forgiveness Archives - Colin Dye

NEW E-BOOK FROM COLIN DYE – AVAILABLE NOW!

Colin Dye — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:05:56 +0000

Grace and Forgiveness

Meditations on Psalm 51

This psalm doesn’t offer self-repair.
It offers mercy without denial — and truth without despair.

There are few biblical texts as familiar — and as easily misunderstood — as Psalm 51.
Prayed for centuries in private confession and public worship, its words can become so well known that they are no longer truly heard. Yet Psalm 51 was not written as a devotional comfort piece. It emerged from moral collapse, prophetic confrontation, chastening that was not bypassed, and mercy that proved strong enough to restore without denial.

Grace and Forgiveness: Meditations on Psalm 51 is a slow, serious listening to this
ancient prayer. Written with restraint and theological clarity, the book allows Psalm 51 to speak in its own voice — without being softened, hurried, or reshaped to fit modern expectations.

Rather than treating repentance sentimentally or forgiveness superficially, this book traces the psalm’s full moral and spiritual logic:

forgiveness grounded in God’s righteous mercy
discipline understood as fatherly care, not condemnation
restoration that unfolds truthfully, not triumphantly
usefulness recovered without illusion or entitlement

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21,000 words • 2-hour read

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Forgiveness of Sin

Colin Dye — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:00:09 +0000

Forgiveness of sin , a sermon by Colin Dye

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Why Would anyone believe in Jesus?

Colin Dye — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:32:26 +0000

Dr RT Kendall encourages us to meditate on Isaiah chapter 53 and appreciate that our salvation comes as a result of the compassion and mercy of God

Isaiah 53 is arguably the greatest chapter in the Bible. Charles Spurgeon called it ?the Bible in miniature, the Gospel at its essence?. It is the leading messianic text of the Old Testament and is referred to by the early church more than any other passage. It points to the person and mission of Jesus- his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession – more than any other Old Testament passage.

It also lays the theological foundation for the Gospel like no other. It points both to the crucifixion and the atonement of Christ in a manner that sounds as though Isaiah 53 were written as history rather than prophecy. Indeed, it is as if Isaiah was an eye witness to what was going on between Good Friday and Easter – and even to Christ?s intercession!

And yet Isaiah 53 is prophecy – proclaiming with infallible accuracy seven hundred years in advance what Jesus would be like and what he would do.

In Acts 8:26 an angel of the Lord told Philip to go to a certain desert road. Philip had no idea why he would be given directions like that, but he went. He came to a chariot where a man happened to be reading from Isaiah 53. The Holy Spirit told Philip to go to the chariot, and Philip asked the man in the chariot (an Ethiopian eunuch) if he understood what he was reading.

The man replied: ?How can I unless someone explains it to me?? Philip accepted an invitation to sit in the chariot to explain these words, ?He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.? (Acts 8:31-33) Then Philip, beginning with that very passage of Scripture, told the Ethiopian the good news about Jesus. That verse represents the tip of the iceberg of how the early church felt about Isaiah 53. It was all about Jesus.

The name ?Jesus? does not appear in Isaiah 53, but its recurring themes – vicarious suffering, total obedience, utter willingness to suffer, the guilt of the people of God, the Lord laying on him our iniquity, being cut off from the land of the living, being numbered with the transgressors, the divine approval – all point to Jesus of Nazareth and what he did by dying on the cross. Prophecy rarely refers to a person?s actual name in advance but normally portrays the person or situation in a way that, once they have come to pass, leaves no doubt to the believer. This is a key: it is for the believer. Faith is a prerequisite in grasping prophecy in advance as well as seeing it clearly in its fulfilment. God never instructs his prophets to forecast the future in a way that removes the need for faith. Neither is the fulfilment of prophecy so definite that faith is no longer required. The exception to the latter would be the Second Coming of Jesus (Revelation1:7). There will be no doubting then! But all fulfilled prophecies in advance of the Last Day will require faith – which is partly why the Jews missed their Messiah. They needed a ?sign? and no sign was given; only the prophet?s word (Matthew 12:39).

