Shanny01
Puritan Board Freshman
I wouldn't be opposed to saying that the covenant of grace was active and operative in the lives of Old Testament saints as they were regenerated, called, justified, idwelt, sealed, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit by efficacy of that which the Old Covenant typified and promised. However, if by active and operative you mean that each covenant was a formal administration of the Covenant of Grace as in classic Westminster Covenant Theology, that is the whole point of contention since we would see the Old Testament covenants (Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic) as being legal covenants pointing out sin and the necessity of righteousness, bearing the line through which the Messiah would come, and bearing a typological relationship to the New Covenant and the Church, even though intrinsically those covenants were related to life in the land of Israel among the physical seed of Abraham.