How old was Jesus when He died?

The year A.D. 29 is the date now commonly given for the crucifixion. It is generally agreed that the Lord lived on the earth thirty-three and a half years, but if He was born B.C. 4, and was crucified A.D. 33 (as given in the A.V.), He must have lived here 37 or 38 years; hence there must be a discrepancy somewhere. Early christian writers appealed confidently to a document called "The Acts of Pilate," which, though now considered spurious as far as Pilate is concerned, must have been an early writing, and this points to the date A.D. 29 for the crucifixion. Clement and Origen place the destruction of Jerusalem as forty-two years after the crucifixion. The destruction was in A.D. 70, which confirms the date of the latter as not later than 29. The definite time may be Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, about a week before the last passover, agreeing with "Thy King cometh unto thee" in Zech. 9:9.

At the time our account begins, King David was about seventy years old. He was far from having reached extreme old age, but a life of sufferings, conflict, and grief wears at the strength of even the most robust of men, so that the king "was old and advanced in age." At thirty-three years of age, the Lord Himself appeared to be fifty years old (John 8:57), but His strength was unbroken. He was not, like David, worn by grief, but, Man of Sorrows, His face was marred more than any man. Love impressed this character upon His features, for He in sympathy carried all the sorrows that sin had brought upon our miserable race.

For thirty years He lived in seclusion, and then the time came for Him to come out in public service. He was a young Man when He stepped out into the limelight of public service. It lasted for a brief three-and-a-half years. He died a young Man.

1906 131 We have seen the Seventy Weeks are divided by the Spirit of God into three parts. We have also seen that the first two divisions reach up to "Messiah the Prince," who was cut off after the sixty nine weeks. This, the majority of chronologers are agreed, took place in the year A.D. 29, or early in 30. Our reference Bibles, however, give A.D. 33, which reckoning from B.C. 4, would make our Lord's age thirty-six instead of thirty-three years as usually supposed. But Bengel says respecting this, "The year 33 is too late and is refuted by all the opinions of the ancient church." He maintained that A.D. 30 was the correct date of our Lord's death.

"Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip"? They were but a brief period, the years of that holy ministry — the time was short even if we reckon from our Lord's birth. He was crucified just a little past the age when a Jew was considered to have attained full manhood. But to Him (and what spiritual mind can wonder?) it was a long time — long to bear the contradiction of sinners, if not the slowness of heart of His chosen. Nor is this the only occasion on which we learn indirectly what this world must have been to Him, Whose natural home was heaven, but Who had emptied Himself of every glory save that alone which was inseparable from Him, — the glory of His infinite moral perfectness. "How long shall I be with you, and suffer you?" was His exclamation as recorded by St. Mark, when pursuing His course of beneficent healing. And how much "virtue" must have proceeded from the blessed Lord during those wonderful years! Time indeed is rightly measured by the work accomplished and the sacrifices endured, and the love expended, even in the case of a mere man. He lives longest who serves God. There may be much activity that is merely beating the air. But how infinitely filled up with good works (but which He showed them from the Father) was the life of the blessed Son! It was not merely the "sinless years, that breathed beneath the Syrian blue," but the untiring self-surrender of the Word made flesh, the Servant-prophet, but withal Jehovah. Moreover (but here silence is more becoming than words), did not the shadow of His coming passion lie before Him? "I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished" (Luke 12:50)

172 John 8:57. — "Fifty years old." What is one to think of Loisy, who follows Ireneus, saying that, "according to the Evangelist, the Christ was about fifty years old when He died" (p. 13)? as to which Schmiedel sensibly remarks that Irenæus was not trustworthy in respect of traditions of that kind. The "fifty" might be explained from Num. 4:3, 39, Num. 8:24, but probably means, what is generally supposed, that the blessed Saviour was prematurely old. Cf. Zahn, ad loc.

