First of all, Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill.
Jesus was the fulfillment of the OT law which was a picture of Him and His perfect and final sacrifice for our sin. After His death, there was no need for the law anymore. To get a much deeper understanding of what this means, read the books of Romans and Hebrews. Romans pertains particularly to Christians and Hebrews pertains particularly to Jews but both talk about the fact that we are no longer under law but under grace.
Specifically, Romans says the following regarding why we are no longer bound by OT law.
Rom 3:19 But we know that whatever things the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law; so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be under judgment before God,
Rom 3:20 because by the works of the Law none of all flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law is the knowledge of sin.
Rom 3:21 But now a righteousness of God has been revealed apart from Law, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets;
Rom 3:22 even the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ, toward all and upon all those who believe. For there is no difference,
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,
Rom 3:24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;
Rom 3:25 whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness through the passing by of the sins that had taken place before, in the forbearance of God;
Rom 3:26 for the display of His righteousness at this time, for Him to be just and, forgiving the one being of the faith of Jesus.
Rom 3:27 Then where is the boasting? It is excluded. Through what law? Of works? No, but through the law of faith.
Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the Law.
The law was there to define and expose sin. Salvation was impossible to attain through the law because nobody could keep it. It is through God's grace that we are justified and redeemed through the blood of Jesus. His blood covers our sins so that we may be righteous before the Father.
Rom 5:13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Rom 5:20 But the Law entered so that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,
Rom 5:21 so that as sin has reigned to death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under Law, but under grace.
Sin was in the world but the law made people responsible for their sins. When sin was imputed upon us through the law, we were given a death sentence to Hell because of our unrighteousness but God used this to show is amazing grace. God's grace is more abundant than the deserved wages of our sin. This is the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Righteousness has been imputed to us through God's grace and the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Rom 7:1 Or are you ignorant, brothers; for I speak to those who know the Law; that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?
Rom 7:2 For the married woman was bound by law to the living husband. But if the husband is dead, she is set free from the law of her husband.
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband lives, she is married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress by becoming another man's wife.
Rom 7:4 So, my brothers, you also have become dead to the law by the body of Christ so that you should be married to Another, even to Him raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God.
Rom 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sin worked in our members through the law to bring forth fruit to death.
Rom 7:6 But now we having been set free from the Law, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
Rom 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Let it not be said! But I did not know sin except through the law. For also I did not know lust except the law said, You shall not lust.
Rom 7:8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all kinds of lust. For apart from law sin was dead.
Rom 7:9 For I was alive without the law once. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
Rom 7:10 And the commandment, which was to life, was found to be death to me.
Rom 7:11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.
Rom 7:12 So indeed the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
Rom 7:13 Then has that which is good become death to me? Let it not be! But sin, that it might appear to be sin, working death in me by that which is good; in order that sin might become exceedingly sinful by the commandment.
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 know not. For what I desire, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do.
Rom 7:16 If then I do that which I do not desire, I consent to the law that it is good.
Rom 7:17 But now it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I do not find.
Rom 7:19 For I do not do the good that I desire; but the evil which I do not will, that I do.
Rom 7:20 But if I do what I do not desire, it is no more I working it out, but sin dwelling in me.
Rom 7:21 I find then a law: when I will to do the right, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the Law of God according to the inward man;
Rom 7:23 but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin being in my members.
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then with the mind I myself serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
This is probably the key chapter. When we are born again in the spirit through Jesus, our old self dies. Until we are born again and dead to our sin, we are still bound by the law and held accountable for our transgressions under the law just as the woman was bound by the law to her husband until his death. When our old self dies and we are born again, we are freed from the burden of the law and married to Christ. (Another perfect picture of marriage as it is intended to be.) We can now serve in the newness of the Spirit, as it says in verse 6, and not in the oldness of the letter (Law).
Paul tells us that the law was given to reveal our sin but was never intended to bring us to salvation. (Many Jews falsely believed that following the law led to salvation which is why the book of Hebrews was written). Salvation has always come by God's grace through our faith in Christ and not of our ability to follow the law.
This is extremely important to the Christian believer. Paul talks about our ignorance of this four times in the book of Romans. This book may be the most important book of the Bible to understand. It talks about so many things that we need to be knowledgeable of such as imputed righteousness, the restoration of the Jews as God's people, the rejection of God's truth, the pursuit of fleshly lusts and sin, the purpose of Christians in our relationship to the Jews, and how we are to walk as Christians.
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