Yeshua High Priest even though He was of the tribe of Judah.

Q. In Heb 7.12 Yeshua is High Priest even though he is from the tribe of Judah. Does that mean the Torah has been done away with?

A. No, in fact it substantiates the Torah. The Scriptures teach that there is a heavenly priesthood (of the order of Melchizedek) and that predates the earthly Levitical priesthood. So, this verse is not a change to the Torah but a renewal that was already built into the Torah. Another example would be the New Covenant. It's a renewal of the Torah but the Law will be written on the heart. The Book of Hebrews has many concepts that are foreign to the average Christian. The Book was written to encourage Jewish believers in their faith and that the confidence in Yeshua is grounded in the Torah. Without an understanding of the Torah the book will be hard to understand in its proper context and that is why so many people misunderstand it. Hebrews presents Yeshua as the permanent Yom Kippur sacrifice. That is why the Talmud records that the Yom Kippur sacrifice was never accepted for the last 40 years before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. His priesthood is part of a heavenly order that began with Adam and was passed down through the first born. It is this aspect that has changed and gone back to the way it was before, to the first born. As the Torah teaches, God's intent was to have the first born dedicated to Him for the priesthood but this changed at the Golden calf. After that, the priesthood was given to the Levites. Yeshua's sacrifice is in the context of Yom Kippur. Hebrews does not teach that the sacrifices have been done away with, only that there was a change to the Yom Kippur sacrifice and the priesthood. Yeshua is after the order of the Melchizedek priesthood and that supersedes the Levitical priesthood. In fact, the Levitical was patterned after the Melchizedek. Yom Kippur comes only once a year and it was separate from the daily sacrifices. One thing people have difficulty with is if the sacrificial system was done away with, why are they conducted in Ezekiel's Temple. Ezekiel shows that the daily sacrifices will return in the Messianic Kingdom. So, many teach that these sacrifices were only done "in remembrance" or for some other reason. One thing interesting, the Book of Ezekiel teaches that there will be no Yom Kippur sacrifice. Hebrews helps us understand what Yeshua did on the cross in relation to the daily sacrifices. Yeshua was the final Yom Kippur sacrifice unto salvation and it is related to the Passover sacrifice. The themes of these two festivals overlap in the final hours of Yeshua. Yeshua and Barabbas before Pilate was a picture of the 2 goats on Yom Kippur. Yeshua was lead away "unto the Lord" and Barabbas was released into the wilderness (world) and never heard from again. The reason there is no Yom Kippur sacrifice in the Messianic Kingdom and Ezekiel's Temple is because Yeshua's death was the final Yom Kippur sacrifice unto salvation. The daily sacrifices will return because they were not the same as Yom Kippur, but were for regular reconciliation with God for daily sins. Because there is no Temple today, Yeshua is our High Priest in the heavenly Temple and is providing the daily reconciliation we need because of our sin. In other words, God accepts the words of our lips in confession (Hos 14.2) rather than the regular animal sacrifices as required by the Torah. This is illustrated in the Torah where sacrifices were done for the nations at the Feast of Sukkot. Yeshua's death was the Yom Kippur sacrifice God accepted. There will be no need for Yom Kippur in the Messianic Kingdom and that is why it is not mentioned in Ezekiel, but the daily sacrifices are recorded there for reconciliation with God for daily sins. Why did Yeshua as a Yom Kippur sacrifice die on Passover? Because it deals with salvation and the establishment of the New Covenant. Hebrews deals with Yeshua's heavenly priesthood and how it is better than the earthly priesthood in that it provided for salvation and that he lives on and does not see death, which wasn't the case with the earthly, Levitical priesthood and that alone makes it better. But just because the Yom Kippur sacrifice was not accepted or needed anymore, as history attests to. As long as there was a Temple on Earth, the daily sacrifices were required for daily sins as reconciliation with God. Once that was destroyed, Yeshua intercedes on our behalf in Heaven (1 Jn 1.9;2.2). When Ezekiel's Temple returns in the Messianic Kingdom the daily sacrificial system will be reestablished for reconciliation with God for the daily sins of the people.