Both underscore the initial identification of the Lord as the Son of God. Here is John’s explicit claim for the deity of Christ. Of interest is the unusual expression that has been rendered “burnished bronze” (chalkolibanon) in the NIV. The word, as it stands, is found only in 1:15 and 2:18 and nowhere else in Greek literature in precisely this form. Hemer’s extensive discussion of a possible understanding of the word depends on passages in Strabo, which have been questioned by some but which Hemer