Isaiah?s opening word in this chapter raises the question: why believe in Jesus? ?Who has believed our message?? Indeed, why should they?

There are actually two questions that open Isaiah 53: ?Who has believed our message?? and ?To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?? That latter question implies that one needs a revelation in order for a person to believe the message.

A frequent question people often ask after their conversion is: ?Why did I not see this before?? But the faith that saves is a gift of God. ?For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God? (Ephesians 2:8). One can believe only by the enabling and sovereign grace of the Holy Spirit. ?The Spirit gives life? (John 6:63). God said to Moses: ??I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.? It does not, therefore, depend on man?s desire or effort, but on God?s mercy? (Exodus 33:19). When a person believes, it is not a person ?working up faith?, because of the sheer mercy and compassion of God.

There is nothing sufficiently good in any of us that would force God to show his mercy. But if he is pleased to show it, we can only thank him. We will never be able to thank him enough.

Why then does anybody believe? Answer: it is owing to the mercy of God. Not only that; when a person is given faith they are immediately ready to obey – and ask: ?What next?? The Ethiopian eunuch believed and even asked to be baptized (Acts 8:36).

Taken from Why Jesus Died: A meditation on Isaiah 53 by Dr RT Kendall.

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God?s gift of forgiveness

Colin Dye — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:45:23 +0000

God?s gift of forgiveness must be the best news in the Bible! It meets your most basic need as a sinner and establishes your relationship with God forever.

Without forgiveness, you could never have any lasting joy, or peace, or hope. With forgiveness, however, you can say goodbye to all your guilt and shame and fear.
Because God is the eternal Creator, He?s the holy and righteous judge of the whole earth. As the moral ruler of all humanity, He must ensure that all sin is justly punished. This means that everyone should be condemned to eternal abandonment.
Nobody has any hope of standing before God in their own goodness, because no one can perfectly fulfil God?s righteous standards.
God, however, longs to re-establish the loving relationship with His creation that He enjoyed before the Fall. He aches to forgive the sins of the world, and so to be reconciled with humanity. But how can a righteous God do this?
He cannot ignore our sin, because this would make him unjust. But if He judged our sin justly, we would all be separated from Him forever.
The good news of God?s gracious and merciful forgiveness is that He?s found a solution! He has reached into His own loving nature and found a way of being both the righteous Judge of the universe and the Saviour of the world.
The solution is the cross. The Father sent His only Son into His fallen world to live a perfect life and to die a sinner?s death.
When Jesus died on the cross, God death with all the sin of the whole world. This means that you?re no longer condemned by God because of your sin.
My friend, this is the wonderful gift of forgiveness that you received when you believed in Jesus. Praise Him for it!

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God?s story of salvation: the Heavenly Father?s unconditional grace

Colin Dye — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 10:51:43 +0000

Jesus? famous story about a lost son, in Luke 15:11-32, illustrates God?s story of salvation: the heavenly Father?s unconditional grace in saving undeserving sinners.

The Prodigal Son coming home

In the parable, the son?s repentance was not a pre-condition of his father?s gracious love, it was the means which enabled him to receive his father?s forgiveness.
The father was looking and waiting long before his son returned home; and, as soon as he saw his son, he rushed out to welcome him with passionate, generous joy – without a question about his motives or misdeeds. The son found repentance in the father?s arms of acceptance. The father?s unconditional acceptance melted the boy?s heart, and the unconditional acceptance that he received resulted in changed behaviour. This shows that changed behaviour is a consequence, not a cause, of forgiveness.
The parable is such a gripping celebration of ?divine grace at work in human salvation? that it prompts some people to ask why the heavenly Father does not forgive us in much the same way – without any need for the cross. They do not understand why divine forgiveness depends on Christ?s death, and so they wonder why God does not forgive us – like the father in the parable – without a costly sacrifice.
But people who think like this have not grasped either the seriousness of human sin or the holiness of God; they have not appreciated the scale of the confrontation between human rebellion and divine perfection. In fact, the Bible implies that human sin is an immovable object which is faced with the irresistible force of God?s holy wrath.

