J. Warner Wallace, a successful American homicide detective turned Christian apologist explained how he came to faith after finding substantial evidence that proves Christianity's claim on Jesus.
Many of Wallace's professional investigative works have been featured in NBC's Dateline, Court TV and Fox News. Seeing that he has the expertise to investigate anything, Wallace decided to take on the case of Christianity's claim about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
"I'm going to have to figure out how to evaluate that for its truthfulness given this skill set that I had as a cold case detective," he told CBN News.
As an atheist at the time, his initial motive was to disprove the claim that Jesus died, then rose again. He left, however, an allowance in his objective thinking to believe the claim if the evidence presents itself. So starting with the resurrection claim, Wallace employed his knowledge on forensic science.
He knew from experience in his line of work the difference between people who were really "dead" and "nearly" dead.
"As a homicide detective, I'm thinking 'I've seen a lot of dead people, and I know what dead people look like,'" assured the Cold-Case Christianity author.
God must have known that Wallace would someday come looking for some solid evidence on Jesus's death, so He had the apostle John wrote a description of what he saw when a Roman soldier pierced the side of Jesus's body. John 19:34 states that "blood and water" came out after the spear struck Jesus.
"Water will collect in your lungs. Now if that happens, if you pierce that cavity, you will see a separation of blood and water," Wallace explained.
This account was the "key point proof," as CBN words it, that convinced Wallace that Jesus really died on the cross. The fact that it was specifically written has also left a strong impression in him.
"He (John) was either so clever that he included some little-known biological fact that nobody would discover for 1800 years or he just reported what he saw," said Wallace. "And as a result, we have a good piece of hidden science that confirms that Jesus actually died of cardiac arrest and was dead at the point of the body being taken off the cross."
That piece of scientific evidence aside, Wallace also mentioned the account of eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus and the differences in details from the four Gospel books. This was brought up in one of his interviews where he was asked how his quest for truth led him to believe in Jesus.
Tapping again from his investigative skill, Wallace explained that to get the truth, witnesses had to be interviewed separately. Otherwise, they will talk among themselves and agree on one story to tell the detective.
"The fact that the Gospels were not unified, precisely in every detail, was like, 'Whoah I had a ring of truth' to me," said Wallace.
At present, Wallace writes and talks about how Christians can employ his approach in their own studies. With the rise of "intellectual skepticism," his writings and other contents found in his website can help equip believers articulate their future responses to anyone who would challenge the truth of Christianity.
