James 1:13
James 1:1313When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone.
The Watchtower teaches that Jesus was a perfect man with free will who genuinely could have failed, and that his sinlessness was therefore an achievement rather than a certainty. That is what makes him a valid ransom and why he is now exalted. The wilderness temptation is read as a real contest with a real possibility of loss. This verse is used of Jehovah only, and its bearing on the Son is not usually considered.
Set the two claims side by side and let the Witness feel the pressure. James says God cannot be tempted by evil. The Watchtower says Jesus could genuinely have fallen. says Jesus was tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin. The Watchtower needs Jesus temptable enough to be a real ransom and stable enough never to fail. Those two requirements only meet in someone who is fully human and fully divine — tempted in the humanity, incapable of failing in the person. A "perfect creature" does not solve it, because every creature ever given the same test failed: Adam, Eve, and the angels who fell. On whether temptation is real if failure is impossible — it is. A surgeon watching an operation he is forbidden to join feels the pull genuinely. Jesus felt hunger, the appeal of power, the horror of the cross; has him praying with loud cries and tears. What was never in doubt was the outcome. If it had been, our salvation hung on a coin toss. Compare , .
The NWT reads "with evil things God cannot be tried, nor does he himself try anyone," using the language of trial where most translations have temptation: "God cannot be tempted with evil." The Greek word group here (peirazo, apeirastos) genuinely covers both senses, and James uses it in the testing sense a few verses earlier, so the choice is defensible. It does soften the verse's bearing on Christology, though — "cannot be tempted by evil" states a property of the divine nature that then has to be squared with, while "cannot be tried with evil things" reads more like a statement about God's dealings with people.