A God of Peace?

A question that vexes me fairly regularly is how so many Christians and much Christian Literature can talk of a God of Peace, and a God of Justice without seeing the obvious contradictions. I understand the roots of these beliefs fairly well, in both New and Old Testament traditions. In the New Testament, the most famous Peace quote is Romans 15:33:

"Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen."

And in the Old Testament we have Isaiah 2:4:

"And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war."

Now, famous Justice quotes (I prefer to think of them as retribution quotes) are found in both the NT and OT, with Romans 6:23 being the famous NT:

"The wages of Sin is Death"

Whilst Exodus 21:22-27 furnishes us with the OT reference:

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"

The vexation is that peace and justice, in the Christian tradition are, in my opinion, based on the notion of a Transcendental justice, that results in a Godly peace. That is, if you follow God's Law, you shall have peace. If you do not follow God's Law, then you shall feel the meting of His Justice. This is not the fuzzy 'God is Good, God is Love, God is beauty praise Him!" found in Christian Hymnals. This is the God of Abraham, the God of the middle east. In truth, an Islamic fundamentalist in many ways more truly embodies the Christian notion of God, as revealed in the Bible, than most Christians.

This is a topic I could explore at some length - but the idea is not to preach, but to provoke and challenge people to examine their assumptions in faith, to not just accept Brother John/Sister Mary's teachings, but to think for themselves, using the bible as the cornerstone for the analysis of faith. In doing so, maybe people may be shocked at what they are subscribing to. Or, worse still, maybe they won't be.