Month: October 2026

Nine verses, 147 Greek words, and one question Paul asks four times. This study reads the paragraph word by word: every form parsed, every count taken from the whole Greek New Testament, every claim traceable to the text or to a public-domain commentator.

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THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS ·

AN EXPANDED PARAPHRASE

11. THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Ch. 1: 16-11: 36

https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/eq/1958-4_220.pdf

The Way of Holiness (Romans 6–8)
F.F. Bruce, “The Epistle to the Romans: An Expanded Paraphrase,” The Evangelical Quarterly 30.4 (1958), pp. 220–225

What it is: This is not a commentary. It is one installment of Bruce’s serialized paraphrase of Romans, rendering Paul in plain modern English. It picks up mid-series (“Continued”) and ends “To be continued.”

The big idea: Grace is no license to sin. Through union with Christ the believer is set free from three tyrants: sin, the law, and death.

Three freedoms

1. Freedom from sin (ch. 6). “Why not go on sinning?” Bruce answers, “Perish the thought!” Baptized into Christ’s death, our “old personality was crucified along with Him.” We are slaves of someone, so present yourselves to God. “Sin pays its slaves the wages of death; God bestows eternal life as His free gift.”
2. Freedom from the law (7:1–25a). Like a widow free to remarry, we “died in relation to the law” and are united to the risen Christ. The law is “holy, righteous and good,” but sin used it as “a base from which to attack me.” The cry “Unhappy man that I am!” ends in “Thanks be to God.”
3. Freedom from death (7:25b–8:39). God sent His Son “as a sin-offering” and “passed the death-sentence on sin.” The Spirit makes us sons who cry “Abba,” joint-heirs with Christ. Creation groans in “birth-pangs,” the Spirit intercedes, and God “causes everything to co-operate for good.”

The finale (8:31–39): “If God is on our side, who can be against us?” Christ is “our Advocate” at God’s right hand, and nothing in all creation “can ever separate us from God’s love which is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Takeaways
• Holiness flows from union with Christ, not from law-keeping.
• The law exposes sin; it cannot conquer it. The Spirit can.
• Present suffering is not worth comparing with coming glory.
• Bruce’s phrasing (“old nature,” “penal servitude,” “investiture as sons”) makes familiar verses fresh.

Note: the big idea and takeaways are my framing. Everything quoted is Bruce’s own wording from the PDF.

Comforting Questions (Romans 8:31-39)
Bob Deffinbaugh, from the bible.org series “Romans: The Righteousness of God,” lesson 20

The big idea: Real confidence doesn’t come from ourselves. It comes from God’s sovereign love and Christ’s finished work. Paul closes Romans 1-8 with questions that have no possible answer, and that silence is the comfort.

Two movements
• No condemnation (vv. 31-34). This picks up the “no condemnation” of 8:1.
• No separation (vv. 35-39). Nothing can cut us off from Christ’s love.

Key points

1. “If God is for us, who is against us?” God, who chose and predestined His people, is actively working for them. Every other opponent shrinks by comparison, like anyone threatening a cub with a grizzly standing guard.
2. “Will He not freely give us all things?” If God gave His Son, He will give everything salvation requires. “The cross is not the measure of our worth; it is the measure of God’s love.”
3. “Who will bring a charge?” In the courtroom, the One with the right to judge has become our defender and intercessor, so no accusation stands (compare Isaiah 50).
4. Suffering isn’t defeat. Hardship refines us and spreads the gospel. Calvary looked like a loss and was a victory, so we “overwhelmingly conquer” (compare Psalm 44).
5. Nothing in creation separates us. Death, life, angels, powers, the present, the future, height, depth: God rules all of it.

Takeaways
• Security rests on God’s sovereignty, not on self-confidence.
• Security frees us to serve out of gratitude, not fear.
• It’s no excuse for spiritual laziness.
• Scripture assumes true believers endure, so the real question is whether you belong to Christ.
• The right response is humility, gratitude, dependence and praise.

