Em 31 de maio de 1935, num congresso em Washington, D.C., o presidente da Sociedade Torre de Vigia, J. F. Rutherford, anunciou que a grande multidão não era de forma alguma uma classe celestial, mas sim uma classe terrestre, e a mudança foi publicada em A Sentinela de 1.º e 15 de agosto de 1935.

“These flashes of prophetic light prepared the ground for the historic discourse on “The Great Multitude,” given May 31, 1935, by the president of the Watch Tower Society, J. F. Rutherford, at the Washington, D.C., convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

“In 1935 a bright flash of light revealed that the great crowd mentioned at Revelation 7:9-17 was not a secondary heavenly class. It had been thought that the ones mentioned in those verses were some of the anointed who had not been fully faithful and so were standing before the throne instead of sitting on thrones reigning as kings and priests with Jesus Christ.”