Revelation 14:4
Revelation 14:44These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They have been redeemed from among men as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.
Jehovah's Witnesses acknowledge that the description of the 144,000 as those "not defiled with women" — that is, male virgins — is symbolic, representing spiritual purity. The Watchtower interprets this as the anointed class keeping themselves uncontaminated by false religion ("Babylon the Great"). However, JWs insist the number 144,000 in the same passage is literal. When 's universal invitation is raised, JWs maintain that the heavenly calling is limited to the group described here, and that this verse supports the idea of a distinct, numerically bounded anointed class who are "bought from among mankind as firstfruits to God."
is the linchpin of the selective literalism argument against the Watchtower's two-class system. The verse describes the 144,000 as male virgins who have "not defiled themselves with women." The Watchtower reads this symbolically — spiritual purity, not literal sexual status. But if gender and virginity are symbolic, the tribal identity of is symbolic, and the precise tribal breakdown of 12,000 per tribe is symbolic, on what basis is the number 144,000 the one literal detail? The text forces a choice: either everything is literal (and no Governing Body member qualifies, since they are not male Jewish virgins from named tribes) or everything is symbolic (and the two-class system collapses). The number 144,000 is 12 x 12 x 1,000 — a classic apocalyptic formula for the completeness of God's people, not a census figure. This argument is disarmingly simple at the doorstep: "Are the members of the Governing Body male Jewish virgins? If that part is symbolic, why is the number literal?"