As Priest, or Kohen Gadol, Jesus offered Himself as the sacrifice for all our sin. In the Old Testament, the Kohen Gadol was the mediator between the people and our Holy God. As mediator, the high priest entered the Holy Place and offered a sacrifice to God on behalf of the people once a year on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:34). He sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the mercy seat "because of the uncleanness of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins" (Lev. 16:16). Christ, as our Mediator and Kohen Gadol, not only offered the sacrifice, but He is the sacrifice. Like the high priest of old, Christ entered the Holy Place, but unlike the high priest, He entered to offer Himself. This is why in the painting I was led to paint the stripes upon His back and His precious blood being poured out upon the mercy seat. By His stripes we are healed it was because He entered this one time as our perfect sacrifice, we can enter into true freedom from sin. As the writer of Hebrews reminds us:
 
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Heb. 9:11–14)