“For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law?” (Romans 2:25-27).
Like circumcision for the Jews in the Old Testament, baptism in the New Testament marks the point in which a person crosses from being an outsider to God’s current covenant to being a partaker of it (Colossians 2:11-12). For a Jewish male, this decision was made for him by the eighth day of his life outside his mother’s womb. To become a Christian, no one but you can make that decision, and it is only Scripturally valid after you have been taught the gospel (John 6:45) and desire to obey it.
Neither circumcision (for the Jews under the Law of Moses) nor baptism (for the Christian under the Law of Christ) is profitable if it does not result in a lifetime of obedience to God’s will.
In giving His great commission to the apostles, Jesus instructed them to make disciples by baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teaching these baptized believers to observe all things He commanded them (Matthew 28:19-20). To be baptized and then fail to live obediently is exactly like a Jew who was circumcised and then lived in rebellion to God’s law. He is a heathen at heart and life.
Regardless of the covenant, obeying God’s commandments is not optional (Ecclesiastes 12:13; Acts 10:35). It is the sole determining factor of whether your religion is profitable or profitless.
