Most people reading Ephesians 2:3 don’t slow down at the phrase “by nature.” They don’t need to because it seems obvious enough.
We are, the thinking goes, born corrupt and sinful. It’s in our DNA, inherited from Adam, baked into us before we take our first breath. The phrase “by nature children of wrath” gets read as Paul’s confirmation of what Augustine called original sin: a corrupted human nature passed down through the generations like a genetic defect.
There’s just one problem. That’s not what Paul meant.