312 But it is as an historian we have to do with him: how little his statements can be trusted, a few instances will shew. First he states that Christ Himself continued on to be an old man, which he reckons as forty or fifty years, sanctifying old age as well as youth, as he tells us the Gospel and all the aged men who conversed with John testified (Lib. 2, C. 22). The Gospel we can answer for; the tradition of John, Irenaeus and the aged men must answer for. Whom, he adds, are we to believe most, those who had seen, not only John but the other apostles and heard these things from them … or Ptolemy, who had seen none of them? Massuet says, Perhaps he heard it only from Papias, who, says Eusebius, was a foolish old man. But, as Massuet observes, Irenaeus makes Christ not teach immediately after His baptism but wait till He was of full age, at thirty being only a youth, and so die an old man - diametrically, as he says, opposed to the plain testimony of scripture. But so much for tradition.

But we have another case directly to the point, as the commencement of the passage which is quoted to prove that episcopacy dates from the apostles' days and was established by their authority. "Now Matthew," says Irenaeus, "brought out amongst the Hebrews in their own dialect the written gospel (ten graphen euaggelion) when Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and founding the church." I will add what the Benedictine edition remarks on this. All the Fathers hold Matthew to have first consigned the Gospel to writing; but how reconcile this with what is said of Peter and Paul, for Paul could not have been there before A.D. 64 or 65? Either, therefore, the other Fathers are to be abandoned or Irenaeus; either are alike inconvenient. The securest thing to say in so obscure a matter is, that nothing can be defined (c. Haer. lib. 3, C. 1, Benedictine edition [Massuet] 174). Eusebius follows his account (H. E. 5:28). Not only so, but this account which Massuet admits to be untenable and contradictory to all the statements of other Fathers, is the basis of all Irenaeus says on the succession, and of papal pretensions too.

The "Man of sorrows" may be addressed on one occasion as though He appeared to be nearly fifty years old (John 8:57). But I am to know, from that, only how He had borne sorrows and services for our blessing and the Father's glory. In such features I am to read Him whose "visage was so marred more than any man," because of His endurings for us, and the contradiction of sinners against Him; and not because of the decaying tendencies of natural old age in the smallest measure of them, as though such tendencies by any possibility could attach to Him.

The next step then, is to seek to ascertain the exact date of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. Now, most chronologists are agreed that His birth took place at least four years earlier than our common era, A.D., and that His death occurred in the month Nisan, A.D. 29. This, indeed, is contrary to the prevailing custom of dating the crucifixion A.D. 33, but it is the conclusion arrived at by Clinton, Lardner, Adam Clarke, and Canon H. Browne in his "Ordo Saeclorum" — all men of learning and ability.

Further evidence as to this may be gathered from early writers. Tertullian, in the second century, says: — "In the fifteenth year of his reign [Tiberius], Christ suffered, … whose sufferings were completed within the time of the seventy hebdomads, under Tiberius Cesar, Rubellius Geminus and Rufus Geminus being consuls, in the month of March at the time of the Passover" (Adv. Judaeos, c. 8) Lactantius, at the beginning of the fourth century, writes: — "Who [Herod] was under the empire of Tiberius Caesar; in the fifteenth year of whose reign, that is, during the consulship of the two Gemini, … the Jews affixed Christ to the cross" (Instit. 4:10). Augustine also, writing in the fourth century, says: — "Christ died in the consulship of the Gemini" (De. Civ. Dei. 18:54).

Thus may be seen that the Fathers (so called) seem agreed respecting the names of the consuls at the time of the crucifixion. In fact, so nearly unanimous were they in this, that one writer remarks: — "Nowhere in the first five centuries do we find any other consular date of the death of Christ than the year of the two Gemini, except in the Greek writer, Epiphanius." Now, with such strong evidence before us it seems we may safely conclude that our Lord suffered in the fifteenth year of Tiberius' reign (A.D. 29), when two persons bearing the same surname — the two Gemini — were consuls of Rome. This latter circumstance is said to be unprecedented in the annals of that city. It gives, therefore, additional proof to the accuracy of the above date.

The time of this initial act preceding the public ministry of the Lord is told us here as being when He was about 30 years of age (v.23). What years of patient, unobserved preparation those 30 years were, compared to the brief three and one half years of His public ministry! But John the Baptist's time of ministry was much less, comparatively, while his lonely, isolated preparation was just as long.