The blessing promised to Abraham for all nations is appropriated by those who have faith. This application in verse 9 of verse 8's quotation from Scripture is parallel to the application in verse 7 of the Scripture quotation in verse 6. Both applications have as subject those who have faith. Two related descriptions are given of those who have faith: they are children of Abraham (v. 7), and they are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith (v. 9). The point Paul is making from his exposition of the Old Testament narrative of Abraham is that the Galatian believers are Abraham's children and recipients of Abraham's blessing.

What exactly is this blessing? In the Old Testament story God promised to bless Abraham with innumerable offspring and a land in which they would dwell. But in the context of Paul's application of this story, the blessing enjoyed by those of faith is transformed into a twofold spiritual blessing. In verse 8 Paul's introduction to the scriptural promise clearly equates the justification of the Gentiles by faith with the blessing. And the presence of the Spirit described in verses 2, 5 and 14 is presented as the observable evidence that the Galatian believers are recipients of the blessing. So justification and the gift of the Spirit are two dimensions of the blessing presented by Paul. God's declaration that Gentile believers are accepted as righteous and God's demonstration of his presence by his Spirit in the midst of the Galatian churches constitute the blessing enjoyed by faith.

Faith has been the emphasis in this section. Noun and verb forms of faith occur seven times in verses 1-9. No longer will anyone be excluded from the blessing on the basis of race; those of faith from all nations enjoy the blessing. Abraham is now the prototype of the universal people of faith, not simply the progenitor of the Jewish race. So it is not necessary to belong to the Jewish race to participate in the blessing of Abraham. All that is necessary is faith like Abraham's.

Just as the Galatian believers did not need to take on a Jewish identity in order to be Christians—their true identity as full members of the family of faith was based on their faith in Christ, not on their racial or social status—so today believers in every nation need to be encouraged to find their true identity in Christ, not in the attainment of a new ethnic identity.