Matthew 26:28
Matthew 26:2828This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
grounds the Watchtower's restriction of the new covenant to the 144,000 anointed. The cup signifies "the blood of the covenant," and the new covenant is taught to be exclusively between Jehovah and "spiritual Israel." The "great crowd" benefits from the covenant indirectly without being parties to it — a distinction the Watchtower has maintained from the 1979 Watchtower through to the 2010 publication "God's Word For Us Through Jeremiah" (p. 173). The phrase "in behalf of many" is read as describing those who benefit, not those who participate.
Pair with ("they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest") and (which quotes Jeremiah 31 in full). The new covenant's stated purpose here is "forgiveness of sins" — and every human needs forgiveness. If you are excluded from the covenant, you are excluded from the forgiveness it provides. says Jesus mediates a "better" covenant — more inclusive than Moses's, not more exclusive. The Watchtower's recasting of the cup of the new covenant as a covenant for 144,000 makes the new covenant the single most restrictive covenant in salvation history — the opposite of what "better" means.
As at v. 26, the NWT renders touto estin as "this means" rather than "this is." Standard English translations preserve "is" because Jesus's verb is the verb of identification. The NWT's "means" forecloses real-presence and covenantal-realism readings before exegesis begins, and serves the JW theology in which the cup is a memorial symbol restricted to the 144,000 rather than a participation extended to all believers.