John 6:53
John 6:5353So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you.
The Watchtower acknowledges that ("unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves") applies in principle to all Christians — not only the 144,000 anointed. However, the organisation interprets "eating and drinking" as exercising faith in Jesus' sacrifice rather than literally partaking of the bread and wine at the Memorial. This allows the Watchtower to maintain that the universal principle of the verse is honoured while simultaneously restricting the physical act of partaking to the anointed class. The "other sheep" (the great crowd with an earthly hope) attend the annual Memorial as respectful observers, passing the emblems without eating or drinking. In 2025, over 20.6 million people attended while only around 24,576 partook — meaning 99.88% of attendees were told they must not participate in the meal Jesus commanded.
Protestants read as a universal condition: Jesus says "unless you eat ... you have no life in yourselves," with no class restriction. The strategy pairs this verse with ("drink from it, all of you") and ("we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf") to show that the New Testament assumes every believer will partake. The Watchtower's own concession — that the principle of applies to all Christians — creates a fatal tension with its practice, because you cannot say the faith-principle is universal while restricting the meal that enacts it. Jesus instituted the bread and wine as the way believers participate in his body and blood. If the faith applies to all, the meal applies to all. The communion denial turns 99.88% of Memorial attendees into spectators at their own Lord's Supper, passing untouched the very elements Jesus said were the condition of having "life in yourselves."