The passage
      v1. In the first of a series of rhetorical questions, Paul asks "who hypnotized you Galatians", who took away your capacity to think?
      v2. His second question is repeated in v5. "By what means did you Galatians receive the promised gift of the Holy Spirit?" "Was it through obedience to the law or through faith?"
      v3-4. His third question, supported by another in v4, asks, "Are you Galatians so stupid, that having commenced your Christian walk with the gift of the indwelling Spirit of Christ by grace through faith, you now rest on law-obedience to make you perfect?"
      v6. Paul's rhetorical questions serve to underline the fact that the Galatians gained their standing in the sight of God by faith and not by works, but to settle the issue he quotes Genesis 15:6. Abraham put his trust in God's promises, and this act of faith was "credited" (counted) to him "as righteousness".
      v7. From v7-14 Paul answers a second question: who actually are God's people, and by what means do they achieve this standing? Paul answers the question with reference to Abraham. Obviously, the "circumcision group", the judaizers, have implied that God's "blessing" ("the promise of the Spirit" as the reward of right-standing before God) comes only to those who, through circumcision and obedience to the law, align themselves with the patriarch Abraham. As far as Paul is concerned, this path leads to God's "curse". The children of Abraham are the children of faith, and it is they who are blessed.
      v8. Abraham's faith in the promises of God (many descendants, etc.) serves to reveal a principle which not only applies to him and his descendents, but to all people. For this reason, it is recorded in scripture. The principle is this: a person is justified (just-if-I'd never sinned) before God by grace through faith, which principle is the substance of the gospel. The promise to Abraham that "all nations would be blessed through him", enshrines this principle.
      v9. So, it follows that those who imitate Abraham's faith are the ones who are blessed.
      v10-12. Paul now quotes three Old Testament passages (Deut.22:26a, Hab.2:4b, Lev.18:5b) in support of the proposition that justification cannot be maintained and progressed by works of the law, for the law must be fully obeyed to stand righteous before God. The law serves to evoke God's curse (expose sin and thus prompt condemnation) and therefore "the righteous will live by faith" and not works of the law.
      v13-14. Paul concludes his argument with a summary of the doctrine of justification as it applies to the law and Abraham. Christ has delivered us ("us" = we Jews, but by implication, Gentiles also) from the curse of the law and so has enabled us to share in the blessings promised to Abraham.

Delivered and blessed
      Four important statements are made in verses 13 and 14 which detail how Christ, through his death, has delivered us from the curse of the law, and on our behalf has obtained the blessing promised to Abraham:

        i] Christ submitted to the curse, pronounced by the law of God, on those who do not render perfect obedience. Although Jesus was actually the obedient son of God, he suffered as if he were a disobedient son.

        ii] Christ's submission to the curse was "for us" (for our sake). He suffered the consequence of the curse on our behalf - instead of us. As Luther put it, "forsaken for me".

        iii] By means of his submission, Christ has "redeemed" those under the condemnation of the law's curse. By fulfilling the law's demands on our behalf, both keeping it and submitting to its punitive punishment ("curse"), we are set free, liberated, from its punitive claims over us, as well as its legal demands on us. We are no longer under the condemnation of the law, nor the demands of the law as an instrument for God's approval.

        iv] In v14 Paul describes the ultimate purpose of Christ's redemptive work. Its purpose is that the promised "blessing", once offered to Abraham, might now extend to all the world. This blessing is justification, which Paul describes here in terms of our reception of the Holy Spirit. A right-standing before God, by grace through faith, entails a total self-giving of himself to us, an indwelling of his being. Standing approved before God involves experiencing his total loving acceptance for eternity.

v2
      manqein (manqanw) inf. "to learn" - be informed, find something out. Possibly used in the Old Testament sense of learning about the will of God, but more likely in a general sense of learning about something.
      pistewV (pistiV) "believing" - Understood in the active sense, rather than the passive, "the faith." Faith both reconciles us to God, v2, and serves to progress our Christian life, v5, both of which are a work of the indwelling Spirit of Christ.

v3
      anarxamenoi pneumati "beginning with the Spirit" - Describing the beginning of a believer's Christian life through the hearing and acceptance of the gospel and the reception of the Holy Spirit.