On the Contrary, the New Covenant is entered by the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I think you err when you state "must" be a corresponding ritual in the NT as in the OT. See my longer response to you.
Saw it.
Well done.
Now....think about this. There is a serious heresy which the Church has fought since about the 4th century -- Manicheianism (sp?). It is the heresy that the body is somehow evil and worthless but the spirit is good and worthy. It is the anthropology of the Gnostics.
Why did the ordinances of the Old Covenant involve the body? Why not, as "sola fide" seems to suggest, faith alone as supposedly exercised by Abraham and other righteous?
You see, man is a tripartite being -- body, soul, and spirit. All of man has to be redeemed -- not just the spiritual part. Sin has affected all parts of man.
Thus, not only in the Old Covenant, but in the New Covenant as well, the body and the spirit are involved in the making of covenant with God.
Secondly, even faith has a bodily component. "Faith alone" is a complete misnomer, even for you Baptist folk. You expect that when a man has faith in Jesus Christ, he will show that faith by being baptized. That is the body showing the faith which resides within. The only difference is that the Sacraments work "ex opere operato".
And they worked that way in the Old Covenant. The man who was circumcized underwent a real and substantial change in his status. He was no longer a pagan, but a member of the covenant kingdom, and was able to participate in all the ordinances which God gave for the forgiveness of sins and the celebration of the Messiah's prophesied coming.