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The Father's Grace

Colin Dye — Wed, 16 May 2012 07:42:56 +0000

A helping hand reaches out to you, the hand of the Father

Many believers hear more about the price of forgiveness and the cost of salvation than about the free-and-overflowing grace of the Father who, in his passionate desire for the homecoming of sinners, gave up his only Son.?We do not need to understand everything about salvation to receive it. We are not required to appreciate the full cost of forgiveness before we can benefit from it – we can learn about this later.
In fact, the only condition of forgiveness is that we respond to the Father?s grace with humble, outstretched arms and a thankful, joyful heart. We simply come to the Father, like the lost son in the parable, and take God at his word. This is another vital key to understanding God?s salvation by grace .
If we do not look to the Father and his grace, if he is not the focus of our faith and salvation, we may present a message which suggests that the best people can hope for is that God can be persuaded into some sort of uncomfortable tolerance of sinners by Jesus.
We may think that returning sons and daughters still need to keep their distance from the Father, and that our gratitude should be showered upon Jesus for somehow twisting the Father?s arm to allow us into a back-room of the family home as the lowest form of servant.
This sort of unbiblical thinking leads to passivity, fear, self-condemnation, low expectations, a lack of boldness, and legalism. This may have been how the prodigal son felt while he was trudging home. His prepared speech suggests that he was not truly repentant on his way home ? he still did not believe in the goodness of his father and was therefore still lost, alienated from his father .
But of course, this does not represent the father in Jesus? parable, and it is a terrible caricature of the heavenly Father who sent his Son into a far country to make a way home, and who is now waiting with longing to usher us into his presence as sons and daughters with unconditional grace and uninhibited celebration.
To be a believer is to know that the Father has defined our identity through the cross and that he now calls us his sons and daughters. He beckons us to come forward and receive the inheritance of our salvation – the robe of sonship, the ring of authority, the sandals of freedom, and so on.
It is this free grace of the Father which initiates the sending of the Son and sets up salvation – so that the Father may open his arms and welcome the multitudes of children who are brought to glory by the Son through the Spirit.

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Forgiveness Comes First

Colin Dye — Sun, 13 May 2012 09:56:52 +0000

The woman caught in the act of adultery, a scene of The Passion of the Christ

The words of Jesus to the woman caught in the act of adultery are staggering: ?I do not condemn you.? Jesus, the ultimate judge of the universe refused to condemn this woman although she was clearly a sinner. But this was exactly what His mission was all about.
Jesus died on the cross to save sinners. This forgiveness is not a cover up for sin or an excuse for continuing in it. The next words of Jesus were, ?Go, and sin no more.? But the forgiveness came first. We can only live for God fully and freely when we know we have been fully and freely forgiven
Key Thought
Faith gives you access to the unconditional forgiveness of God. And this faith also leads you to respond in love and gratitude to the Father by turning away from sin in your life. First, you hear Jesus say, ?I don?t condemn you.? And then, come the words, ?Go, and sin no more.?
Prayer
Lord, I thank you that as I look to You for forgiveness You do not condemn me. You love me just as I am, but too much to leave me that way. Please help me to turn away from everything that offends You.
Discipleship Steps
Once you understand that you don?t have to earn forgiveness or work to gain God?s acceptance, you can really begin to deal with sin in your life. You have a new motivation for living ? the Father?s love. Begin to look at the sin in your life from this perspective. Respond to God?s love by turning away from the things that you know displease Him but do so out of a genuine expression of your love for Him.
Read: John 8:2-11

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Convicted of Sin or Convicted of Righteousness?

