How long was Jesus on the cross?
The Gospels mark the crucifixion by the clock, and when their notes of time are laid side by side they give a span of six hours — from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. The one puzzle is John's "sixth hour" during the trial, which appears to collide with Mark's "third hour" for the crucifixion itself.
The Timeline of the Day
Read together, the four accounts produce an hour-by-hour record of that Friday:
The Bible Treasury6 a.m. — Pilate sits down "in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement" (John 19:13). 9 a.m. — (The "third hour" — Mark 15:25). The Lord was crucified. 12 midday to 3 p.m. — (The "sixth" to the "ninth" hour). The three hours of darkness (Matt. 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44). 3 p.m. — Jesus died, that is, at the ninth hour of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
Mark is the only writer who names the hour when the nails went in, and that detail is what fixes the total length:
C E StuartFrom him therefore we learn that our Lord was six hours upon the cross, being crucified at the third hour (verse 25); the three last hours being distinctly marked out from the first three, not only by being mentioned separately by our Evangelist, but especially by the darkness which then covered the earth (verse 33).
Why John's Hours Look Different
John says Pilate was still judging "about the sixth hour," which would seem to place the sentence three hours after the crucifixion. The usual explanation is that the writers were using two different clocks:
F. B. HoleThe solution would appear to be that our Evangelist, dealing with what happened before the Roman judge, uses the Roman reckoning, which was similar to ours, whereas Mark reckons according to Jewish custom. If this is so, all is simple. It was about 6 a.m. when Pilate's examination drew to a close, and about 9 a.m. when Jesus was crucified.
Commentators differ on the details. Some hold that John is not describing the same event as Mark at all, and one writer offers a further suggestion of his own:
William KellySuch do not see that, while the second Evangelist is speaking of the Crucifixion, the fourth refers to the outcry before Pilate… Then three hours would elapse before the crucifixion (nine a.m.), and these would be taken up by the events recorded in the three first Gospels: the sentence of death, the journey to Golgotha, and the preparations there for the crucifixion… The present writer believes that it means the third hour after the last watch of the night.
The First Three Hours
Daylight covered the opening half of the six. What filled it was human cruelty — soldiers, rulers, passers-by and even the two criminals crucified beside Him:
C StanleyFor three hours He hung there on that shameful cross, brutal soldiers mocking Him, rulers deriding Him. Oh, behold Him there crucified between two thieves… And there the unfeeling crowd pass by, wagging their heads… The priest, yes, the chief of them, joined in the mockery. The very thieves reviled Him.
The Last Three Hours
At noon the character of the suffering changed, and the darkness was God's own curtain drawn around it:
J. N. DarbyThus, even by outward circumstances, God separated His Son from outrages and insults purely human in order that He should be alone with Him and entirely for His solemn work. He was alone with God, made sin; nothing to turn aside the cup of justice; nothing to deaden it… All forces Him to utter the cry — a cry which we are allowed to hear that we might know what passed there, the reality of atonement: "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?"
Those hours had an end, and the end was not defeat:
F. B. HoleHe endured it to the full, but since He possessed the holiness, the eternity, the infinitude of full Deity, He could emerge from it at the close of the three hours.
The Hour of His Death
The six hours closed at three in the afternoon, and even that timing carried meaning. The Passover lamb was killed at Israel's yearly feast, and the law set an evening hour for it:
G C WillisThere was darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour: twelve o'clock to three o'clock our time, and about the ninth hour the Lamb of God died: still on the fourteenth day of the First month. The Passover Lamb was to be killed "between the two evenings" (Ex. 12:6, margin). They tell us this means between 3 and 6 o'clock in the afternoon. So the Lamb of God died at exactly the hour when they began to kill the Passover lambs.
Summary
- Six hours — Nailed to the cross at the third hour, dead by the ninth: nine in the morning to three in the afternoon.
- Hour three — The crucifixion begins, recorded only by Mark, which is why his single note of time fixes the whole span.
- Hour six — Noon, and God draws darkness over the land, cutting off human eyes from what followed.
- Hour nine — The cry of being forsaken, then death — at the very hour the Passover lambs began to be killed.
- The clash resolved — John's "sixth hour" at the trial fits a different way of counting the day; commentators differ on the details, but not on the six hours.