8. (a) How did Atonement Day procedures indicate who would benefit first from Christ’s sacrifice? (b) What application of Jesus’ sacrifice was indicated by the sin offering “for the people”? (c) What further fact was illustrated by the leading away of a goat into the wilderness?

⁸ Even as blood from the bull offered for the house of Aaron was taken first into the Most Holy, so the benefits of Jesus’ sacrifice were applied first on behalf of those who would be associated with Christ in the heavenly priesthood. This was done from 33 C.E. onward. Jesus Christ had no sins for which atonement must be made, as did Aaron, but those who would be underpriests with Christ did. These were pictured by the tribe of Levi. (1 Peter 2:4, 5)

To provide a covering for sins, the high priest sacrificed two animals, the blood of each of which was presented separately in the Most Holy, as prescribed by Jehovah. First was a young bull offered up by the Aaronic high priest for “himself and his house,” which included the entire tribe of Levi. (Leviticus 16:11, 14)

7. (a) What one sacrifice was there foreshadowed? (b) Why was more than one sacrificial animal used?

⁷ The apostle Paul explains that its fulfillment centers on the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ. “Christ entered, not into a holy place made with hands, which is a copy of the reality, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the person of God for us . . . to put sin away through the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9:24-26) Then why was the blood of more than one animal taken into the Most Holy on Israel’s Atonement Day? This was to draw attention to different aspects of what Jesus’ perfect human sacrifice accomplishes.