Don't get confused by KJV language. Gal. 2:16 is not saying "faith of Jesus" as if it is Jesus exercising faith. It means we exercise faith in Christ based on the gospel message.
1. "the faith" = the set of doctrines taught by Christ and the apostles
2. "of Jesus" = regarding Christ
So then, spiritual salvation is not like your analogy. If that were so, then salvation is obtained by working works, which is completely contrary to what Paul taught. Salvation is a free gift from God. Rom. 5:18 "Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the
free gift came upon all men unto justification of life."
Phil 2:12-13 "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."
Note it says "it is God which worketh." It means that we are to work out in our lives what God has already worked in us. The cause is God working, and the result is us working it out (if we want to experience satisfying peace).
I already tried that on, and it doesn't fit in the context of Paul's teaching.
Rom. 1:5 "By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name" (KJV), "through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations" (ESV).
I'd like to focus on the phrase "obedience to the faith" rendered in the KJV, which is not a correct rendering, since the Greek phrase is "eis hupakoen pisteos" which other versions have the correct rendering "the obedience of faith." This means that faith in Christ is the obedience he is talking about. That is, faith is the obedience.
And since faith is the obedience to the gospel message, it is that righteousness that justifies us in the sight of God. Faith is what makes us in right standing with God, that is, full acceptance. Of course, it is faith in Christ.
Therefore, to claim that we believe before being born again is to claim that we are righteous before we are righteous. It's to claim that we're able to perform a righteous act, that is, to choose to believe, before we believe and before we are made righteous.
Since we didn't choose to be created before we were created, we didn't choose to become a new spiritual creation before we were spiritually created. Our choices to yield to God are the effect of God's working, and this is what pleases Him, just as He said after He chose to create us in the beginning, that it was "very good." It was by His will, and for His pleasure that we were created, and it is by His will and for His pleasure that we are recreated.
If what Paul says is true in Rom. 3:10-18 about the true condition of men's souls, then yielding can only come after spiritual rebirth.
TD