Romans 1:7
Romans 1:77To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Watchtower commentary takes as Paul's general greeting to a first-century congregation, with no special significance for modern readers beyond the universal Christian greeting. "Called to be holy ones" applies to the anointed class of first-century Christians; subsequent chapters address what membership in Jehovah's people now requires. The verse provides no support for assurance of salvation.
This verse is the audience marker for Romans 8 — including the golden chain of vv29-30. Paul addresses his entire letter "to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people." When says "those whom he foreknew, he also predestined… also called… also justified… also glorified," the "those" are the same people identified in 1:7 — every Roman believer Paul addresses, not a 144,000- only subset. The unbroken chain has five links and zero forks. If the Watchtower restricts Romans 8 to the anointed, it must also restrict 1:7 — meaning the great crowd is not loved by God or called to be holy at all. The letter reads as a unified address to every believer.
The NWT renders hagioi as "holy ones" rather than "saints" (consensus ESV/NASB/NIV/KJV). The flattening avoids the Catholic-derived "saint" category but at the cost of the technical Pauline term that designates believers as the separated-and-set-apart people of God. "Undeserved kindness" for charis continues the pattern (see Rom 1:5).