We may know by early morning who will be president. Or we may not know until the end of the year which side will be celebrating come Inauguration Day. But whether we have hours or days or weeks left, the 2020 election season will come to an end. And when it is over—after countless tweets, posts, articles, and punditry; after being exposed to a steady stream of advertising, befuddlement, and outrage; after all the ballots have been counted and you feel relieved, grateful, or despondent—don’t forget what will still be true:
God will still be on the throne, and he will be working all things according to the counsel of his will (Eph. 1:11). God will be our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Ps. 46:1). God’s dominion will be an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom will endure from generation to generation (Dan. 4:34).
Our God is not small, and his providential care cannot be stymied. The king’s heart will be a stream of water in the hand of the Lord, and he will turn it wherever he chooses (Prov. 21:1). Not a bird will fall to the ground, or a hair from your head, apart your Father in heaven (Matt. 10:29-30). Our God does whatever he pleases (Ps. 115:1).
There is no guarantee, for good or ill, regarding the future of the United States of America, but there is an unbreakable promise that Christ will build the church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).
Come tomorrow, all of the promises of God will still be Yes and Amen in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:39). The Lord will still know those who are his (2 Tim. 2:19), and if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you will be saved (Acts 16:31).
We do not have to wonder about God’s priorities. Each new day, he will exalt about all things his name and his word (Ps. 138:2). God promises to oppose the proud and give grace to the humble (James 4:6). The poor in spirit, the mournful, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers, the persecuted—they will be blessed (Matt. 5:3-10). And the wicked will reap what they sow; God cannot be mocked (Gal. 6:7).
No matter who controls the Senate or the presidency, the Great Commission will still be accomplished through the ordinary means of word and sacrament (Matt. 28:19-20; Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8). As for man, his days will be like grass (Ps. 103:15). The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will remain forever (Isa. 40:8). Whichever party occupies the White House or the governor’s mansion, the most solemn charge laid upon every pastor will be the same: to preach the word in season and out of season (2 Tim. 4:1-2).
Republicans and Democrats will come and go, but Christ’s reign is secure. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16). There is only one name given among men whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12). And one day—maybe soon—the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever (Rev. 11:15).
Politics matters. Policies matter. Presidents matter. They really do. But let us never forget that some things matter much, much, eternally much more.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

Salvation is the great theme of Scripture. If we can plot the biblical storyline as creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, then clearly it is that third act which dominates the pages of special revelation. Strictly speaking, the Bible details creation in two chapters (Genesis 1-2), the fall in one chapter (Genesis 3), and consummation in two chapters (Revelation 21-22). The other 1,184 chapters are about redemption.
Of course, in saying Christianity is about salvation, we do not mean that Christianity is about nothing but sin and salvation. The Bible is a big book full of many ideas, many promises, and many commands. And yet, if we are to do justice to the death and resurrection of Jesus—and to the apostolic preaching about that death and resurrection—we must affirm that Christianity is chiefly, firstly, ultimately, and amazingly a message about God’s gracious initiative to save sinful human beings.
The Story We Are Telling
What is the driving theme throughout the Bible? What is the point of Holy Week? What is the story we have to tell to the nations? How we assess the central plotline of redemptive history will define the Christianity we live and the Christ we proclaim. Is the Christian faith mainly the story of a cosmos to be renewed? A God to be obeyed? A mystery to be explored? A journey to be experienced? Or is the good news of the Bible most consistently, most frequently, and most significantly the story of sinners to be saved?
In a day where emphasizing the salvation of sinners is sometimes denigrated as too narrow and too unconcerned with the real needs of the world, we must not lose sight of the soteriological shape of the biblical storyline. Christ’s work to save helpless, hell-bound sinners is at the heart of the gospel and is the irreducible minimum of the apostolic message of the cross.
There is a reason that all four Gospels culminate with the death and resurrection of Jesus. No other biography spends a third of its time detailing the subject’s last week. But the Gospels are no ordinary biographies. They tell the story of victory in defeat, of triumph through tragedy. Make no mistake: the point of Jesus’s life was to die, the point of his death was to rise again, and the point of his resurrection was to justify believing sinners (Rom. 4:25). Upon seeing Jesus, John the Baptist announced, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). From even before his birth, the mission of the Christ was to save sinners. “You shall call his name Jesus,” the angel told Joseph, “for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). No wonder Jesus understood his own mission as coming “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). “The Son of Man did not come to be served,” he told his disciples, “but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark. 10:45).
Christ and Him Crucified
To be sure, the work of Christ on the cross was multifaceted. In the death of Jesus, we have the conquering of evil, the defeat of Satan, and the example of perfect love. We can talk about more than sin and salvation when we talk about the cross, but we must not talk about less. For there is no good thing accomplished by the cross that was accomplished apart from the satisfaction of divine justice, the expiation of sin, and the propitiation of wrath.
If “evangelical” means anything worthwhile at all, it means that we are people who live and breathe and love and share the evangel. It means that our preaching never strays from Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 1:23). It means that the most important thing about the most important message in the world is that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3).
