To be 'under the Law' means that I look to the Law for my standing before God, and I am judged by the Law. It was the position that the Scribes and Pharisees took in practise. By 'keeping' the Law perfectly, including the sacrifices, they sought to find favour with God.
According to Jesus, the Pharisees didn't seek favor from God by obeying Him. Jesus said they created their own laws.
Matt. 15:
7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with
their lips; but their heart is far from me.
9 But in vain they do worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
John 7:
19 Did not Moses give you the law, and
yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?
Matt. 23:
4 For they (Pharisees, not God) bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne,
and lay them on men's shoulders; but they
themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
Acts 7:
51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost:
as your fathers did, so do ye.
52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
53 Who have received the law by the disposition of angels,
and have not kept it.
John 5:
46 For
had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?
I know there are "MANY" who come in Christ's name who preach that the Pharisees were trying to earn salvation by following the Letter of God's Laws. But if I listen to Jesus and the Prophets who warned over and over, not about priests which obeyed God, but a about priests who created their own religion, I find that this teaching is not from God's Word.
Isn't it true that God sent them Prophets to straighten them out? Why? Because they were trying to obey the letter of God's Laws? Or because they had corrupted God's Laws?
And what did the Prophets in your Bible tell these Priest's and Pharisees? It's in your Bible.
This teaching that the Mainstream Preachers of Christ's time were striving to follow God's Laws in a horrible falsehood that has snared "many" people.
By 'keeping' the Law perfectly, including the sacrifices, they sought to find favour with God
This is simply untrue if one considers God's Word as the source of truth.
There was a Priest that did strive to honor God with obedience though.
Luke 1:
5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife
was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name
was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
It might be prudent to note that Zechariahs knew Jesus when He came, and the Pharisees didn't. Of couse he did, it was the promise of the Christ.
John 14:
21 He that hath my commandments,
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him,
and will manifest myself to him.
So why do religious men teach the Pharisees were following God's Laws when their Savior teaches just the opposite?