The key to the hermeneutics of the historic witness of the Bible is the “future of scripture.” The question as to the correct exposition of the Old and New Testament scriptures cannot be addressed to the “heart of scripture.” The biblical scripture are not a closed organism with a heart, or a closed circle with a centre. On the contrary, all the biblical scriptures are open towards the future fulfillment of the divine promise whose history they relate. The centre of the New Testament scriptures is the future of the risen Christ, which they announce, point forward to and promise. Thus if we are to understand the biblical scriptures in their proclamation, their understanding of existence and their understanding of the world, then we must look in the same direction as they themselves do. The scriptures, as historic witnesses, are open towards the future, as all promises are open towards the future. In this sense R. Bultmann is right when he declares: “It is not at all ‘in themselves,’ nor yet as links in a causal chain, that events or historical figures are historic phenomena. They are such only in their relationship to the future, for which they have significance and for which the present has responsibility.” “Thus it is true also of scripture that it is what it is only in relation to its history and its future.” Only, this “future of scripture” does not yet lie in the several readers’ own present, but in that which gives the momentary present its orientation towards a universal, eschatological future. Hence present perception of the “future of scripture” takes place in that mission which plays its part in history and in the possibilities of changing history. The biblical witness is witness to a historic forward-moving mission in the past, and hence in the light of the present mission it can be understood for what it really is.
Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1967), 283
