We now suggest that eschatology, oriented toward the central significance of the coming of Christ in the history of redemption, provides us with more than a static theological formulation. It has deep and dynamic implications for the methodological significance of contextualization. It reminds us, to quote Vos, that “we ourselves live just as much in the New Testament as did Peter and Paul and John” [Biblical Theology, 325]. Putting it in terms we have used in this volume, it means that hermeneutic in the context of the church stands closer to the teaching of Paul or the preaching of Peter than the later stand to the prophecy of Isaiah or the Psalms of David. The contextualization provided by Scripture and our task of contextualizing theology are both concerned with the same subject and done with the same methodology. Both are oriented toward and derived from the history of redemption. In other words, we share a common contextual, hermeneutic interest. With the Bible itself, we engage in interpretation of interpretation. (EWCW, p. 227)

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