Matthew 25:34
Matthew 25:3434Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
The Watchtower reads as confirming that the "righteous" earthly class — the "great crowd" of "other sheep" — inherit the Kingdom in the form of the paradise earth prepared for them since the founding of the world. The 144,000 anointed are read into a separate heavenly category. The verse is one of the load-bearing texts for the JW two-class soteriology: the sheep inherit earthly paradise, the goats are annihilated.
The verse is the strongest evidence in Matthew 25 against a works-righteousness reading of the sheep-and-goats judgement. The sheep are "blessed by my Father" before any works are recited. The Kingdom they inherit was "prepared for you from the founding of the world" — pre-creation election, not earned merit. The works that follow in vv. 35-40 are evidence of identity, not the basis of standing. Pair with ("he chose us in him before the founding of the world") and ("Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies"). The sheep are declared blessed and given the Kingdom because they are God's people; their works display, but do not establish, that identity. The two-class earthly/heavenly distinction the Watchtower reads in is imposed on the text — Jesus speaks of one Kingdom inherited by one righteous group.