How long was Jesus' ministry?

A. In John 2:13 is the first, which preceded the public ministry of the Lord in Galilee. For even in John 3:24 John is seen not as yet in prison. In John 4 the Lord is going through Samaria on His way to Galilee which He only reaches at the end of this chapter. Next in Matthew 11 John sends from prison to enquire, and in John 12 the Lord vindicates His disciples for eating of the corn on a sabbath, which was after a new Passover and even the wave-sheaf that followed it. From Luke 6:1 (which coalesces) it was second-first sabbath, that is, next after the great one (cf. John 19:31) of that week, the first sabbath when it became lawful after Jehovah had His first-fruits. Again we learn from John 6:4, which corresponds in time with Matthew 14, or the first miracle of the loaves, that Passover was at hand, that is, the third. The last Passover, or fourth, He came up to keep, and be Himself our Passover in His sacrifice. It is thus rendered certain and evident from scripture, that the public ministry of our Lord lasted less than four years, or at least three years and a half, as it is generally understood, though some men of learning have contended for less or more.

His public ministry, extending over the period of three-and-a-half years.

The sojourn of the Son of God on earth was very short, and His public ministry only occupied about three and a half years, and as the end approached He spoke of the "little while" that remained, both to His enemies and to His disciples. When the Pharisees and chief priests sent their officers to take Him, He "said unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto Him that sent Me." These words were spoken in Jerusalem, at the feast of Tabernacles, and within six months they were fulfilled: the True Passover Lamb was slain; the Son returned to the Father who sent Him.

I get three facts, partly helped by the researches of others, as to the period of the blessed Lord's ministry. Before He entered on His public ministry calling disciples away from all to follow Him, but after His baptism by John when He had begun to teach and make disciples and had been back into Galilee - John 1:43 and beginning of chapter 2 in verse 13 we have a Passover; John, as often observed, not cast into prison (chap. 3:24). In Matthew 12 we have the corn ripe after a Passover, for they could not eat corn till after it, perhaps after Pentecost even, and John was now cast into prison - had been there some time - he had heard there of His works; chap. 11. It is in Matthew 4:12 that He hears John is cast into prison - perhaps the same time as John 4. He was then, i.e. Matthew 12 in Galilee. In chapter 14, we have the five thousand people fed; after Matthew 12, but then (John 6) the Passover was nigh; John 7 feast of tabernacles. Then He lingers about in Jerusalem, Jordan, etc., and comes up for the last Passover, i.e. three years and a part of a year.

This brings us to notice another matter. The order in the Evangelists is by no means always chronological. Our Lord's entrance into public ministry and the close of His precious life by His atoning sacrifice and death are at the beginning and the ending of each of the narratives, but it is difficult always to place in their chronological setting His various acts and teachings. Indeed, some have questioned whether His ministry was as much as three years, believing that the feast spoken of in the fifth of John is not the passover, but one of the other feasts. Thus, there would be but three passover seasons referred to in John — John 2, John 6 and John 13. If these are all the passovers in His public ministry, then it was evidently but two, not three, years in length. We do not believe however that such a conclusion is demanded by the facts, nor does it seem to allow for sufficient time in which to bring together all the occurrences of that wondrous life. Other considerations also confirm this. Certain expressions in Scripture we naturally connect with His life three and a half years suggest that "midst of the week," to come at a later date, when the sacrifice and oblation shall be made to cease (Dan. 9:27). "Lo, these three years," when the Master was still seeking for fruit from the tree, intimates something similar.

53 John 2:13 ff. — It may be desirable here to consider the question of the length and the scene of our Lord's ministry as contemplated by the Synoptists and John respectively. Eusebius records an ancient observation that the Synoptists seem to tell us of only one Passover — i.e., of but one year's ministry — whilst the fourth Gospel speaks of several Passovers, at least three (cf. John 6:4, John 12:1). Some, as W. Kelly (see note on v. 1), find four Passovers in this Gospel. Again, the earlier Gospels take us almost entirely to Galilee (and Persia), but John's mainly to Judæa (cf. v. 1, John 7:14, John 10:22, John 12:12). A great deal is made by "the critical school" of each of these admitted facts. It has been suggested by Blass (Expository Times, July, 1907) that, whilst the Church had its headquarters at Jerusalem, it was an account of the Galilean and of the Peræan ministry that Christians of Judæa in particular would require, the incidents of the Lord's work in Judæa being sufficiently familiar there, but that, precisely when the Christian communities of Judæa were dispersed by political events, the need would arise of a record of the Judæan ministry, which John was able to supply. And, again, Briggs' recent book, "Fresh Light," has earned the title adopted by the writer. He gives good ground for supposing that John's special fitness for his task came of his having companied with the Lord during the whole of an early Judæan ministry. Not only so, but that there was an early Galilean ministry of a less pronounced public character than that introduced by Matt. 4:12 and Mark 1:14. We shall recur to this in notes on the third Gospel, which seems to confirm Briggs' view. But Luthardt, Lightfoot, and others, had previously shown that Matt. 23:37 (as Luke 13:34) had already indicated by the πυσάκις ("how often") that the Lord's visits to Judæa were more frequent than might appear from the Synoptic records. Julicher as to this caustically remarks: "To reconstruct several visits of Jesus to Jerusalem out of the Synoptists solely on account of the one prophetic utterance is childish" (p. 419). The "obvious intention" of the Synoptists supposed by him is very questionably obvious. A tuquoque might well be employed against such writers with regard to the use made of Luke 4:19 to establish a single year's ministry: nowhere do the Synoptists say that the ministry lasted only one year. Blass rightly observes: "It is John who first clears up the passage" (common to Matt. 23 and Luke 13) "and justifies it." There is no inconsistency, such as A. Réville sets up (2:20), between the Synoptists' account and John's representing that JESUS and the Baptist were at work for some time simultaneously. Moreover, as so the Galilean ministry is concerned, John distinctly recognises it, whatever H. Holtzmann may say about such visits being "merely episodes" (John 2:1-12; John 4:43-54, John 6:1-7, 10). Logy (p. 64) asks: "How could Jesus have preached at Jerusalem several years, declaring Himself Messiah, without being arrested?" The words underlined do but savour of romance. At first no idea of a "permanent miracle," such as Loisy attributes to the Evangelist, is needed; the attitude of the "Jews" for some time was one of sceptical inquiry, of unwillingness to believe, rather than hostility. The incident in the Temple (John 2) will be discussed below. It is not until we reach John 8 that the "Jews' " threatening demeanour towards the Lord personally becomes acute. Even so, between the first (John 8:59) and second attempt to stone Him (John 10:31), we still find them asking Him, "How long dost Thou keep us in suspense?" (John 10:24). If He was to be arrested, it would be by the servants of the high-priest, but they served for protection, evidently sympathising with and giving effect to the feelings of many in the Judæan crowds, who had their spokesman in the Sanhedrin itself (John 7:40-52).

