Circumcision: It's not just for Jewish men anymore

I'm pretty sure I was raised to avoid thinking of baptism as being the "Christian circumcision"; at least that's what my brain tells me I "should" remember, although I can't actually remember learning that.

Nonetheless, the other day I read this passage:

In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism....

Col. 2:11-12

Seems to me that makes it pretty clear that baptism is the "Christian circumcision".

Maybe I'm just wrong about what I think I was probably taught.

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In trying to find this passage just now using BibleGateway.com, I came across another interesting passage:

We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before!

Rom. 4:9-10


Putting these two passages together, it would seem that righteousness by faith is credited prior to baptism.

However, I'm of the mind that the New Testament makes it clear that it is at the point of immersion that one gains a new life, has his sins washed away, dies to the old life, etc. So I think perhaps my leaning now is to believe that God may very well credit righteousness at the point of faith/decision, but that it's not "official" until immersion, and we have no business teaching otherwise.

But, what do I know?