True 'LOVE' - God So Loved

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(1 John 4:11,12) Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

There's an interesting fact about the word "so" here of which few may realize impacts the meaning. "So", the Greek word "houtos", does not refer to the magnitude of God's love but to the manner of God's love. Likewise "houtos" is used in (John 3:16) "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son ..." The meaning is "For God in this manner love the world .." It does not mean "For God love the world so much"

So also here the idea is not that God love us so much that we should love one another so much. But rather since God loved us in this manner (the cross), in this manner we should love one another. Which among other things means dealing with other people's sins. 

Likewise Paul writes, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." (Eph 5:25-27) But such an idea is unpopular in the post-modernistic feel good Christian community in which any confrontation with regards to sin or correction is treated as itself being sinful.

"No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." (John 1:18) And in particular we know God's love through his Son and what he did on the cross.

If we love others in that manner, then God's love for us has fulfilled its objective in our lives.