By “Classical Reformed” I mean the Reformers, Puritans, Particular Baptists, Dutch Reformed scholastics, and later Reformed writers—Calvin, Owen, Bunyan, Watson, Flavel, Edwards, Gill, Spurgeon, Warfield, Hodge, etc.—there is a remarkable amount available legally for free.

For your interests, I’d start with these:

1. Monergism — Best overall starting point. It is explicitly committed to historic Reformed theology and has a huge topical library plus 1,500+ free Reformed and Puritan ebooks, including Calvin, Owen, Watson, Edwards, Warfield, Berkhof, Spurgeon, and many others. Many works are available in PDF/ePub or readable online. Monergism
2. Chapel Library — Especially recommended for you. Chapel Library’s confessional standard is the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession, and it distributes Christ-centered literature without charge. Its catalog approaches 1,000 titles and includes Calvin, Spurgeon, Bunyan, Pink, Ryle, Bonar, and numerous Puritans. Chapel Library
3. Post-Reformation Digital Library (PRDL) — Best for serious historical research. This is an extraordinary academic index of primary-source material from the Reformation and post-Reformation period. It currently catalogs more than 110,000 titles and 149,000 volumes, including tens of thousands associated with the Reformed tradition. Particularly useful when researching obscure Puritan and Reformed scholastic sources. Post-Reformation Digital Library
4. Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) — Best broad classics library. Not exclusively Reformed, so theological discernment is required, but it contains many classic works from Calvin, Edwards, Hodge, Schaff, Augustine, and others. Reformed Theological Seminary includes CCEL among its recommended free research databases. Reformed Theological Seminary
5. Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary Open Access Resources — Best research portal. This is particularly useful because PRTS has already assembled links to numerous serious open-access theological collections, including PRDL, Puritan resources, open-access theological libraries, Reformation resources, Spurgeon archives, and specialized Reformed collections. WPLibrary
6. Internet Archive — Best for scans of old editions. Search by author/title for original scans of Puritan, Presbyterian, Particular Baptist, and Reformed works. This becomes especially useful when a work isn’t transcribed elsewhere.
7. Google Books — Excellent for public-domain theological books. Particularly useful for 18th- and 19th-century editions of commentaries, systematic theologies, sermon collections, and historical works. RTS specifically includes Google Books among its research resources. Reformed Theological Seminary
8. Project Gutenberg — Good for clean downloadable editions. Its Reformed collection isn’t nearly as focused as Monergism, but public-domain editions are often available in excellent EPUB/Kindle-friendly formats. RTS also lists Gutenberg among its research databases. Reformed Theological Seminary
9. Westminster Theological Seminary Resources — Reformed academic material. Useful for more scholarly Reformed material, including lectures, archived media, theological writing resources, Westminster-related research, and access points to Reformed scholarship. Westminster Theological Seminary
10. Reformed Theological Seminary Library Resources — Excellent gateway page. Rather than being primarily a repository itself, RTS maintains a useful directory pointing to CCEL, Project Gutenberg, Monergism, open-access theological databases, historic Bible collections, dissertations, journals, and other research resources. Reformed Theological Seminary

For a Reformed Baptist library

Given your particular interest in confessional Reformed Baptist theology, I’d bookmark them roughly in this order:

Chapel Library → Monergism → PRDL → CCEL → Internet Archive → PRTS Open Access Resources.

There is a useful distinction between them. Chapel Library and Monergism are curated theological libraries; PRDL is a scholarly primary-source research tool; CCEL, Internet Archive, Google Books, and Gutenberg are broad digital libraries where you need to know what authors you’re looking for.

For your Romans commentary project, PRDL deserves special attention. It isn’t merely a collection of popular Puritan books: it catalogs primary sources involving the Reformed churches, Puritans, Westminster Assembly, Synod of Dort, historic commentaries, theological disputations, confessions, catechisms, and early-modern Reformed scholarship. Post-Reformation Digital Library

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