Some Biblical references for others to chew on:
Paul says:
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. (Eph 2:12)
Gentiles were strangers to the covenant.
You are separated from Christ, you who are trying to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. (Gal 5:4)
Are you unaware, brothers (for I am speaking to people who know the law [i.e. Jews]), that the law has jurisdiction over one as long as one lives? Thus a married woman is bound by law to her living husband; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law in respect to her husband. Consequently, while her husband is alive she will be called an adulteress if she consorts with another man. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and she is not an adulteress if she consorts with another man.
In the same way, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to the one who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the flesh, our sinful passions, awakened by the law, worked in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, dead to what held us captive, so that we may serve in the newness of the spirit and not under the obsolete letter. (Rom 7:1-6)
We [Jews] are put to death to the Law
We [Jews] are released from the Law
Paul himself declares he is no longer under the Law.
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law--though not being myself under the law--that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law [Gentiles] I became as one outside the law--not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ--that I might win those outside the law.
He also makes here a clear distinction between those under the Law (the Jews) and those not under the Law (the Gentiles)
Before faith came, we [Jews] were held in custody under law, confined for the faith that was to be revealed. Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian. (Gal 3:23-25).
We (Jews) are not under the Law
Paul describes the Jews and Gentiles as separated but then he says:
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, (Eph 2:13-15)
The Law has been abolished.
Col 2 says much the same:
And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Col 2:14)
On the one hand, a former commandment is annulled because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law brought nothing to perfection; on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. (Heb 7:18-19)
When there is a change of priesthood, there is necessarily a change of law as well. (Heb 7:12)
For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second one. But he finds fault with them and says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. (Heb 8:7-8)
When he speaks of a “new” covenant, he declares the first one obsolete. And what has become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing (Heb 8:13)
He takes away the first to establish the second (Heb 10:9)
