I am not saying that there is no authentic blessing apart from incorporation into the people of God, merely that the particular blessing referred to in the Abrahamic covenant involves this. Acts 2:25-26 says that this blessing is fulfilled when people turn from their wicked ways; Galatians 3:8 says that "justification by faith" = the gospel (evangel) = "all nations blessed"; Galatians 3:29 identifies Abraham’s heirs according to this promise as those who are "in Christ". Expressions of our Christlike love, then, while blessings from God and in fulfillment of our Christian duty, do not constitute fulfillment of the promise to Abraham.

Chris, you may be right here. I agree that Paul takes ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’ to mean that the Gentiles are blessed, and therefore the promise is fulfilled, through their participation in the Spirit (Gal.3:8, 14). It’s possible, then, that too much has been made of the argument from the Abrahamic covenant that to be a blessing to the nations means more than simply offering incorporation into the people of God - ie. blessing equals reconciliation with God through Christ.

Having said that, the Old Testament does not understand the blessing of the nations through Abraham as incorporation into Israel, and it may be that we need to set Paul’s particular argument in the context of Galatians within a wider narrative framework. The possibility of becoming a descendant of Abraham does not necessarily exhaust the content of the promise that the nations would be blessed through him. It is worth noting that one aspect of sowing to the Spirit is doing good to all people, which is not limited to ‘those who are of the household of faith’ (Gal.6:8-10). Clearly, doing good to people entails more than preaching the gospel to them. The ‘priestly nation’ motif and Old Testament eschatological themes which are picked up in the New Testament (eg. Jesus’ images of a light and a city on a hill) also need to be taken into account.

Acts 3:25-26 is less useful in this argument because it is addressed to the house of Israel. It is not that the blessing of the nations is fulfilled when people in general turn from their wicked ways but that Israel will be blessed when the Jews repent. First, Israel needs to be restored through repentance and so be blessed; then this restored and refreshed people will be the means through which ‘all the families of the earth’ shall be blessed, but how this is to happen is not made explicit.