The second distinctly named Passover comes at John 6:4, the third at John 11:55 which speaks, in any case, of the last. According to this, the length of the whole ministry would be about two years (Irenæus, 2, 22-3). So Delitzsch's article, "Passover," in Riehm's Handbook. Briggs, however, is of opinion that the scheme of the fourth Gospel in this respect coincides with that of the Synoptists, and that there were no other distinct Passovers than the one spoken of in the present passage and that mentioned in John 11:55 (p. 54). Cf. Milligan's view.

54 John 2:13. — "The Jews' Passover." Critics use this as an indication that the writer was a Gentile. It seems, however, to mean no more than either that, as it in the first time the festival in mentioned by John, he so describes it for the information of his first readers — Gentiles — in Asia Minor, or that it is used in distinction from the Christian Passover, which we know formed subject of controversy between East and West after his death. And yet, pace the neo-critics, Matthew (Matt. 28:15), too, makes use of the word (cf. Luke 23:51).

Third Passover (John 6:4) synchronizes with Luke 9. A.D. 28-29

Origen, Jerome, and Augustine, allowing for a Fourth Passover in John's Gospel (cf. note 53 on John), concluded that the period was from three years to three years and a half. Turner (art. "Chronology of the New Testament" in Hastings' "Dict. of the Bible") makes it "between two and three years."

From Capernaum the Lord went up to Jerusalem with His disciples. He had now a recognised following (2:17). In the spring-time it was that He made this journey, for the Passover was nigh at hand. Therefore He had gone to the metropolis to keep it (2:13).

Three Passovers. — Just three Passovers does John notice. This, the first, during the Lord's ministry. Then the second we read of in 6:4. And the third, the last, is mentioned in 12:1, 13:1. We say three, because some have supposed that the feast noticed in chapter 5 was a Passover also. Others, and we think on good ground, do not agree with that. And in favour of the objectors is the fact, that in the three instances above referred to, where the Passover is intended, John definitely tells his readers that it was that well-known feast. Why, then, should he have departed from that practice, when writing of the healing at the pool of Bethesda? We take it, therefore, that there were just three Passovers noticed by John between the Lord's baptism and His appearance after His resurrection.

The few incidents John records are in chronological order as in the Gospel of Mark. John is the only evangelist mentioning three Passovers in his Gospel. This is the main reason why we assume that the public service of the Lord Jesus must have lasted for about three years (compare John 2:13; 6:4; 13:1).

I think it is a mistake to think that the synoptical Gospels only take a year, and John three. The transfiguration is the turning point - we are historically going on to the close which begins with the blind man at Jericho, i.e., Matthew 16 and 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9. Luke thence to chapter 17 having a mass of unchronological, morally connected instruction. But they all go up from the temptation, with Galilaean work, but undefined dates; the end of Matthew 9 giving a whole lengthened series in three verses, and then events leading to rejection - as mission of the disciples, parables, etc. - then apprising His disciples of what was now coming. There are several points which divide, as to subject, the synoptical Gospels, and all of them, though there be characteristic differences. The blind man at Jericho, I have already noticed. This is in all. The transfiguration is in all. But more particularly there is first the birth of Christ wanting in Mark. The ministrations in Galilee, including the Sermon on the Mount (wanting in Mark) a characteristic part of three Gospels, with, in each, as to details, certain acts characterising His coming. This goes on to practical rejection by the heads, scribes and others being called Beelzebub. The parable of the sower then continuing mercy to the people, and the Transfiguration, which occasions His forbidding them to say He was the Christ. The parable and this make two distinct landmarks. After the Transfiguration it is more instruction to His disciples, only in Luke we have, with additional instruction as to the position of His disciples in the world, the parables which bring out the Gospel for all, and heaven, just as the genealogy was to Adam, after a beautiful, strictly Jewish part, showing the Remnant among them, and this part leads us on to the blind man at Jericho, where His Son of David Emmanuel character is brought out at the end, with the Jews, as at the beginning, and then resurrection. From Luke 9 to 18:31, we have unchronological bringing out of principles. In John the Jews are treated as reprobates, from chapter 1, and the manifestation of God in the Son amongst men in His various characters, and then in the Holy Ghost, form the subject of the Gospel; chapters 1-3 being preface, and chapter 4 transitive. Matthew 4:12 and Mark 1:14 coincide, and then Matthew 8:14 and Mark 11:29; Mark giving us first what happened in the synagogue. Matthew 8:1-4 comes after in Mark. I hold Mark, in general (and Luke) to have the historical order.