The X in Christmas is used like the R in R.C.
My given name at birth was Robert Charles, although before I was even
taken home from the hospital my parents called me by my initials, R.C.,
and nobody seems to be too scandalized by that.
X can mean so many things. For example, when we want to denote an
unknown quantity, we use the symbol X. It can refer to an obscene level
of films, something that is X-rated. People seem to express chagrin
about seeing Christ’s name dropped and replaced by this symbol for an
unknown quantity X. Every year you see the signs and the bumper stickers
saying, “Put Christ back into Christmas” as a response to this
substitution of the letter X for the name of Christ.
There’s no X in Christmas
First of all, you have to understand that it is not the letter X that
is put into Christmas. We see the English letter X there, but actually
what it involves is the first letter of the Greek name for Christ.
Christos is the New Testament Greek for Christ. The first letter of the
Greek word Christos is transliterated into our alphabet as an X. That X
has come through church history to be a shorthand symbol for the name
of Christ. Continue at Robert Charles Sproul
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