The prophecy of Hosea makes it clear that at some time in their history, the nation of Israel would go into a state indicated by the word lo-ammi “not My people” for a time.

“Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.” ¹⁰ Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Hosea 1:10 (KJV)

This lo-ammi condition could only be resolved by the full restoration of Israel as a nation and people; in other words, the restoring again of the kingdom to Israel, as expressed in Acts 1:6.

“When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” Acts 1:6 (KJV)

There is no other point of time in the record of the New Testament that fits all the requirements of Hosea’s prophecy before Israel’s Acts 28 fall, and since a few years later Jerusalem was destroyed. There can be no other point of time after it that will fulfil all Scriptural requirements.

Let those who deny that Israel became “lo-ammi” at Acts 28 tell us otherwise when Israel became “lo-ammi.

“Saying, Go unto this people [Israel], and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: ²⁷  For the heart of this people [Israel] is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. ²⁸ Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.” Acts 28:26-28 (KJV)

Let’s now examine this prophecy of Hosea and see what the conditions of this lo-ammi position are. The Hebrew words ‘lo-ammi’ mean “not My people” and is the symbolic name given to one of the prophet Hosea’s children. “Call his name Lo-ammi”, the reason and significance of this name being “For ye are not My People and I will not be your God” (Hos. 1:9).

The next verse makes it clear that however long the rejection may last it will not be for ever, for it looks forward to the day of Israel’s restoration and to the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham that his seed should be as the sand of the sea for multitude.

“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.” Hosea 1:10 (KJV)

Thus, Hosea 2 ends on this high note of restoration, wherein Israel is to be betrothed in righteousness for ever, their lo-ammi condition is to be reversed. The Lord will then say “Thou art My People”, and they will say, “Thou art my God” (Hos. 2:18-23).

From the days of Hosea, until the scattering of Israel with the end of the Acts, no such condition has been recorded that fulfils all that Hosea has predicted.

Under Israel’s prophesied “New Covenant” Jeremiah declares:

“Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow” ... I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah” (Jer. 31:27-37).

In Hosea 3, the prophet throws further light on Israel’s lo-ammi condition, after telling his wife that she would “abide” as a sequestered woman (see Deut. 21:13), he proceeds:

“The children of Israel shall abide many days without a KING, and without a PRINCE, and without a SACRIFICE, and without an IMAGE, and without an EPHOD, and without TERAPHIM”.

During the last ~2,000 years, since Israel’s rejection of their true KING, Israel has but minimal territory and no king, yet by reason of their dispersal in many lands, no Ruler has been able to claim their allegiance. Since the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem that took place in A.D.70, soon after the Acts 28 divide, the Priestly office in Israel has become a cypher (nothing). Yet, on the other hand Israel through all these dark years have never again lapsed into idolatry. The introduction of the teraphim over against the ephod, supports the idea that these were ancestral tablets, no one being permitted to officiate as a Priest in Israel who could not produce his genealogy (Neh. 7:64). These genealogical records which were stored in the temple perished in the destruction of the city soon after Acts 28. The position of the Priest in Israel lost all significance.

After this period of sequestration and suspension, Israel shall seek the Lord and David their king “in the latter days” (Hos. 3:5), which “latter days” by all the signs around us are drawing near today.

The actual length of Israel’s blindness is unrecorded, as Paul writes,

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery [secret], lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, UNTIL the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” (Rom 11:25)

Note that Paul speaks of this as a “mystery [secret]” but that Israel’s blindness will continue “Until The Fulness of the Gentiles be come in”.

So, this period of the mystery of Israel’s blindness is parallel with the period and character of this stage of the kingdom of heaven, called “The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 13:11). Both aspects terminate at the same moment, with Israel’s restoration, that is Israel’s blindness ends when the Gentile “Body Of Christ” Is Filled Full and ascends to then “appear with Christ in [heaven’s] glory” (Col. 3:4).

In this we have sought to establish the idea that a dividing line lies between the hope of Israel at the end of the Acts (making its realization in the yet future), while “the dispensation of the Mystery” is inserted as a parenthetical period in the timeline of the last days. This parenthetical period is the “Great mystery [secret]” (Eph. 5:32), that is totally unrecorded in the law and the prophets. It is a newly-discovered Gentile dispensation. Hitherto uncharted and unknown, it is “the revelation of the mystery [secret]” that Paul received in accord with God’s eternal plan and eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. It is Paul’s “my gospel” of “Christ according to the revelation of the mystery” (cf. Rom. 16:25).

“Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, According To The Revelation Of The Mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,” ²⁶ But now is made manifest [after Acts 28] …” Romans 16:25-26 (KJV)

The calling, constitution, and hope of today’s “dispensation of the Mystery” to appear and reign “in In The Heavenly Places” necessarily differs greatly from that in which Israel will later be dominant On The Earth,

The reader will search in vain to find the names of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob in Paul’s Post-Acts Prison Epistles that explain the “great mystery” (Eph. 5:32) concerning the Gentile “body of Christ” (Eph. 3:1-10).

Israel’s ‘New Covenant’ which had an emerging beginning in the period of the Acts ends with Acts 28:28, having no place in the Gentile dispensation of “the fellowship of the Mystery.” (Eph. 3:9). The ordinance of John’s baptism in water for Israel, gives place to the new “one baptism” (Eph. 4:5) into the Unity of the Spiritual “body of Christ”. The memorial supper (i.e., Lord’s table) of the Lord with Israel that remembered the blood of Israel’s “New Covenant” finds no place in the heavenly calling wherein “His body” is literally in an eternal union with Christ as “the head” of “His body”.

This spiritual, invisible, “body of Christ” has none of Israel’s external ordinances or laws, days, rites, or rituals to observe. Thus Paul here says don’t let anyone judge you according to any ‘religious duties.’

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:” Colossians 2:16 (KJV)

The prophet Hosea foretold that Israel would become lo-ammi “Not My people”, and that there would come a day when God would not be their God. It is inconceivable that the upheaval caused by Israel’s defection and fall, should make no difference to the believing Gentile. Yes, up to the end of the Acts “salvation” was of the Jews (John 4:22). The Gentile then having a place only as a wild olive branch graft contrary to nature into the true olive tree, from which some of the natural branches had been broken off, and into which God was able to graft them in again.

But today’s genuine Gentile church of “the Mystery” and the membership of the “One Body” have no possible association with the olive tree of Israel.

Portions Excerpted and Adapted from “Dispensational Frontier” by Charle H Welch