God is Jealous for His Image
You answer your phone, and you hear the frantic voice of one of your student’s moms on the other end. She says:
“I need help… I’m dealing with a horrible situation, and I’m not sure what to do—my daughter’s principal just called, and they’ve received a couple videos from an anonymous source that show my daughter doing some things that are both illegal and horribly inappropriate. I was shocked, I didn’t believe him at first, but I just got back from the school office, and I saw the videos for myself… Sure enough, it was my daughter, and she was doing and saying all those horrible and heart-breaking things.”
She goes on to explain that the school has no choice but to take action. Her daughter is getting kicked off her sports team, she’s being denied a scholarship opportunity, and she’s also (as a natural consequence) getting humiliated in front of her whole student body. And yet, her daughter denies all of it. She keeps insisting “I didn’t do those things! That wasn’t me!” But what is the mom supposed to believe? There’s video evidence to prove it.
You do your best to counsel her, but then some time goes by, and it comes out that her daughter was telling the truth! She didn’t do any of those things! In fact, that video was a fake! It was made by someone jealous of her who wanted to ruin her life. The police arrest and charge that person with cyber harassment.
That story I just described is not something I made up. It’s a true story. It happened about a year ago in Pennsylvania. A person, jealous of three girls on a cheerleading squad, made fake videos of them using “deepfake technology.”
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a “deepfake” is:
“An image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.”
This is an emerging technology, and it’s becoming mainstream.
What If It Was You?
Can you imagine if this happened to you? Somebody makes a video, and they take your face, your appearance, even your voice, and they make a video in which you appear to be doing something shameful or embarrassing? Perhaps it’s even something that could harm your marriage, your relationship with your kids — something that could make you lose your ministry?
Everyone who sees that video will think it’s you because it looks like you and sounds like you. That video will tell a story and a message about who you are and what you’re like. It is misrepresentation to the worst degree.
A Righteous, Holy Anger
What sort of anger would you feel if somebody misused your image like that? The anger you would rightfully feel is like the anger God feels toward his image-bearers speaking and acting in ways he never would. It’s why Psalm 7:11 says “God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.” It’s not just that God hates the evil itself (Proverbs 6:16-19)—it’s that he cannot stand to see his image say and do those things.
Can you imagine our holy God from his heavenly throne peering into our world and seeing a planet filled with billions of men and women who bear his image—speaking and acting in ways he abhors? Can you imagine the sort of fury he feels?
The horror and wickedness of deepfake technology misrepresenting people is the horror of human beings made in God’s image speaking and acting in ways that God never would, because the depiction of the image is telling a lie about the original.
Sam Waldron writes, “Our representation of God is either accurate or slanderous, but never morally neutral. This being so, God can never be indifferent to wicked behavior. He is committed to clear his good name and avenge himself upon those who persist in misrepresenting him.”[i]
Just like our fingerprints point back to us, God’s image in us points back to him.
A Righteous, Holy Mercy
The wonder of the gospel is that God looks at blasphemers, fornicators, liars, narcissists like us—we who were entrusted with bearing his image and yet who horribly misrepresent him—and he offers us forgiveness. He shows us love, mercy, grace, and kindness through Jesus Christ. He offers us complete restoration. Even further, he adopts us as sons and daughters!
When you consider the profound indignation that God rightfully feels against men and women misrepresenting him, you’d expect him to incinerate us on the spot. But our God responds with love and mercy and kindness. That’s the spectacular good news. Those who refuse Jesus will perish, but all who turn to Jesus will be saved. The amazing, good news of the Bible is that God has not abandoned us in our sinful condition. Nor has he doomed us to the punishment we deserve for rejecting and misrepresenting him. God is on a mission to redeem and restore shattered image-bearers into the perfect image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:49; Colossians 3:9-10).
A Crucial (But Neglected) Implication
An unsaved friend once asked me: “Why will God punish me for not worshiping him?” We had just read Romans 1:18 about how “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” He demanded: “How is it right for God to be at war with me when I don’t feel like I’m at war with God?”
He compared it to the terrorist attack on 9/11. He said:
“All of a sudden, we woke up one day, and we found out that there are some really angry people on the other side of the world who we had never heard of but who apparently really hate us and want to kill us. How is that different from God being angry at me? I’m not angry with God. Why can’t he be content just to live and let live? Why can’t he accept that I have come up with my own purpose for my life?”
The answer is because we are all made in the image of God. We are made by God, and (whether we acknowledge it or not) we are also made for God (Romans 11:36; Colossians 1:16; Revelation 4:11). The persisting image of God is why every human life is precious and valuable. It is also why every human life is inescapably accountable to God.
Our lives always send a message about who God is and what he is like—it’s inevitable for God’s image-bearers. The question is: are we telling the truth about God, or are we deepfake image-bearers?
As youth workers, may we instill in our students a profound sense—not just of their value as young men and women made in God’s image—but also of their responsibility before God as image-bearers. May we point them to Jesus and call them to “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).
[i] Sam Waldron, A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Exposition, 99.