To believe is to repent, and to turn to God is to be baptized!
There is an internal or spiritual aspect and also an external or physical aspect. The internal is believing and turning to God. The external is repenting and being baptized. The internal you cannot physically see except by the external. Likewise Jesus spoke of such a distinction:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matthew 23)
Then He says,
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. These are what defile a man, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile him.” (Matthew 15)
The law was given to wash outwardly the things that defile a person, but they did not help with one’s desires. Jesus was turned over to the Gentiles to wash inwardly the things that defile a person. How? Not by conquering His enemies but by dying for His enemies. As God incarnate He could have avoided the Cross, but by His death many would have life after death—eternal life.
“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” (Matthew 26)
By believing, your heart or spirit is dealt with— the hard exterior which has been hardened by life and the world will expose itself and become sensitive. Your desires will be fixed on things above and things that are eternal — not things that are perishing.
The Jews wanted a savior that would rescue them from the Romans. But Jesus came to fight the spiritual battle of sin, not the physical of the Romans. He came to fulfill the law by dealing with the thoughts and desires of a person. Jesus fought the battle where the battle starts. The evil and good we see are the things that have been brewing in the hearts of a person for years. If we deal with simply the outcome of the evil of the inward person, it does no good; the inward is a sin factory, always producing more and more sin in the world. Jesus dealt with the inward condition of each and every one of us by His work on the Cross and by the Love of God, by the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
By His Blood, we have been cleansed of all sins; by His Body, sin has been put to death on the Cross.