Is "in the years to come" only used as a verbal expression?

It’s not necessarily just a verbal expression because it is meaningful and could be made literary with addition. Verbal expressions may be too cliched for writing or only functional in speech but I don’t think this is falling into this category. Its only fault is that it is a statement of fact so it loses some weight. ‘As the years passed by’ is active whereas ‘in the years to come’ is not. Also ‘in the few years that followed’ would be more specific and less reliant on context.