It was before observed that God had to hide His face from the Lord Jesus on the cross, but how are we to account for such a mysterious circumstance? Simply by the words, "he (the sinner) shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head." If, in contemplating the burnt offering, we were struck by the fact that all the perfectness of the offering was communicated to the "fierce and cruel" Levi, so here we are called upon to adore the grace that devised the wondrous plan whereby that could be effected, which was by imputing to the offering all the sin and defilement of Levi, and dealing with the sin of Levi in the person of the sin offering, in order that Levi himself might be dealt with in the person of the burnt offering. And all this, be it observed, is conveyed to us in the action of "the laying on of hands." This action was performed in both cases; i.e., Levi laid his hands on the head of the burnt-offering, and Levi laid his hands on the head of the sin offering. As to the _act_, it was the same in each case; but oh, how different the results! they were, in a word, as different as life and death, heaven and hell, sin and holiness. In fact, we cannot conceive a wider contrast than that which is observable in the results of this action, to all appearance the same in each case. We may, perhaps, be able to form some idea of it by considering that the act of imposition of hands was at once the imputation of _sin_ to one "_who knew no sin_," but was "holy, harmless, undefiled," and whose very nature abhorred _all sin_. And, on the other hand, it was the imputation of _perfect righteousness_ to one who was by nature "a cruel, fierce, and self-willed murderer."[9] Furthermore, the act of imposition of hands obliged the One who from before all worlds dwelt in the bosom of the Father to travel far away into the cold and barren regions of death and darkness, where the genial and life-giving rays of His Father's countenance, which He alone could truly appreciate, had never penetrated; and standing upon the confines of which, He cried out, "_If it be possible_, let this cup pass from Me!" and again, when these gloomy regions, with their ten thousand unutterable horrors, burst upon His spotless soul, "My God, My God, WHY HAST THOU forsaken Me?" And, on the other hand, it enabled the one who dwelt in "the habitations of cruelty," into whose "assembly" God could not come, to stand in the very blaze of the light of God's throne. These considerations, I say, may perhaps assist our conceptions in some measure upon this astounding truth. Now, the apostle states the same truth in the didactic language of the New Testament when he says, "He (God) hath _made Him_ to be _sin for us_, that _we_ might be _made the righteousness_ of God _in Him_" (2 Cor. v. 21). That is, He hath made the One whose perfectness is seen in the burnt offering to be judged _as sin_, and treated as such in the sin offering, in order that _we_, who deserved the treatment of the sin