The reader will, no doubt, observe a marked difference between the above passage and that in which the burnt offering was referred to; and the difference so far mainly consists in this, that in the last cited passage the words "_voluntary will_" are not found, and this was quite to be looked for. In the burnt offering we were enabled to recognize the Lord Jesus Christ _offering_ Himself voluntarily before God, in which aspect of His blessed work He could say, "No man taketh it (My life) from Me, _I lay it down of Myself_." In other words, He offered Himself "of His own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord." But in the sin offering it is quite different: "_He shall be brought_" and "_He shall be killed_;" i.e., instead of _coming_, _He shall be brought_; and instead of laying down His life of _Himself_, His life _shall be taken from Him_. These, I say, are important distinctions, and such as arise from the very nature of the two offerings. In the burnt offering the Lord Jesus is seen offering Himself in all the unblemished perfectness which belonged to Him; and in this His soul had great delight, because He was presenting that before God which was so acceptable to Him. But in the sin offering the Lord Jesus is seen standing in connection with that which His pure and spotless soul must have deeply abhorred and keenly resented--abhorred and resented, indeed, in a way of which we cannot form the faintest idea. He is seen, in a word, as standing in connection with _sin_: yea, more, as "made sin" (2 Cor. v. 21). _Thus_ it was that the prophet, through the Spirit, viewed Him when he said, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with _His stripes_ we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. liii. 5, 6). Now I believe that by looking at the two offerings in connection we get a very deep and wondrous view of sin's dark and dreadful enormity in the sight of God: for sin in this point of view appears sinful just according to the measure of Christ's perfectness in God's account. If in the burnt offering we were enabled to see that such was the beauty and excellency of Christ that His _whole man_ could go up before God as a sweet savor, and that God could "find nothing in Him" but perfection, as a necessary consequence then we must see in the sin offering the blackness and heinousness of sin, which could oblige God to hide His face from "His elect, in whom His soul delighted." This brings us to the next point connected with the sin offering, viz., "He shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head" (ver. 4). Here we have at once the secret of the deep and profound mystery of the three hours' darkness.