at once, on the spot: at the very moment the word is spoken or the deed is done, with nothing in between.
This word is practically Luke's own. Seventeen of its nineteen appearances in the New Testament are in his Gospel and in Acts, and the other two are Matthew's account of the fig tree that shriveled on the spot. It began as a phrase meaning something like "at the matter in hand" and hardened into a single word for the very moment something takes effect.
Luke uses it to fasten a result to the word or the act that caused it, so that no gap can be imagined in between.
- A lame man is pulled to his feet, and his ankles grow strong at once (Acts 3:7).
- A bent woman is touched, and she straightens up at once (Luke 13:13).
- A king takes the crowd's flattery instead of giving God the glory, and the blow falls at once (Acts 12:23).
That is what separates it from εὐθέως, the far more common word English Bibles also render "immediately." Mark strings that word through his story so relentlessly that it often means little more than "and the next thing was," and the habit has worn its edge down. Luke's word does not slide that way. It keeps pointing at the instant itself, which is why it gathers in scenes of healing and of judgment rather than being spread evenly through the story.
One use stands apart from the rest. In Luke 19:11 nothing has happened yet: Jesus is close to Jerusalem, the people with him expect the kingdom of God to appear at once, and the story he tells in reply stretches the waiting out. There the word carries an expectation about timing rather than a result already in hand.
Nuances
What Luke is doing when he reports, in these words, an expectation that the kingdom of God would appear at once (Luke 19:11).
- contestedLuke names the expectation in order to correct it. The parable that follows redirects the hope of a kingdom appearing right away toward a long stretch of waiting before the master returns, part of Luke's wider reshaping of the church's sense of timing.; Hans Conzelmann, The Theology of St Luke (1960; German ed. Die Mitte der Zeit, 1954)
- contestedLuke reports the expectation without giving up a near hope. What the parable corrects is what the crowd expects to happen at Jerusalem, not the nearness of the kingdom itself.; I. Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian (1970); I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, New International Greek Testament Commentary (1978), on Luke 19:11