Seeking Peace & Justice

If inner peace and a sense of justice come only from God [Proverbs 29:26; Shadrach et al. vs. Nebuchadnezzar Daniel 3] and we yearn for both when in conflict why do we not appropriate them from God when in conflict? 1 John 4:18 suggests it is because we stand paralyzed in fear for our love is not fully mature. But how can that be true for a forgiven believer-unless our image of God is not correct? <br /><br />The author argues that our fear flows from an image of God as an angry judge judging us from his Torah a penal code of crime and punishment. But why do we think that when Christ on the cross wipes our sins away and gives us a spirit of sonship? [Romans 8:15]. Do we think it because we think our thousand-year Western legal tradition is biblically based and we subconsciously read it into Torah? What if that premise is wrong? After all Torah originally meant instructions or teachings not law. <br /><br />Mr. Bontrager reexamines the nature of God and his Word in view of Torah as a gracious gift of instructions to people blinded by sin living in a fallen world offered to us by God to guide us in working through conflict according to his ways thereby finding peace and justice [Psalm 119].