Does baptism compete with Christ’s grace?

He has just challenged Peter over separating from Gentiles. Later he warns that accepting circumcision on those terms obliges believers to keep the whole law.

You identify the actual controversy. Paul was resisting pressure to make Gentiles keep the law of Moses as a condition of standing with God.

He is addressing every action a Christian might take, including baptism, because all actions count as works.

Read the surrounding dispute about Gentiles and the law of Moses before extending the phrase to every act of discipleship.

Yes, if the rite is supposed to supply the righteousness Christ gives. We need to ask what role Paul gives baptism before treating the two practices as equivalent.

You grant the broader principle. The distinction turns on the role the practice plays in relation to Christ, not just which covenant it belongs to.

Baptism isn’t part of the law of Moses, so Paul’s warning has nothing to say about how we understand it.

Paul’s immediate subject is the Mosaic law. His argument about Christ’s death still tests any practice that people treat as a substitute for grace.

In Galatians 3, Paul says believers are children of God through faith and describes those baptized into Christ as having put Him on.

That is direct evidence from the same letter. It establishes that Paul can speak of faith and baptism together. Christians still disagree about exactly how baptism relates to justification.

Galatians 3 proves that justification always happens at the instant of water baptism.

The verse describes putting on Christ. It does not specify that exact sequence of events or settle every Christian account of justification.

Christ saves. Doctrine and Covenants 20 says we are justified and sanctified through His grace. We believe He calls us to repent, trust Him, and make covenants in baptism.

You name both the saving power and the response Christ commands. That answers the accusation that baptism earns righteousness while leaving the role of the ordinance open for discussion.

Jesus does His part and we earn the rest through ordinances and obedience.

That divides the work of salvation in a way Doctrine and Covenants 20 does not. Its call to repent and endure accompanies its explicit reliance on Christ’s grace.