It is amazing that for 40 plus years no one seems to have made the application.
Actually, the article on that 1966 DA talk identified the "penny" as not being the name "Jehovah's witnesses" being conferred on the anointed, that the other sheep were also JWs so it had to be something else.
I remember my family, who were mostly not anointed, saying that the great crowd of other sheep could be called JWs now. If you notice in the publications up till then, that was carefully danced around.
10 In the meanwhile, in the year 1925 it began to be appreciated by these Christian Bible students that the vindication of God’s name Jehovah by means of his newborn Messianic kingdom was God’s leading purpose. In fact, from 1922 onward reference was repeatedly made to Isaiah 43:10-12 to prove that they must be witnesses of the Lord God during the remainder of their days on earth. The work of bearing witness to his name became more dominant among them.
This reached a grand climax in the year 1931, when, at the international convention in Columbus, Ohio, these much-maligned Bible students adopted a resolution by which they embraced the name suggested by Isaiah 43:10-12 (
AS), namely, "Jehovah’s witnesses."
11The work of gathering the anointed remnant of the heirs of God’s heavenly kingdom appeared to be nearing completion. Hence, this bestowal of a Biblically supported name upon them in 1931 seemed to come as a reward for having engaged in twelve years of hard Christian work since 1919. The book TheFinishedMystery and the honor of distributing it had proved not to be the "penny." So now, then, could not the conferment of the new name upon the International Bible Students be the "penny"?
12 In the year 1933, in the November 15 and December 1 issues of
TheWatchtowerandHeraldofChrist’sPresence there appeared the leading article (in two parts) entitled "Laborer’s Wages." This dealt with Jesus’ parable of the vineyard. The second paragraph of Part One of this article said: "The laborers are those at the temple for judgment, and who engage in the service of the kingdom; the hire or
penny is the honor of being given the new name which Jehovah gives to his people." (Page 339) Paragraph 21, on page 344, said: "
No greater wage could be paid to creatures on earth than that of receiving a name at the mouth of Jehovah God, and which name shows the close and confidential relationship between Jehovah and his faithful people. Never before has he given such a wage to creatures."13However, in the year 1937 it became more fully appreciated that the faithful prophets and men of integrity from John the Baptist back to the first martyr Abel were also witnesses of Jehovah, "so great a cloud of witnesses." (Heb. 11:1 to 12:1,
AV) Later the book entitled "
The New World," published in 1942, indicated that the "great crowd" of the "other sheep" foretold in Revelation 7:9, 10 were also witnesses of Jehovah. (Pages 368, 369, 375) Today the "great crowd" of these "other sheep" that have been gathered into association with the anointed remnant are regularly included among Jehovah’s witnesses.
If, since the year 1935, they have not proved themselves to be Jehovah’s witnesses, then by all the facts of history what have they proved themselves to be? Who are they, if not Jehovah’s witnesses of modern times?14Thus the title "Jehovah’s witnesses" is now seen as not applying exclusively to the anointed remnant, and so this new name for Christians could not be the symbolic "penny" of Jesus’ parable.The "new name" was not the "penny" back in the year 33 C.E. on that day of Pentecost, inasmuch as those Jewish disciples of Jesus Christ were already Jehovah’s witnesses by being from birth members of Jehovah’s chosen people of Isaiah 43:1-12.17 Here, then, as on the day of Pentecost nineteen centuries ago, was the payment of the "penny" to those last hired in Jehovah’s spiritual "vineyard." God’s Messianic kingdom had been born in the heavens at the close of the Gentile Times in 1914, and the "penny" paid to the vineyard laborers was the privilege and honor of serving as anointed ambassadors of God’s newborn Messianic kingdom from that time on till the coming "battle of the great day of God the Almighty" at Armageddon. This ambassadorial service was carried out with the help of God’s holy spirit. In harmony with this, they were ushered into the privilege of fulfilling Matthew 24:14, preaching this good news of God’s newborn Messianic kingdom in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations before the end of this system of things comes. (Rev. 16:14-16; Mark 13:10) What a wonderful value such a "penny" has meant to them!
