Christ the Greatest Hero in Battle

resembles it, is favorable to it, and provides it with new nourishment. One might ask: why did Jesus not dismiss the incorrigible unverbesserlich: beyond correction or reform disciple in time and expel him from the company? This question is easy to raise, but not so easy to answer. We know too little of the specific circumstances and the entire outward condition of the disciple to determine what the wisest Teacher should or should not have done. It is more correct for us to conclude that what the Teacher actually did was the best course of action under the circumstances.

Jesus acted according to His character as a gentle, sparing, and compassionate friend of humanity Menschenfreund: literally a "friend of humans," implying a deeply philanthropic and kind nature, who did not wish to cast someone out, but rather to tirelessly improve them; not to embitter, but to shame them into better behavior; not to cause a deeper fall, but to preserve them from it; not to wound through harshness, but to guide through gentleness Sanftmuth: a mild, patient, and meek disposition.

As an exile from the company, Judas would have fallen into despair just as surely as he later did as a traitor, because then all his hopes of gaining significant advantages in the kingdom of the Messiah Messias: the promised deliverer; the text implies Judas viewed this kingdom in material or political terms would have come to an end all at once. And should Jesus have caused a person's misfortune through His own fault? — No.