The Exodus quote doesn't say what you would have it mean.
"Do X because Y" does not (necessarly) mean "do X to remember Y".
Exodus 20
8 "
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11
For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Well, like the rest of the law, God told Israel to do ....
That neither means it is for all time nor for all people.
So are you saying that we are no longer to follow the Law?
Even Jesus says we are to. Not to follow it the way it had been followed but to follow it the way He was showing his disciples to follow it, by faith.
John 14:21
Whoever has my commands and
obeys them,
he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."
If we don't follow the Law, then we will be guilty of the lawlessness Jesus talks about here:
Matthew 7
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you;
depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Indeed, reading the Exodus quote closely ought to make the point quite clearly - we live in the beginning of the New Creation that began on Easter morning and is not yet complete.
True. I agree with that.
What I disagree with is the idea that because we are now a "new creation", God's Law does not apply to us anymore. Jeremiah talks about this, that there would be a new covenant made with us, and that God would "write the Laws on our hearts"
Jeremiah 31
31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them, "
declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
35 This is what the LORD says,
he who appoints the sun
to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar—
the LORD Almighty is his name:
36 "Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,"
declares the LORD,
"will the descendants of Israel ever cease
to be a nation before me."
37 This is what the LORD says:
"Only if the heavens above can be measured
and the foundations of the earth below be searched out
will I reject all the descendants of Israel
because of all they have done,"
declares the LORD.
It seems to me quite clear from Galations that that is not the case. The law is part of our history, so in that sense it is for us and we need it to live in continuity with it, but it never was for all people or all time. It's purpose came to it's fullfilment in Jesus of Nazareth and specifically in his death and resurrection.
In Galatians, Paul was writing to preach against the false Gospel that they Galatians had accepted, after Paul had left them. This Gospel was the idea that the separation between Jew and Gentile still existed in this "New Creation". It doesn't.
The Law is holy, and is for all time. Even in the New Heaven and the New Earth, we will still have to love God and love our neighbour. Murder, adultery, stealing, all of these things will still be wrong there.
The heart of Christ's teachings was that the Law cannot be obeyed the way the Jews were trying to, by our own strength. Rather, God, through Jesus, will enable us to do so, by changing us from the inside, from our spirit. Once we are transformed, we can keep the Law.
I don't think we do as such. But the difference between following the others and consequence of following Jesus is less clear. I don't go around killing people, but my reason for doing so is not "the 10 commandments prohibit it".
That's not what is meant by talking about circumcision as private. Circumcision is the private badge of God's people in the sense that it is inside one's underwear and not (generally) publically visible. One's keeping of the sabbath is public because it's publically visible. Just as for the Christian one's faith is private (not publicly visible) but the way one behaves in all things (works, if you like) are publically visible.
That was not the point I was making. The point I was making was that the circumcision was a sign of the covenant God made with Abraham. Circumcision was given about 430 years before the Law, so to refer to the circumcision as irrelevant is wrong.
The act of physical circumcision was one of God's commands just as much as the sign of sabbath keeping. The purposes of both have come to an end. As you note the OT speaks all over the places of circumcision of the heart, but that never negated the physical act.
The Sabbath is because God rested on the 7th day in the creation week. As this sign points back in time, and always has, it has not come to and end.
Just as faith has replaced physical circumcision, the whole law has been replaced by regeneration in Christ, because that's the (from its point of view) future that it existed to bring about.
So once you are regenerated, what do you do? Are you free to do what you want, with this gift God gives?
NO!!!
We are supposed to live the life Christ gives us, because He died the death meant for us. Even Christ said that he did not come to remove the Law, but to fulfill it.
