Why Did Jesus Die at 3:01 PM?

Jesus’ Death at 3:01 pm

The Eclipses That Day

At noon, or the sixth hour of the day, a strange thing happened. The sky suddenly became dark. From Ignatius' letter, which we will quote later, it appears that the sky was darkened for three hours to mark the time that Jesus actually hung on the cross. Matthew 27:45 says,

45 Now from the sixth hour [noon] darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour [3:00 p.m.].

This was not a natural solar eclipse, for astronomers have charted all the lunar and solar eclipses visible in the Middle East for the past 5,000 years. In fact, since Passover always fell on a full moon, it was impossible to have a solar eclipse at Passover, for solar eclipses can occur only at the time of the new moon (that is, when no moon appears in the sky at night). Likewise, eclipses of the moon are seen only at the time of the full moon. And so, while there have been lunar eclipses at Passover on occasion throughout history, there has never been a natural solar eclipse on that day. The darkness that fell over the land at noon during the time Jesus hung on the cross was supernatural, not natural.

Astronomers tell us that in the late afternoon of Passover, Friday, April 3, 33 A.D., while Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were hurrying to bury the body of Jesus, there was also a lunar eclipse. The eclipse began in Europe at 3:01 p.m. when Jesus died, and it was already eclipsed when the moon rose over Jerusalem at 5:10 p.m. that evening.

It is impossible to have a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse on the same day, because the sun and the moon must be in opposite positions in the sky for these two kinds of eclipses. Yet on this great day in history, God marked the time for all to see by a spectacular miracle.

In Bonnie Gaunt's book, The Bible's Awesome Number Code, page 55, we read:

"It was on a lonely hill outside the walls of Jerusalem that this Heavenly One, who came to earth to be born, to suffer, and to die as a man, hung on a cruel cross that afternoon. The hill was called Calvary. Its Greek name was Kranion, whose numeric value is 301.

"At 3:01 in the afternoon, as he looked heavenward and said, 'It is finished,' the moon began to eclipse. It was at 3:01 Greenwich Time that the eclipse began. God makes no mistakes with His timing, nor does He rely on coincidences. The word 'moon' in the New Testament is Selene, and its Gematria is 301. Yes, He who had formed the moon and put it into its orbit around the earth, now had given up His human life at 3:01, on a hill called Calvary (301) precisely when the moon (301) began to eclipse. It was the exact hour when the priests were killing the lambs for Passover. 'Lambs' [in Hebrew] has a numeric value of 301."

For those unfamiliar with numeric values (gematria), the Hebrew and Greek letters served as their numbers as well as letters. Hence, each letter carries a numeric value, and one can add up the value of each letter to obtain the numeric value of any word or sentence in the Bible. In this manner, Bonnie Gaunt shows mathematically the precision of God in timing the first minute of His death (3:01 p.m.) in accordance with an eclipse of the moon (301) on a hill called Calvary, whose numeric value is 301. His death coincided with the Passover "lambs" (301) that were being killed at that same moment.

Why did God also blot out the sun at noon on the day Jesus was crucified? Astronomers tell us that on Abib 14, 33 A.D. at noon, the sun was positioned on a star called El Nath in the head of Aries, the ram. El Nath means "the wounded, or the slain." That was the moment the sun was darkened. Assuming there were no clouds to block their vision, if the people in Jerusalem had looked up to see where the sun had been shining, they would have seen El Nath, the slain ram.
Some say the darkness at noon was a sign of creation in mourning. No doubt it was, but the divine law sheds additional light on this event.

If we explain this phenomenon beginning with Moses, we note first that no one was allowed to kill the Passover lamb while it was dark. If the darkness had not ended in mid-afternoon, the people could not have observed the Passover that year, because they were forbidden to slay the lambs after dark. But the darkness lasted only until the ninth hour, or mid-afternoon. The sun came out, and the people began to kill their Passover lambs.
At that moment Jesus spoke His final words and died (Matthew 27:46-50).

God brought darkness so that no one would kill the lambs until Jesus died. This certainly identified Him as the fulfillment of the Passover lamb. He was, as John the Baptist had proclaimed, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). It was important enough in the plan of God that no one should kill the Passover lambs until the moment Jesus died on the cross. Jesus could not have died on any other day than Abib 14, for this was the appointed time set by the prophetic law of Passover.

Furthermore, God blotted out the sun for three hours in order to prevent the people from killing the Passover lambs until the moment Jesus died on the cross. As we showed earlier, rabbinic tradition allowed them that Friday to kill the Passover lambs as early as 12:30 p.m. after the evening sacrifice had been slain. So God brought darkness to the land in order to force them to conform to the time of Jesus' death--as the law said, "between the two evenings." It was the precise moment in history when the Lamb of God was destined to die for the sin of the world.

[excerpt from the writings of Stephen Jones]