Revelation 5:10
Revelation 5:1010You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign upon the earth.”
Watchtower commentary takes as decisive proof of the heavenly hope reserved for the 144,000. The NWT renders the verse "they are to rule as kings over the earth" — the 144,000 reign from heaven over the great crowd who live on a paradise earth. The two-class system is grounded here: kings in heaven, subjects on earth.
Read the verse together with v9. The redeemed are bought "from every tribe and tongue and people and nation" (v9) — the Watchtower's own definition of the great crowd in 7:9. Now v10 says the same group is made "a kingdom and priests" and will reign. The Watchtower cannot have both "great crowd = every tribe and tongue" in chapter 7 and "144,000 = every tribe and tongue" in chapter 5. Same phrase, three chapters apart, must refer to the same people. The priesthood and the kingship belong to every redeemed believer — universal priesthood, the doctrine of .
The NWT renders epi tēs gēs as "over the earth" rather than "on the earth" (consensus ESV/NASB/NIV). The Greek preposition epi with the genitive can mean either, but consensus translations read locative ("on") here, matching ("the earth, it is God's footstool") and ("they will reign with Christ for a thousand years"). The NWT's "over" is a translator's choice that supports the Watchtower's heavenly-class doctrine — the 144,000 ruling from heaven over an earthly subject class. Even granting "over," verse 9 has already named the rulers as "every tribe and tongue" — the great crowd themselves.