Paul has some interesting terminology here that is not at once apparent in our English translations but is more so in Greek and probably in the Hebrew terms that stand behind it. Paul says that he delivered to the Christians in Corinth that which he had received. Those two terms, “delivering” and “receiving,” to us sound like just incidental verbs. But in the language of rabbinic literature, those two terms were important because they describe what was the essential duty of a disciple of a master. A disciple of an older rabbi was to receive from him that which was the wisdom of the rabbis, and then without altering it in any respect, he was to pass it on to those who would go on to be his disciples. The rabbis used to say that a perfect disciple was like a plastered cistern: “He loseth not a drop.”
Their idea of knowledge was not what we think of. We think of an educated person being able to think creatively, to make up things for themselves, and to have new ideas. However, that was not the rabbinic idea at all. They believed that the teaching handed down to them from antiquity was really the wisdom of God. Therefore, the good disciple is one who just absorbs that instruction word for word, memorizes it, and then, without changing it in the slightest, passes it on.
This is an important point for how we regard the origins of the New Testament. There has been a tendency for biblical scholars to say that the writers of the Gospels, and even Paul in the epistles, were essentially creative and were writing the stories that we find there as literary expressions of that which was essentially a spiritual experience. Such scholars conclude that the facts the New Testament authors are giving do not really bear any relationship to what we would call the facts of history. They are merely trying to express in tangible terms what was basically a personal experience of the living Christ.
But that is not the way Jewish thought works. They did not attach importance to creative storytelling as a source of wisdom and knowledge. Why, anything that was new was suspect just because it was new. This is why memorization was so crucial to learning. One memorized the teaching of the masters and then passed that on from generation to generation. This explains why so much of the Gospel accounts sound rather similar. The disciples of Jesus did precisely what any good student of a rabbi would do. When Jesus said something, they memorized it, and then they gave it back to others. That is precisely what they did when they wrote their Gospels.
Now we see Paul using those terms, delivering and receiving, to describe how this teaching about Jesus Christ is being passed on to others. As Paul communicates the core of the Gospel, he says that he is faithfully repeating to the Corinthians what he himself received. Paul, as an apostle, counts it the greatest honor and the greatest privilege in the world to take that message word for word in all its parts and pass it on to the church in Corinth.
May I say there is a sense in which that is what all of us do today. It is true that we try to communicate in the language of our times. In order to keep people’s attention, we try to do things a little bit differently. Some preachers, for example, sometimes give a little twist in their sermon. They say something in a different kind of way to make it memorable for those who are listening. There is a proper sense, I think, in which we try to be creative or say things in a slightly different way. But that is the minor thing. The important thing in our preaching, teaching, and sharing of the Gospel with other people is that we deliver to others that which we first received. We are not trying to create a theology. We are simply delivering to others that which was first delivered to us and which, if we trace it back through history, goes to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. What He says is true, and therefore what the Bible records about Him actually happened, and this is what Christians down through all the ages have believed.
In these verses Paul puts it in the simplest of terms: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (v. 3). The first thing Paul wants to pass on is that Christ died for our sins. The second and third points are that He was buried and raised on the third day, also according to the Scriptures (v. 4).
Obviously, there is a lot more that could be said. For one thing, he does not say anything about the person of Christ. He is assuming that when he speaks of Christ dying for our sins, being buried, and being raised from the dead on the third day. He is talking about the Christ who was the Son of God, the one who became flesh for us. The doctrine of God is also assumed because when he says Jesus was raised from the dead, it is God the Father who raised His Son. This is the Gospel, and when you talk about the work of Christ, these are the areas on which it focuses.