark picture of the state in sin! The sinner is spiritually dead, under the tyranny of the devil, possessed by the spirit of the world, and unrestrainedly drawn by the movements of the flesh. He is enslaved to the passions of the soul and troubled by sinful thoughts.

For all this he is a son of wrath and, consequently, liable to eternal punishment. How can those delivered from such distress fail to glorify the sovereign might of the Deliverer? By His grace He raises the sinner from sinful death and brings him into the radiant life of pleasing God and holiness.