The rite of consecration [setting one apart] unto God practiced by the Israelites was circumcision. The Apostle Paul uses that symbol today as a picture of God putting off your old nature, “In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;” Paul then uses the symbol of baptism to illustrate the dying and burial of your old nature and your receiving [by resurrection] the very nature of Jesus Christ. “Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” (Col 2: 11-12). Thus, your triumphant salvation is, from beginning to end, all of the grace of God.