I think that was the original intention, to have VII, VIII, and IX be “the future” relative to III; and IV, V, and VI be “the past” relative to I.
Yes, it confused things a bit but Lucas wanted it to be a Saturday Morning serial. The one place he lost against the studio was starting the crawl with “Episode IV - A New Hope.”
The studio thought it would be confusing (and they might have been right).
So what is the betting? Prequel or sequel? According to Lucas’ standards, it would be the sequel — that is the next in the series.