Such is the blessedness of every new creature in Christ: every believer in him is a new creature. Mind, Paul does not say, old things are passing away, but are passed away. We are not to understand him in an absolute, but in a qualified sense; for if none were new creatures till all old things are passed away, we should not find one on this side heaven. Now the year is near its close. Do not you find your old corruptions cleaving to you? Yea, the old man of sin still alive in you, just as you did at the beginning of the year, or at the beginning of days when you first believed in Christ and was made a new creature in him? Do not you also see the same reason to comply with these exhortations as at first? Put off the old man, which is corrupt." Eph. 4:22. "Cleanse yourself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." 2 Cor. 7:1.
But if all this so, how can it be said, "Old things are passed away?" Consider, Paul is not speaking of the old creation of fallen nature, but of the new creation in Christ Jesus. As men, and descendants from fallen Adam, all the sin and misery of our old nature abides with us. We are still in the flesh: in that dwells nothing but sin and evil: it is under the sentence, and must receive the wages of sin, death. But as believers in Christ, "we are passed from death to life." John 5:24. Being in him by faith, we are new creatures in a new creation.
Observe, in the foregoing verse Paul is speaking of knowing Christ and men after the flesh; but now says he, We have done with carnal views and fleshly knowledge: we are spiritual: we view and know things by faith, as new creatures in Christ. Hence, as we are passed from our old state, old things are passed away from us: our old notions of God, of Christ, of salvation, of our own righteousness, salvation by works in whole or in part–are all passed away. Yen, our delight in our old companions, in the vanities of this world, which is under the curse, and our manner of living and walking in it, are passed away. Our old way of keeping Christmas holidays, and concluding the old year in card-playing and vanity, is passed away: and if, for conscience sake, we do not keep days by any religious observance of them, we do not spend them in our old way, by "making provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." O, says one, I would not keep Christmas for the world: it is superstitious. Pray then do not keep it for the devil and the flesh: "If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit." Gal. 5:25.