Leigh:

And were by nature the Children of wrath, even as others] To be by nature the children of wrath signifies these things. 1. Wrath is our proper due, as we are born to it. 2. It belongs to us a soon as we are ever we have a living soul, damnati priusquam nati Aug. 3. We are irrecoverably the Children of wrath, Adam might have helped it. 4. It is universally so, as we say a man is by nature mortal, because all are so.

Edward Leigh, Annotations Upon All the New Testament (London: Printed by W.W. and EG. for William Lee, and are to be sold at his shop at the Turks-head in Fleet Street next to the Miter and Phoenix, 1650), 281.

v. 3. By fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, men contract that filthiness of flesh and spirit from which the apostle exhorts Christians to cleanse themselves, 2 Cor. vii. 1. The fulfilling of the desires of the flesh and of the mind includes all the sin and wickedness that are acted in and by both the inferior and the higher or nobler powers of the soul. We lived in the actual commission of all those sins to which corrupt nature inclined us. The carnal mind makes a man a perfect slave to his vicious appetite.—The fulfilling of the wills of the flesh, so the words may be rendered, denoting the efficacy of these lusts, and what power they have over those who yield themselves up unto them. 5. We are by nature the children of wrath, even as others. The Jews were so, as well as the Gentiles; and one man is as much so as another by nature, not only by custom and imitation, but from the time when we began to exist, and by reason of our natural inclinations and appetites. All men, being naturally children of disobedience, are also by nature children of wrath: God is angry with the wicked every day. Our state and course are such as deserve wrath, and would end in eternal wrath, if divine grace did not interpose. What reason have sinners then to be looking out for that grace that will make them, of children of wrath, children of God and heirs of glory! Thus far the apostle has described the misery of a natural state in these verses, which we shall find him pursuing again in some following ones.

Source: The Matthew Henry Commentaries, Ephesians 2:3.

Calvin:

3. “Among whom also we all had our conversation.” Lest it should be supposed that what he had now said was a slanderous reproach against the former character of the Ephesians, or that Jewish pride had led him to treat the Gentiles as an inferior race, he associates himself and his countrymen along with them in the general accusation. This is not done in hypocrisy, but in a sincere ascription of glory to God. It may excite wonder, indeed, that he should speak of himself as having walked “in the lusts of the flesh,” while, on other occasions, he boasts that his life had been throughout irreproachable.

“Touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” (Philippians 3:6.)

And again,

“Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and unblamably, we behaved ourselves among you that believe.” (1 Thessalonians 2:10)

I reply, the statement applies to all who have not been regenerated by the Spirit of Christ. However praiseworthy, in appearance, the life of some may be, because their lusts do not break out in the sight of men, there is nothing pure or holy which does not proceed from the fountain of all purity.

“Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” To fulfill these desires, is to live according to the guidance of our natural disposition and of our mind. “The flesh” means here the disposition, or, what is called, the inclination of the nature; and the next expression (ton dianoion) means what proceeds from the mind. Now, “the mind” includes reason, such as it exists in men by nature; so that lusts do not refer exclusively to the lower appetites, or what is called the sensual part of man, but extend to the whole.

“And were by nature children of wrath.” All men without exception, whether Jews or Gentiles, (Galatians 2:15,16,) are here pronounced to be guilty, until they are redeemed by Christ; so that out of Christ there is no righteousness, no salvation, and, in short, no excellence. “Children of wrath” are those who are lost, and who deserve eternal death. Wrath means the judgment of God; so that “the children of wrath” are those who are condemned before God. Such, the apostle tells us, had been the Jews,—such had been all the excellent men that were now in the Church; and they were so by “nature,” that is, from their very commencement, and from their mother’s womb.

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