Where In The Bible Will I Find:

We Were By Nature The Children Of Wrath?

Lifting a text out of a context becomes a pretext and produces false teaching. The full context is: "And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience; among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest" (Eph. 2:1-3 ASV).

The apparent trouble that comes up regarding this passage and others of like nature arises from the false theory that is propagated by theologians. This is the false theory of hereditary total depravity which is that Adam’s sins were transmitted to the whole human race, and that, therefore, all are born sinners. If this theory was true, then all that are born into the world are sinners and under the wrath of God till convicted and converted by an abstract operation of the Holy Spirit.

False teachers claim that when they baptize infants, this sin of depravity is taken away, and that they can then serve God and be saved at last by faithfulness when they become responsible. This class of theologians apply the expression, "were by nature the children of wrath," to all who have not been relieved from this depravity that they say inheres in all till they have been regenerated. But the trouble is, this claim of total hereditary depravity is nowhere expressed or taught in the Word of God. It is merely a human opinion.

The word "nature" in this passage has not reference to any sort of inability to serve God, but to the general practice of sin on the part of those who reject the Gospel. The lives of such are sinful and exposed to the wrath of God. Hence the word "nature" only has reference to lives that are habitually sinful - a continual life of sin - just the sort of lives the Ephesians are said in this passage to have lived before they became Christians. They became sinners through their own trespasses, not by being born sinners. Hence, infants are NOT sinners, and need no baptism to free them from a state of sin.

The Bible nowhere says they were born sinners. It is only human theology that says so. All that will study these three verses will see that only those who commit sin are sinners. The Word of the Lord says: "For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And his ears upon their supplication: But the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil" (I Peter 3:12). Infants do no evil; hence there is no wrath of God against them. Baptism is for those who are capable of believing (Mark 16:16), repenting (Acts 2:38), and confessing Christ (Rom. 10:9- 10). Infants cannot do either of these.