Aqualung said:
For your argument to make sense you would have to disregard the fact that that many people, reading the exact same Bible, can have that many different denominations. Obviously something is missing, or people would interpret it the same.
That's a terrible argument. People may have different opinions about an exact same sentence, not to mention a book - no matter how complete. There's nothing missing from the work Jesus did, or from the gospels that testify to what He did (there are no less than four of them in the Bible, all witnessing to the the same events), but there is a lot missing from people's
adherence to the Bible - or more specifically: people's adherence to God's word.
No book or law will ever be "complete" enough to automatically prevent people from falling short of its ideals, applying it selectively, or simply disobeying it.
Besides, if your argument is that the Bible is an insufficient testimony to the complete gospel because people disagree about its application, that would preclude even plain facts from being "sufficient" - even God's own words. When God calls something "complete", it's because it achieves what he intended -
not because people agreed about it. People don't interpret something the same just because it's "complete" in some sense. You just have to look at the Mormon church for evidence: it claims to have a "fullness of the gospel" in the Book of Mormon. But is it considered
sufficient? No, three other scriptures are necessary to appreciate this "fullness", each adding some doctrines that are not found in the Book of Mormon. That's why Mormon author Neal Maxwell wrote: "Strangely, it is not only the fullness of the gospel that is rejected by some, but the fullness of its attending implications." For Mormons, "fullness" is a flexible term, and therefore so is "completeness". By this ideal of measurement, if we had the Bible's scriptures
exactly as they were intended by the original authors, even if there were
no apostasy whatsoever, a Mormons would
still call it incomplete. And the final proof: with all this completeness, Mormonism has already spawned more denominations than some much older churches (see
The Mormon Denominations by Christopher C. Warren).
Jesus didn't write the Bible - Men did. Jesus didn't decide which books would be in the Bible - Men did.
That's actually it's strength ("God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong"). Jesus didn't write anything - the time when God wrote on paper or stone tablets was long gone, this time He would write on human hearts. He would appear in the flesh to fleshly people, and give them physical and spiritual proof of the life He wants them to have. Remember what Jesus' message was? "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." How near?
Romans 10:5-10 Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them." But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the deep?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
What men
wrote was concerning what Jesus
did. Just like faith is dead without actions - no matter how much someone writes or says about it - so our faith and our actions are dead without Christ's actions. And
that's the gospel.