The problem in the world is (and always has been) sin. The need of the hour is (and always has been) salvation. We believe in ethics. We believe in discipleship. We believe that salvation is unto holiness and for good works (Titus 2:14). And we also believe with all our might that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
We do not teach correctly about Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Christ if we do not say something about the point of Christ’s passion week as an atoning sacrifice for sin. His death was a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God for our sins (Eph. 5:2; cf. Lev. 1:9, 13, 14). Christ gave himself for our sins (Gal. 1:4). He became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). He bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (Isa. 53:5-6). The work of the high priest was to offer gifts and offer sacrifices for sin (Heb. 5:1; 8:3), and Christ is the best and true and final high priest because through the eternal Spirit he offered himself without blemish to God (9:14).
The death of Christ is enough to win for us cleansing and appeasement, forgiveness and redemption. Sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4), but because of Christ’s death, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1:19). Christ’s sacrifice on the cross made purification for sin (Heb. 1:3), put away sin (9:26), and was a propitiation for sin (1 John 2:2). The One who loves us, the one who makes us a kingdom and makes us priests, is, we must always remember, the one who has freed us from our sins by his blood (Rev. 1:5-6).
God’s Salvation Story
We will not be Bible people—or Jesus people, or gospel people—if we are not salvation-for-sinners people. Though some may call it a soterian gospel or an individualistic gospel, the unavoidable reality of Scripture is that at the heart of the message of the cross is the simple, wonderful, glorious good news that Christ saves sinners like you and me. And if this message, and all that took place to accomplish what it announces, represents the climax of redemptive history—indeed, if all of history is about redemption—then we are right to conclude that this soteriological emphasis must shape the sound of our preaching, the priority of our ministry, and the mission of the church.
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15). That is the preaching that God blesses. That is that ministry that God uses. That is the mission that God has given us in the world. The mercy of God is the theme of our song because the salvation of sinners is the story of Scripture. Let us sing it, say it, and savor it—this week and for eternity.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.

We can’t tell the story of the Bible in all its fullness without talking about the kingdom. Not only does Jesus make the kingdom a central theme in his teaching, we also see the importance of the kingdom in Acts and in Paul. And the whole concept, of course, has its roots in the Old Testament, in God’s kingship over his people and in Israel’s own kingly office. In other words, the kingdom–predicted, coming, and already here–is essential to the storyline of Scripture.
But the kingdom of God is not just one thing in the Bible. We will obscure the storyline of Scripture more than illuminate it if we fail to make distinctions in our kingdom language. Likewise, we can miss the big story of what God means to do in our world if we misunderstand how the different aspects of the kingdom fit together.
In classic Reformed theology, Christ’s kingdom is distinguished in three ways.
First, there is the regnum potentiae, the kingdom of power. This is the dominion of Jesus Christ over the universe, the providential and judicial administration of all things which Christ exercises by virtue of being the eternal Son of God.
Second, we can speak of the regnum gratiae, the kingdom of grace. This refers to Christ’s reign over his saved people, the spiritual kingship which Christ exercises by virtue of being our Mediator and the head of the church.
Finally, there is the regnum gloriae, the kingdom of glory. This is Christ’s dominion in the age to come. The kingdom of glory is the kingdom of grace made perfect and complete.
Of course, in one sense Christ’s kingdom is one and only one. We should not think of these distinctions crassly as three different nations. But the distinctions are important. As God, Christ rules over the kingdom of power, to which all creatures belong. As Mediator, he rules over the kingdom of grace on earth, to which the elect belong. And as Conqueror, he rules over the kingdom of glory in heaven, to which angels and the redeemed belong. To be sure, there is not one square inch in all the universe about which Christ does not cry out, “This is mine!” And yet, Christ does not reign over every square inch in the same way.
Telling the Right Story
One reason for emphasizing these distinctions is to make sure that we are telling the right story when it comes to the kingdom. In explaining the petition “thy kingdom come,” the Westminster Larger Catechism tells us to “pray that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world . . .the church furnished with all gospel officers and ordinances . . .that the ordinances of Christ may be purely dispensed, and made effectual to the converting of those that are yet in their sins, and the confirming, comforting, and building up those that are already converted: that Christ would rule in our hearts here, and hasten the time of his second coming, and our reigning with him forever” (Q/A 191). The Catechism gives us a magnificent prayer for the growth, strength, and health of the church.
But that’s not the end of the answer. Here’s the last line of WLC 191: “and that [Christ] would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends.” Notice the gospel-centered logic of the Larger Catechism. Christ rules over all things for the good of the church. The kingdom of power is subservient to the kingdom of grace (giving way to the kingdom of glory), not the other way around.
The story is of Christ so ruling over the nations of the world that the church might be built up.
This means the kingdom story we are telling is not the story of Christ saving his people so that they might change the world, transform the culture, or reclaim a nation. Instead, the story is of Christ so ruling over the nations of the world that the church might be built up. To be sure, we will be salt and light in a dark and decaying world, but the prayer the Westminster divines would have us pray is for God to so rule over the world for the sake of the church. As J. G. Vos observes in his commentary on the Larger Catechism, “the kingdom of power is not an end in itself, but a means to the furtherance of the kingdom of grace and the hastening of the kingdom of glory.” We pray, then, for the success of the kingdom of power, but to the end that the kingdom of grace may flourish and the kingdom of glory may be brought near.
A version of this article originally appeared in byFaith Online.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.