After his questions in 3:1-5, designed to evoke a reaffirmation of faith, Paul points to the story of Abraham's faith: Consider Abraham. Since Abraham is the father of God's people, his experience with God establishes a guide to the will of God for his people. If the experience of the Galatians can be shown to correspond to the experience of the patriarch, then their experience conforms to the will of God. Verse 6 begins with a comparative conjunction (missing in the NIV): [Just as Abraham] believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Paul shows the striking similarity between the experience of the Galatians, who believed the preaching of the cross and received the blessing of the Spirit, and the experience of the great patriarch of God's people, who believed God's promise and received the crediting of righteousness. Paul draws two significant parallels between the Galatians' experience and Abraham's experience: the human response of faith and the divine blessing enjoyed by those who believe.

The human response of faith. The Galatian believers were being excluded from the family of Abraham because they did not have the required membership badge: circumcision and works of the law. "After all," they had probably been told, "circumcision is the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, and Genesis 17 declares that anyone without this sign is to be cut off from the covenant family. So you uncircumcised Gentiles cannot possibly be included in the Abrahamic family and blessing. You don't belong!" It must have been very upsetting, as it always is, to be excluded from the blessing of God and the fellowship of God's people on the basis of racial, social and religious entrance requirements.

But Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 to prove that faith is the only entrance requirement for full membership in the family of God. The close parallel between verses 5 and 6 of Galatians 3 sets Abraham's faith in contrast to the works of the law. Keeping all the requirements of the law is not the way to belong to the covenant family of God. Faith is the way to enter into a relationship with God.

The content of Abraham's faith is not specified in verse 6, but in verse 8 Paul asserts that the gospel was announced in advance to Abraham, the gospel of blessing for Gentiles. So it is not stretching the text at all to draw the conclusion that Paul sees Abraham's faith as a response to this gospel of blessing for the Gentiles. The context of Genesis 15:6 indicates that the content of Abraham's faith was God's promise of an innumerable offspring. One clear night God challenged Abraham to count the stars. Then God gave Abraham his promise: "So shall your offspring be" (Gen 15:5). When Abraham heard God's promise, he believed. His faith was a response to God's promise.

The content of the Galatians' faith is essentially the same. Their faith is believing what they heard (vv. 2, 5). What they heard was the gospel of blessing for Gentiles through the cross of Christ. So the comparison of the response of faith of Abraham and the Galatians points to a remarkable similarity that cannot be denied. No wonder, then, that Paul commands the Galatians to draw the appropriate conclusion from this comparison with Abraham: they belong to the Abrahamic family. But before we look at that conclusion, we need to examine the other side of the comparison.

The divine blessing. Believing what was heard is the basic parallel between the experience of the Galatians and the experience of Abraham. But by quoting the entire text of Genesis 15:6, Paul also sets up a parallel between the bestowal of the Spirit upon the Galatians and the crediting of righteousness to Abraham. This parallel points to the close connection between the bestowal of the Spirit and the crediting of righteousness. Paul's line of argument seems to be that the observable experience of the bestowal of the Spirit is evidence of the unobservable act of God's judicial acquittal that brings the believer within the covenant relationship. Miracles (3:5), the heart-cry of "Abba" (4:6) and the fruit of the Spirit (5:22-26) provide solid evidence of the bestowal of the Spirit. And the bestowal of the Spirit indicates that the crediting of righteousness has taken place.

Paul takes his readers back to the beginning of the story of God's family. Abraham believed God: that was how the covenant relationship with God began. As Paul argues throughout this chapter, the terms of the relationship have not been changed. This comparison with Abraham demonstrates the unity of the Bible. Receiving the blessing of God by faith is the central theme of the entire story of God's people, from the first page to the last.