1 Corinthians 10:6

Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

The blunt meaning here is that Christians should not suppose that their having been baptized into Christ and having been made partakers of the Lord's table, nor the fact of their sharing high privileges of spiritual life in God's kingdom, could endow them with any immunity to sin, a conceit which it seems some of the Corinthians had.

Were our examples ... Farrar believed that these words might also be rendered, "Now in these things, they also proved to be figures of us";[12] but the meaning is the same either way. After having been totally and completely "saved" from Egyptian slavery, they were lost and rejected; and, corresponding to that, Christians who are completely and totally saved may fall into sin and lose their hope of eternal life.

Lust after evil things ... Although the technical meaning of "lust" is "to desire either good things or bad things,"[13] its use in the holy Scriptures is invariably a reference to illicit and harmful desire. The inspired author James identified this inward desire ever burning in people's hearts as the embryonic source of all sin. To paraphrase James, "Lust has a child, which is sin; and then sin also has a child, which is death" (James 1:12-15). Self-denial is the soul's rejection of all unlawful desire. The surrender to Christ is the subordination of all selfish desire to the will of the Lord. The lust after evil things is the first of five rebellious actions of fleshly Israel; and, enumerating them one by one, Paul demanded that Christians avoid committing them.

[12] F. W. Farrar, op. cit., p. 323.

[13] Donald S. Metz, Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1969), p. 405.