If you’ve clicked on any news app or dropped by any backyard barbecue recently, you’ve likely heard conversations about how our nation is declining. One political party is ruining everything or one leader is maniacally wicked and must be stopped. The evil of those on the other side is so clear to us. What’s not as evident are our own biases and the excuses we make for our sinful speech or bitter hearts.
If we’re to accept the doomsaying we hear everywhere, we’d be inclined to live in fear, run for the hills, or conclude that everyone has only bad intentions. But the Bible presents a more nuanced picture. While every candidate, presidential or otherwise, is flawed and sinful, we can be confident that God will bring good out of this election. His common grace will ensure it.
Scripture’s Realistic Outlook
Christians who embrace the Reformed doctrine of total depravity don’t believe that every person is as bad as he could possibly be or that any has reached his full potential of evil. But we believe that, as a result of our first parents’ sin, all people’s thoughts and actions contain traces of sinful self-interest. Even our best efforts are stained by selfish motives. This is why the prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jer. 17:9, NIV).
While every candidate, presidential or otherwise, is flawed and sinful, we can be confident that God will bring good out of this election.
As a pastor, this conviction informs my preaching. I prepare each sermon with the recognition that every person in the congregation, including the preacher, has sinned against God countless times throughout the week and is in desperate need of the forgiveness Jesus offers. I’m convinced that apart from the Spirit’s regenerating work, no one will choose God or savingly trust in Christ.
This belief also guides my prayer life and outlook on humanity this election day. I’m not surprised when I witness or hear about displays of anger, unfaithfulness, or corruption. On election day, my low view of human nature tempers my expectations of how much a political candidate will accomplish, and it downgrades my shock when things don’t go well.
God’s Restraining Grace
But if people are bent on evil, if apart from the Spirit they’re God’s defiant enemies, why shouldn’t we expect only bad policies and evil power plays from the candidates on both sides of the aisle? Why not simply brace for the worst? The answer is God’s common grace. God restrains evil, enables good, accentuates and advances beauty, and even brings restoration in our world. Herman Bavinck contends,
[God] fills the hearts of men with nourishment and joy and does not leave himself without a witness among them. He pours out upon them numberless gifts and benefits. Families, races, and peoples he binds together with natural love and affection. . . . Wealth and well-being he grants them that the arts and sciences can prosper. And by his revelation in nature and history he ties their hearts and consciences to the invisible, supra-sensible world and awakens in them a sense of worship and virtue.
Everything good we see humanity create or do, and every way we see evil restrained—all this is evidence of God’s common grace. Though the universe has been subjected to the curse of Adam’s sin, it “nevertheless remains the work of the Father” and under Christ’s lordship. As Bavinck says, “Common grace maintains the goodness of creation in spite of humanity’s radical depravity.”
People who haven’t trusted in Jesus sometimes commit wonderful acts. They make sacrifices and serve their fellow man. Those deeds are never fully perfect or without self-interest, nor could they ever be enough to earn God’s forgiveness. But they’re still benevolent, helpful, and to be commended. Even as we pray for God to pour out his saving grace on unbelievers and bring about the obedience of faith in their lives, we can also give thanks for how he “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).
Reason for Hope
How will this election day end? Only the Lord knows. But we can be certain that God will shower down his grace regardless of who holds our country’s highest office. This isn’t a promise our lives will be comfortable. Or that the next four years will go smoothly. The election’s outcome may directly lead to grievous evil, and we should mourn and lament even as we recommit to fighting against sin and injustice.
How will this election day end? Only the Lord knows. But we can be certain that God will shower down his grace regardless of who holds our country’s highest office.
But if the Lord tarries, the sun will still rise on November 6. By God’s grace, we’ll still have plenty to laugh about, look forward to, and enjoy together. Even if suffering comes, God will surprise all people with kindnesses we don’t deserve. And in his sovereignty, God will use the victorious candidate to accomplish his divine purposes.
No matter what happens tomorrow, focus on the good you see around you. And praise God for it. And before you blast the other side on social media, or condemn the motives of other voters, examine your heart and recognize that the good in you is also a gift of God’s grace.
The Gospel Coalition