At the 1947 Nuremberg Trials after WW2, the Nazi Doctors responsible for horrific medical experiments were held to account. They were, in essence, charged with violating the moral laws of the universe.

Since then, the Nuremberg Code insisted and without exception, on voluntary consent to any medical procedure.

“This means that the person involved should have the legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him/her to make an understanding an enlightening decision.”

This is an ethic that directly springs from the Judeo-Christian worldview.

It is an example, albeit in non-religious language, of the Gospel coming to bear on a situation.

The Bible knows nothing of enforced Nazi medical experiments.

But it does know all about the human heart and our capacity for evil.

It does know, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in the brilliant Gulag Archipelago:

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”

This is a comment that has been informed, shaped and spoken by a Whole Gospel.

A Gospel that tells us the truth of things.