On the ancient festival called Atonement Day, Israel’s high priest took blood of sacrificed animals into the most sacred part of the temple, the center of God’s worship. Doing that was a symbolic way of asking God to cover the people’s sins. (Leviticus 16:3-6, 11-16) Those sacrifices did not actually do away with all sin, so they had to be repeated each year. Still, this use of blood set a meaningful pattern.

A major teaching in the Bible is that God would eventually provide one perfect sacrifice that could fully atone for the sins of all believers. This is called the ransom, and it focuses on the sacrifice of the foretold Messiah, or Christ.

The Bible compares the Messiah’s role to what was done on Atonement Day: “When Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come to pass, through the greater and more perfect [temple] not made with hands, . . . he entered, no, not with the blood of goats and of young bulls, but with his own blood, once for all time into the holy place [heaven] and obtained an everlasting deliverance for us. Yes, nearly all things are cleansed with blood according to the Law, and unless blood is poured out no forgiveness takes place.”—Hebrews 9:11, 12, 22.

Following the pattern that God set on Atonement Day, Jesus was raised to heaven to “appear before the person of God for us.” He presented there the value of his sacrificial blood. (Hebrews 9:24)