We need to seek as great a sense of God's holiness as we already have of His mercy. We know the power of sin from experience, but only in God's presence can we learn its guilt; and there the trifling errors which have caused us little sorrow are seen in all their depravity as brought into the light.
One has said that we do not get a right thought of sin until we realize what it cost God to put it away; and this we may only learn by prayerful meditation upon the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. "In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the LORD: it is most holy. The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it: in the holy place shall it be eaten." Lev. 6:25, 2625Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering: In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord: it is most holy. 26The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it: in the holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation. (Leviticus 6:25‑26).
All that the Lord Jesus must have felt from contact with evil, we can little understand, because we are so accustomed to its presence; but His spotless soul must have recoiled with unutterable loathing from the foul stain of our guilt, since the anguish of Gethsemane discloses the agony of His anticipation of being made sin for us, and its consequences.
We may not dare to discuss that period which God veiled in darkness from the eyes of men. The contrite heart looks back to the cross to get there an adequate sense of what sin is in the sight of God. It is less a subject for pen and ink than for penitent heart searching in God's presence.