On only one day a year, on the Atonement Day, was the high priest permitted to enter the Most Holy compartment of the tabernacle or of the temple. (Heb 9:7; Le 16:2, 12, 14, 15)

He thereafter took perfumed incense and the fire holder full of burning coals from off the altar and went inside the curtain, entering the Most Holy. The incense was burned in this innermost room, where the ark of the testimony was located, the cloud of the burning incense overspreading the golden Ark cover on which were two cherubs fashioned in gold. (Le 16:12, 13; Ex 25:17-22) This act paved the way for Aaron afterward to reenter the Most Holy safely.

Aaron, returning from the Most Holy, obtained some of the bull’s blood, entered this compartment with it, and spattered some of the blood with his finger seven times in front of the Ark cover on the E side. Thus was completed the atonement for the priesthood, which rendered the priests clean and able to mediate between Jehovah and his people.​—Le 16:14.

The high priest then took the blood of the goat for Jehovah into the Most Holy, using it there to make atonement for the 12 nonpriestly tribes of Israel. In a manner similar to the handling of the bull’s blood, the blood of the goat was sprinkled “toward the cover and before the cover” of the Ark.​—Le 16:15.

The apostle also indicates that the high priest’s entry into the Most Holy one day a year with the blood of sacrificial animals foreshadowed the entrance of Jesus Christ into heaven itself with his own blood, thus to make atonement for those exercising faith in his sacrifice. Of course, Christ, being sinless, did not have to offer sacrifice for any personal sins, as did Israel’s high priest.​—Heb 9:11, 12, 24-28.

Aaron sacrificed the bull for the priests and the rest of the tribe of Levi, sprinkling its blood in the Most Holy. (Le 16:11, 14) Christ comparably presented the value of his human blood to God in heaven, where it could be applied to benefit those who would come to rule with him as priests and kings. (Re 14:1-4; 20:6) The goat for Jehovah was also sacrificed and its blood was spattered before the Ark in the Most Holy, this to benefit Israel’s nonpriestly tribes. (Le 16:15) Similarly, the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ also benefits mankind aside from priestly spiritual Israel.