Luke 22:20
Luke 22:2020In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.
anchors the Watchtower's restriction of the new covenant to the 144,000. Because the cup signifies "the new covenant in my blood," and because the new covenant is taught to be exclusively between Jehovah and "spiritual Israel," only the anointed may drink it. The rest of the Witnesses are "beneficiaries" of the new covenant rather than parties to it — a distinction without a biblical warrant but maintained from the 1979 Watchtower through to the 2010 publication "God's Word For Us Through Jeremiah" (p. 173).
Pair with ("they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest") and (which quotes Jeremiah 31 in full, preserving "from the least to the greatest"). The new covenant promise is universal across God's people; the Watchtower's restriction creates a class of beneficiaries-but-not-parties that the New Testament knows nothing of. If you are excluded from the covenant, you are excluded from the forgiveness it provides (: "I will forgive their error, and their sin I will remember no more"). says Jesus mediates a "better" covenant — more inclusive, not more exclusive. The "better" covenant of Hebrews has been recast by the Watchtower as the most restrictive covenant in salvation history.
As at v. 19, the NWT renders Greek estin as "means" rather than "is" — "this cup means the new covenant" rather than "this cup is the new covenant." The same pre-decided interpretation. The NWT also renders en tō haimati mou ("in my blood") as "by virtue of my blood" — recasting the locative en into a causal/ instrumental construction. Standard English translations preserve "in my blood" precisely because the locative force ties the cup to the blood it represents. The NWT's "by virtue of" loosens that tie and presents the cup as merely commemorating an effective sacrifice rather than as bearing covenantal-blood significance. The doctrinal stake is direct relevance to JW Memorial theology and to the Watchtower's broader denial that the covenant applies to the great crowd.