Colin Dye — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:00:37 +0000

At the foot of the cross we find forgiveness

We are studying the seven arks of revival that a unbeliever should look for in their life. Last month we looked at the first of these: the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

The second mark is this: you will be convicted of sin. Let me make one thing clear straightaway – we are talking about conviction, not condemnation. The Bible says that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8: 1). But we also know that, once we are born again, the problem of sin has not disappeared. We have hope for something better – for a life of victory. Condemnation kills hope, but conviction opens us up to God’s cleansing.

Many Christians have never really been truly, deeply convicted of their sin – even at their conversion. They may have accepted in their minds that sin must be dealt with, but they lose sight of how serious it is, Sin violates our relationship with God. It destroys our experience of God’s goodness. It insults the grace of God that is freely given to us. Paul said that just because his conscience was clear did not mean that he was innocent (1 Corinthians 4:4)! In other words, there can be sin in our lives of which we are not even aware. Revival exposes these hidden areas, not to create guilt, but to set us free.

Time to be washed

Others downplay the seriousness of sin for Christians. They rightly emphasise God’s grace, but to the point where no motivation is left to live in holiness. Jesus addressed this when he washed his disciples’ feet. When Peter asked for his whole body to be washed, Jesus told him that “anyone who has had a bath, needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean” (John 13: 10).

Conviction does not drive us down, but lifts us up. Revival brings a consciousness of sin. This is not human feelings of guilt, but an awareness of God’s holiness that causes us not to want to sin in the first place. Jesus’ burden is light. Many of you are carrying burdens that are caused by sin. You are weighed down – needlessly. But as we turn to him, asking for forgiveness, he cleanses us. Let the fire of revival burn through your life today, destroying guilt and the power of sin.

Once we are saved, our relationship with God is on a totally different?footing. We now live under the blood of Jesus. Through the blood,?God becomes our Father, and no longer deals with us according to?the principle of the law.?As a loving, heavenly Father, he?draws us closer and closer to his heart, and leads us out of the works?of darkness so that we can enjoy fellowship with him in the light.?In other words, we were cleansed once for all at the cross and the?blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing us as we walk in the light with?him. When we sin, we bring it to the light, with full assurance that the?blood is cleansing us and removing any hindrance to our fellowship?with God. We own our sin in his holy presence only to disown it in?the light of his grace and forgiveness. We never allow guilt or sin-consciousness?to have a resting place in our hearts. We maintain a?clear conscience before God by walking in the light of his love. This is?true repentance ? we reject our sin and embrace who we are in Christ.

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What is true repentance?

Colin Dye — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:15:32 +0000

A painting of the prodigal son

The son did not find repentance in the far country. He found it in the arms of his father. Repentance is a change of mind and heart about the Father.
Repentance means changing your mind about God. It comes from a revelation of the Father’s heart. It then leads to a complete turnaround of life. It is a revelation of love and sonship.
The son came back with some changed attitudes but with no true?revelation of the grace and love of his father. He found that in the forgiving arms of the father.
You will never break free from your past by trying to be better, to do more for God or to be worthy before him. All your worthiness is found in him. As you discover how deeply the Father loves you and how fully and freely he has accepted you in Christ, your life will begin to turn around

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Should we confess our sins?

Colin Dye — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:18:42 +0000

I want you to understand the difference between God’s ?parental?forgiveness, and His judicial?forgiveness.?When God withholds his?parental?forgiveness, he does not put us back under condemnation. Our sins can never count against us again because God has totally forgiven and forgotten them. He cancelled our debt and credited us with the righteousness of Christ. We received this?judicial?forgiveness once and for all by faith in the blood of Jesus. God, the righteous judge, judged all our sins on the cross and removed condemnation from our lives forever!

Do we need to confess our sins?

Now we can understand that our heavenly Father will never reject or abandon his children, even when we let him down. But when we sin, it hinders our fellowship with him, especially when we withhold forgiveness from others. The only way God blesses us is by grace, and when we move away from this principle, God cannot pour into our lives all the blessings he has for us. Therefore, the Father always calls us back to his grace. A person who is truly walking in grace will also walk in the light of God?s total forgiveness and will have no problem forgiving others.
Every day we come before our heavenly Father and thank him for his forgiveness ? the forgiveness that makes us his sons and daughters. Every day we show him that we are walking in grace by forgiving others the wrongs they have done against us. And the blessings of the Father flow freely into our lives.

