‘Among whom we also once lived in the lusts of the flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.'
‘We.' Lest anyone think he is excluding himself from being a sinner Paul now includes himself and his companions, along with all Christians. They too had once followed the lusts of the flesh and had given way to the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and there was also a theoretical danger that they might do so again. For constant is the battle of the Spirit with the flesh, although those who walk by the Spirit will overcome (Galatians 5:16). Note the duality of the types of ‘lusts of the flesh', for they include not only the desires of the body, but also the desires of the mind. Intellectual sin is as great as fleshly sin. The mind at war with God is as sinful as the body which walks in disobedience.
‘And were by nature (phusei) children of wrath, even as the rest.' For phusei compare Galatians 2:15. It means what we essentially are in our thinking and behaviour, our natural condition. The natural man is thus a child of wrath, that is a person deserving of wrath, for by nature man is a sinner (Romans 5:19) and once given the chance this soon reveals itself. Thus is introduced, as a suggestion that cannot be denied, that the wrath of God is directed at sin (compare Romans 1:18) and that all men are under the wrath of God because of sin (Romans 2:5; Colossians 3:6; John 3:36; Revelation 6:17). The wrath of God is not anger as we know it, it represents God's antipathy to sin, God's hatred of sin, God's reaction in His holiness against sin. He cannot abide sin and must act to destroy it like a gardener acting with his chemicals to destroy all that is destructive and harmful in his garden. That is His ‘wrath'.
‘Even as the rest.' Paul was no different from the others, no different from us, in this.