Paul's theology is considered by some interpreters to center on a participation in Christ, in which one partakes in salvation by dying and rising with Jesus.
[further explanation needed] While this theology was interpreted as mysticism by Albert Schweitzer, according to the New Perspective on Paul, as initiated by E.P.
Albert Schweitzer "argued that redemption for Paul meant deliverance from hostile angelic powers and that justification by faith was but a 'subsidiary' element of his thought.
For Schweitzer, the heart of Paul's theology lay in his 'mysticism': redemption takes place when one is united with Christ through baptism, thus participating (in a real, not merely metaphoric, sense) in his death and resurrection.
According to Sanders, the historical understanding of Second Temple Judaism had been incorrect, drawing a mistaken opposition between "faith" and "works".