None of the biblical references you gave support your assertion that the Holy Spirit is not a person (I trust that you realize that when orthodox Christian teaching refers to the Holy Spirit as a person, it is not asserting that he is embodied, but that he is personal).

In fact, one of your passages, 1 Corinthians 12.4-11, is one of many instances where it is clear that Paul (in full consistency with the rest of the biblical witness) considers the Spirit to be a person. Cf. v. 11, in which he speaks of the Spirit allotting and choosing: “All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” (NRSV)

Another instance that comes to my mind immediately is Paul’s statement in Romans 8.26: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” Why would the Spirit not only intercede, but sigh for us if he were merely God’s “active force”?

You also mention a passage from John. But in John we see Jesus’ most interesting and personal language concerning the Spirit, as he calls him by the special epithet “the Advocate” in chapters 14-16. To wit: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” (14.16,17)

Of course the Spirit is sent and directed by the Father. The historical Christian understanding of the Spirit does not deny this at all.

Your understanding of the Holy Spirit is neither historical, nor does it make much sense of the biblical witness.

The one example of paradox in the Bible that I find so interesting is Jesus dining in the presence of sinners. (Matthew 9:9-12) This holy and perfect man chose to “hang out” with the unholy sinners. This doesn’t seem like the place that the Son of God would want to spend most of his time. What about these people did Jesus find such a connection to? You think Jesus would want to spend time talking about the Old Testament with the Pharisees, but Jesus had a point to everything he did. He said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Jesus’ connection to these people was that he came to save them and to rescue them from their bondage of sin. The same reason he came to save us. We can’t say we are any better than the sinners that he talked to. This Savior who was perfect, who had no relationship with sin, choose to die a criminals death for the sake of the unholy and the unrighteous. He became us, the sinners, and took our punishment because he loved us so much.

Every time I really think about what he did I’m glad that I feel guilty, like it should have been me in his place, but at the same time feel so much freedom because he took my place!