GAL 3:23. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

HEB 9:10. Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.

A. It was merely a copy, a shadow, of the real thing:

COL 2:16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days :

COL 2:17. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

HEB 8:5. Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.

HEB 9:8. The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:

HEB 9:9. Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;

HEB 10:1. For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

1JO 2:8. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.

B. The law was impossible to keep:

JOH 7:19. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?

ACT 15:10. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

ACT 7:53. Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it .

ROM 7:14. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

ROM 7:15. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

ROM 7:16. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.

ROM 7:17. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

ROM 7:18. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

ROM 7:19. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

C. This showed man he was a sinner in need of grace:

ROM 7:7. What shall we say then? is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

ROM 3:19. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

GAL 3:24. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

ROM 4:15. Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

D. The old law was unprofitable & eventually to be replaced:

ROM 8:3. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: