Usual John sends this one in.
Celibacy and chastity are often confused. Celibacy means not getting married, although it is often extended to not having sex. Chastity means not having sex, or not having sex outside of marriage.
Regardless of definitional issues, this doesn’t seem to make sense. IIRC, Maude and Jake are long term partners in B.C.’s world. And who’s getting redeemed?
Comics I Don't Understand 
Best I got is he meant “fidelity” or “faithfulness” and wants redemption for cheating.
Or like “redemption” of your green stamps or coupons?
My favorite BC ever featured Jake denying his unfaithfulness, as best as I can remember:
Jake: Honey, I’ve been as true as my Granddad’s plumb bob!
Maude: You cad! Granny’s outhouse had a 30-degree list!
Andrew has the correct solution @1; the author simply had a brain spazz in the first panel.
Obviously the ant is being redeemed by Jesus Christ our Savior, and is following the Apostle Paul’s recommendation for celibacy. The flighty female is still too much of this world and does immediately grasp this vital and obvious reason. A real knee slapper!
@ larK (5) – If I ever discover that your acidic satire is the meaning that Hart’s descendents actually intended, then I will never read another B.C. strip ever again.
lark (5) and Kilby (6): As I’m sure you both know, Hart had a history of occasionally injecting his religion into the strips. Still and all, I think Andrew Millar (1) is pretty much on track and Jake is trying to avoid her wrath.
@ Boise Ed (7) – It was Hart’s strip, and I would not have objected had he been writing religious humor into those B.C. strips, but what Hart committed was ham-handed Christian propaganda, which was neither humorous nor appropriate. I sincerely hope that his deplorable custom died and was buried with the original creator, never to be resurrected again.
@Kilby 8: Remember when the outhouse door, which had a crescent moon on it as outhouse doors do, slammed shut, but instead of being “SLAM!” the sound effect was “!SLAM”?
There weren’t any exclamation marks.
https://wondermark.com/the-comic-strip-doctor-bc/
@ MiB (9) – I remember reading about the “SLAM” strip, but I had not actually seen it before Brian’s comment @10. Despite Hart’s disingenuous denials of the connection, I think the most convincing evidence for the sectarian insult is that the strip simply does not work as scatalogical humor (for which Hart was not particularly well-known).
P.S. This year’s Good Friday strip demonstrated that Mason is continuing the evangelical tradition, but in a much more sensible (reserved, even cryptic) fashion than Hart’s offensive Easter propaganda:
The recent one was a CIDU until I read the comments. I also remarked that I didn’t think that the new generation was particularly religious, and these occasional ones are an homage to Johnny. This lead to a reply from Patti Hart. She’s the mother of Mason and Mick Mastroianni that do the strip now.
Exactly! None of Johnny’s offspring are evangelical. Mason likes to continue to honor our Dad, (Pops) memory on Easter.