In the Lord?s Prayer, Jesus taught us principles to govern our daily life of prayer. For example, he taught us to depend on him for physical provision: ?Give us this day our daily bread.?
He also taught that we are to walk in the light of his forgiveness: ?Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.? Many people misunderstand Jesus? meaning here. They think he is teaching that no sin can be forgiven until we specifically confess it to God. But remember God has already forgiven all our sins at the cross! We have received judicial forgiveness once for all.
Jesus is not going back on his word. In fact, the Lord?s Prayer calls us to remind ourselves daily that God is our heavenly Father ? that we live under his judicial forgiveness and cleansing. This means we reject the kind of morbid introspection some religious teachers demand. They tell us to ?keep short accounts with the Lord? searching within ourselves for every imperfection and confessing every single new sin we discover, because until we do that, these sins remain unforgiven. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus took all our sins and nailed them to the cross. This means that the judgment of God has now been completely lifted from us. God has totally forgiven and forgotten all our sins ? past, present and future.
Some people ask how God can forgive the sins we have not even committed yet! When Jesus died, you were yet to be born. You had not yet committed one single sin ? all your sins were in the future. Jesus became your substitute sacrifice for sin more than 2,000 years ago. God has already judged all your sins on the cross, because you believe in Jesus. It would now be totally unjust for God to demand further judgement. Jesus carried your sins on the cross so that you would never have to carry them again.
We receive God?s total forgiveness by trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross. When we trusted in Christ, God declared us righteous, not by our own works or efforts, but by his grace. This means our sins will never again be held against us by God. This truth is clearly expounded by Paul in Romans chapter 4 as he quotes from one of the Psalms of King David.
Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ?Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin.?
Romans 4:4-8
This shows us clearly that forgiveness is absolutely free ? it does not depend on our works. We are forgiven because we believe right, not because we live right. Forgiveness is also total and complete. God will not allow any sin (past, present or future) to count against us. God will never impute sin or hold us accountable for the sins we commit. Instead, he imputes to our account the infinite righteousness of Christ.
Some say that this is impossible because it means we can go on sinning and it will not matter. That is not true. Holy living does not come about by living under the threat of judgment. It comes from knowing the genuine forgiveness of all our sins. We live right because we are forgiven Jesus said, ?The one who has been forgiven much loves much.? In other words, when we walk in the grace and forgiveness of the Father, we leave aside the old way of living ? in fact, we die to the old way of sin when we escape from its guilt and condemnation. Look at the way Paul deals with this point.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
Romans 6:1-2
We are set free from sin by walking in the forgiveness God has given us, and not by the constant thought that there are always more sins to be forgiven because we live imperfect lives.
When Jesus tells us to ask the Father daily to forgive our sins, he is talking about parental forgiveness, not judicial forgiveness. We are made right with God through the once-for-all judicial forgiveness granted at the cross. But, walking in parental forgiveness means fellowshipping with the Father day by day, depending on his grace and the continual cleansing of the blood.
By calling God ?our Father?, we remind ourselves that all our sins have been dealt with at the cross. We come back to the principle of grace. Knowing the blood of Jesus has cleansed us and keeps on cleansing us from all sin, is the secret of walking in victory. John, the disciple who knew more about the love of Jesus than anyone else, teaches this principle in his letter to Christians:
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
1 John 2:1-2
What does he say ? we must confess our sins, otherwise we will be condemned? No! He reminds us that if we sin we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence ? one who maintains our position of ?no condemnation? before God. Earlier in his letter, where John talks about the need to confess sins he is referring to how we came to Christ by confessing that we were sinners and needed God?s salvation. John makes it clear that the ?blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing us from sin? (1 John 1:7). Once we have confessed our sin and received God?s gift of salvation we walk in the forgiveness of God.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:8-10

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