Part 2 of a five-part series on AI-generated pornography, the heart, and biblical repentance.

If the person in the image is not real, we might be tempted to believe that the image cannot represent real sin. But Jesus does not limit sexual sin to the physical act. He goes directly to the heart.

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” Matthew 5:27–28 (Legacy Standard Bible).

Jesus moves beyond the outward act and exposes the inward reality. A person can commit adultery in the heart before the physical act ever occurs. That means the question cannot simply be whether the person in an AI-generated image is real. We have to ask what is happening inside the person who is looking at it.

One of the easiest ways to dismiss this is to say, “It’s just my imagination.” But Scripture does not treat our thoughts as morally neutral territory. Goodwin makes an important observation about the relationship between thoughts and affections:

“The reason all these examples may be called thought is because all affections, desires, and purposes are indeed stirred up by the thoughts. For not a single thought passes through the mind without stirring some affection of fear, joy, care, grief, and so forth.”1

Our thoughts are not simply pictures passing through an empty room. They stir our affections. They can cultivate fear, joy, grief, desire, and love. What we repeatedly entertain matters because our thoughts are connected to what our hearts love and pursue.

Goodwin later observes, “Men usually think that thoughts are free from guilt.”2 That is a dangerous assumption. We may be tempted to separate what happens in our minds from what happens in our lives, but Scripture does not give us that luxury.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us that “the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword… and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” God is not merely concerned with what our hands do. His Word reaches into the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Mark 7 makes the same point. Jesus says, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries…”Mark 7:20–21 (Legacy Standard Bible). And He concludes, “All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” Mark 7:23 (Legacy Standard Bible).

Notice what Jesus puts first: evil thoughts. What follows flows out of what is already happening within the heart. Goodwin says that thoughts “cater to our lusts, holding up the object of desire, until the heart has played the adulterer with it and committed folly.”3

“Thoughts hold up images of the gods they create, which the heart then bows down to worship.”4 This is why pornography is ultimately more than an issue of what is on a screen. It is an issue of worship. We can take a created image and make it a source of satisfaction that belongs to God alone.

Paul tells believers, “make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” Romans 13:14 (Legacy Standard Bible). If the heart is already inclined toward lust, why would we deliberately give that lust more material to work with? The technology may be new, but the command of Scripture is not.

But Paul doesn’t leave us with only a prohibition. In that same verse he points us to a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the One who exposes the heart in Matthew 5 is the same One who came to heal it. Long before the Sermon on the Mount, God promised His people through Ezekiel:

“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh Ezekiel 36:25–26 (Legacy Standard Bible).”

Did you catch it? God says He will cleanse us “from all your idols.” If the images we have bowed to in secret are idols, then God doesn’t only promise to forgive them. He promises to cleanse us from them and to give us a new heart that wants Him. That isn’t self-improvement. It is a work only God can do, and He does it for every sinner who runs to Christ.

That leads us to another objection that comes up almost every time this subject does.

If you are struggling with a life-dominating sin and need support, Freedom That Lasts exists to walk with you. Visit freedomthatlasts.com or find a chapter near you at freedomthatlasts.com/find-a-chapter.

Notes

1. Thomas Goodwin, The Vanity of Thoughts, ed. Brian G. Hedges (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2024), 6.

2. Goodwin, Vanity of Thoughts, 15.

3. Goodwin, Vanity of Thoughts, 15.

4. Goodwin, Vanity of Thoughts, 15.